Mini MINI Mini!

Introduction - explaining what I want to use for the new ICE Install.
Part 1 - Custom MDF Rings to Support the speakers.
Part 2 - The Fibreglass.
Part 3 - Redoing the Fibreglass

With the fibreglass backings now dry it’s time to move on to mounting the rings (from part 1), covering the whole thing in Lycra and applying resin and more fibreglass.

The first step for today was to offer the rings up to figure out a kind of aiming. I used the very technical “about there” method! Actually, I did get a bit more scientific than that. I used a ruler to judge the approximate distance on 4 points around the ring! Accept that the procedure for the driver’s and passenger’s side pods are exactly the same. I am not too worried about the sound stage at this moment in time, this is more of a project to “see if I can do it”! If all this work well then sometime in the not too distant I will consider re-making them.

Using offcuts of the MDF that I had laying around I made supports for the speaker ring. Again, it this moment they are approximate distances and were adjusted slightly before gluing. I am sure that you figured out I adjusted them with a saw and sand paper! One mistake that I did make at this point was to try and use UHU (superglue) to hold the supports in place. I really shouldn’t have, and nor should you. Yes, it held them, but it was crap. I dropped one of the rings and the supports all fell off. That afternoon I went out and bought a hot melt glue gun for about nine quid from B&Q. When you buy one, buy extra glue! The two sticks you get with it (if any) will not be enough.

Once I had the location and supports aligned for the ring I made a rough line (I’m sorry, forgot to get a photo - I think I got excited!) where I wanted to cut and then, unsurprisingly, cut it! You will no doubt notice that the two pieces of fibreglass are different shapes. There are two reasons for this: 1. There were obstructions in the car that I had to work round. 2. I thought the shapes were closer than they actually ended up when I cut them! I have figured a way round this that I will post in the last part of the series. Due to a lack of tools I used my jigsaw to cut the fibreglass. It’s most certainly not the best tool to do this with and I now have a Dremel type multi-tool on order. To smooth the fibreglass after cutting I used some 80 grit sand paper wrapped around a small bottle of WD40.

I am sure that this step needs very little text with it. Using the hot melt glue gun I glued the supports onto the fibreglass backing. I probably used a little too muchg glue on each one but I wanted to ensure that they would not collapse or move in the future.

Time to procrastinate! My wife bought me a model helicopter for christmas. It’s so much fun that I played with it all day Christmas day. Charge - 30 mins, play 10, repeat. Right up until I broke the tail. As the helicopter is made of polystyrene it’s a little fragile. I tried UHU and model adhesive on spare bits of poly to see what would happen. Both melted the polystyrene. Not exactly the result I want on my favourite toy! Then I had one of those lightbulb moments. Use the hot glue gun! After trying it successfully on the scrap I used it on the helicopter. Woohoo, it worked! The rest of the day was chopper time and nothing else got done to my pods. Awesome procrastination! Anyway, back to it!

Lycra is a great stretchy material. When I first told people I’d ordered this I got comments ranging from “ooer” to “what you making? A gimp suit?” Most were disappointed when I told them the real reason. Much more important than gimp suits, I used it to cover the pods. I started by stapling the material onto the MDF ring. This simply holds it in place while pulling the material round the back of the fibreglass. Using the hot melt glue gun I worked around the back of the pods gluing and pulling, pulling and gluing. The driver’s side went better than the passenger’s side. Unfortunately on the passenger side I ended up with a gap between two layers of the fabric where I pulled it wrong. The glue goes off very very fast (less than the stated two minutes!) and I didn’t have time to adjust it. Hopefully I will be able to cover the hole with fibreglass…

The last step for the moment is to remove the staples from the front and cover the whole thing in resin. I used about 100 mls of resin to do both pods. This step makes the lycra hard and easier to lay either fibreglass or filler over. Don’t forget the usual gloves, overalls and mask protection when you’re using the resin!

Next edition (due soon!): covering the pods in fibreglass, trimming the dried FG and (hopefully!) applying body filler to smooth the bumps!