[Lostmind]

Anyone done a hood in fiberglass before? Can anyone think of a reason not to do it in fiberglass? My friend and I have done a sub enclosure or two in our time and think we could bang out a decent looking hood for fairly cheap...

Whatcha think??

 

[Rick O]

I've not worked much with fiberglass. It sounds interesting. A couple things come to mind. How much heat can the fiberglass withstand? Also would you need a mold to form a hood?

 

[Lostmind]

yeah, we plan to make a mold out of cardboard and some el cheap pieces of wood.

fiberglass should be able to handle a pretty decent amount of heat.... it is used for insulation etc...

 

[Geoff]

is this going to be used with mh's or flourescents? heat would be my only concern also, but if you are going to use mh's then you will prolly be fine. interesting idea!

G~

 

[LittleFishBoy]

fans fans fans??

 

[Lostmind]

lots of fans

Maybe four, hooked up to a variable speed control unit

 

[Doug1]

what size tank are we talking here, on tank, suspended over?

 

[LittleFishBoy]

You in Vancouver, WA or Vancouver B.C.? If in Washington ld like to come look at the finished product sometime..!!!!!

 

[Reefer Addict]

The fiberglass sounds like a cool idea, but I have a couple reservations on the way you're planning construction.
If you use cardboard as a mold, won't it be part of the finished structure? I'd be careful with that since halide (and even PC/VHO) gets very hot and could catch it on fire.
You'll also need some sort of attachment structure inside the canopy for attaching lights, fans, etc.

If I was going to go the fiberglass route, I'd make a frame out of 1x2, cover that in flexible material such as the stuff used to make T-shirts, give that a good coat of resin, let it dry, and then apply the fiberglass cloth layers over that.

This way you can make your basic frame shape out of the wood and use the internal wooden structure to attach everything.

It sounds promising though... nice to see another car audio nut here on this board.

The last thing I built with fiberglass was a pair of kickpanel pods for my old Toyota pickup (using the method I mentioned above)... I've since sold the truck and am in the process of changing the stereo over to our Geo Prizm. I'm probably going to build a fiberglass enclosure in the trunk spare tire well for either a pair of 10's or a 12... I have both but haven't decided yet which I'm going to use.

Okay... enough off-topic babbling...

Keep us posted on how it turns out... you have me quite interested.

 

[Lostmind]

Ahh, this place gets replies even days after the post is made. NICE!

Well, I live in Vancouver BC (canada)... drove thru vancouver washington once or twice tho...

As for the lighting, I plan on 2 x 400 watt MH and a pair of actinic's at this point. I believe heat and fiberglass mix well - fiberglass is used to insulate your house for a reason I think (I am honestly not 100% here tho). Besides, I will be incorporating a cooling setup into the hood (I am a big time computer type, the pc I am using now pushes about 100cfm or more!)

The cardboard would become part of the hood unless we coat it in something like wax, parchment paper, etc. I dont plan on having the cardboard become part of the hood for the same reasons quoted above... fires are bad... I just happen to have a lot of cardboard lying around the house (ever move into a house with no furniture and have to buy everything? You end up with boxes up the ying yang :dance: )

The tshirt and 1x1 is how we made the sub enclosure in the acura. Worked out pretty good. Now I drive a protege 5 and have a single 10 in the back in a box I got from an audio shop. I am not happy with the system so I am thinking to upgrade to 2 x 10's in the rear, with a custom enclosure job again. But... I am also thinking to sell my current car and move up into something a bit nicer... but hey, thats a discussion for another bbs

Anyways, it was an idea and I was looking for input. I decided that it was a worthwhile idea and bought supplies for the hood today. I will probably build it over the weekend or next week. This week I have to concentrate on getting my tank setup and ready for the live rock shipment coming in... and put up the baseboard, trim and crown mouldings (I am hiding my speaker wires behind the crown moulding in the living room and mounting the rear speakers on the wall...) anyways, I have tons of projects if you couldnt tell!

Ramble ramble ramble. I should stop typing now and get some sleep. Thanks for the help people, will let you all know how it turns out! Ciao

 

[Geoff]

As for the lighting, I plan on 2 x 400 watt MH and a pair of actinic's at this point. I believe heat and fiberglass mix well - fiberglass is used to insulate your house for a reason I think (I am honestly not 100% here tho). Besides, I will be incorporating a cooling setup into the hood (I am a big time computer type, the pc I am using now pushes about 100cfm or more!)

fiberglass is used to insulate houses, but it is in a different form. i think as long as you have a reflector or at least 4 inches between the bulb itself and the fiberglass you will be fine. just for reference i put a temp probe 2 inches from my 400w mh and the temp read 143F! this was without any air flow. with a 20" floor fan blowing across it the temp went down to 93F. so there is a fair amount of heat in there.

The tshirt and 1x1 is how we made the sub enclosure in the acura. Worked out pretty good. Now I drive a protege 5 and have a single 10 in the back in a box I got from an audio shop. I am not happy with the system so I am thinking to upgrade to 2 x 10's in the rear, with a custom enclosure job again. But... I am also thinking to sell my current car and move up into something a bit nicer... but hey, thats a discussion for another bbs

now we are talking. i build speaks for my home theatre. i have 3 subs that would have a hard time fitting into a pickup!! i love the sound of T-line subwoofer. i have 2 that are over 8' tall. my movie sub is 15" with a 10.5' line length.

Anyways, it was an idea and I was looking for input. I decided that it was a worthwhile idea and bought supplies for the hood today. I will probably build it over the weekend or next week. This week I have to concentrate on getting my tank setup and ready for the live rock shipment coming in... and put up the baseboard, trim and crown mouldings (I am hiding my speaker wires behind the crown moulding in the living room and mounting the rear speakers on the wall...) anyways, I have tons of projects if you couldnt tell!

Ramble ramble ramble. I should stop typing now and get some sleep. Thanks for the help people, will let you all know how it turns out! Ciao

ramblings are fine! i actually ran my wires below the house. then again i have a crawl space. i put low level wallplates all over the room. i have 11 speakers all around the room, so there were plenty of wall plates to do.

keep us posted.

G~