Carbon Mirror Housings

I've been hobbling gingerly around the garage today working on my carbon mirror housings. As promised, I now have pictures.


First, the workspace. I still need to organize the junk in here and get it out of the way. The pictures were taken while standing in my wife's parking spot, so my acutal work area is much smaller. Miss Thing (her MINI) does not take kindly to sleeping outside, so expansion is not an option.

Even more junk. Actually, 90% of my workspace is currently occupied with junk. Sigh. This will all need to be moved before the Se7en project arrives in the next week or so.

Okay, enough of that. Here's the floral foam. This came in pack of two cylinders (to fit a small vase), and I cut them down the middle. Two halves became a side mirror each, and the other two halves were joined and reshaped a bit to form the rearview mirror housing.

*skipped a bunch of shots since my fingers were too messy to hold the camera*


Here is the first housing, set up to dry. I had to "clamp" it between two plastic containers because the carbon fiber doesn't reallylike to conform to tight curves. I figured out a smarter way to do the next two. The trick for them was to let the epoxy set up for a while and get really tacky. Then the carbon cloth can be conformed to the plug and it will (mostly) stick where you want it to.























"Honey, the eclairs are almost ready"

























The leftmost side mirror housing is closest to being done. This is its final flood coat. The other two are on their first flood coat. They're not perfect, but they were cheap, they're very light, and they look pretty cool.


This is the mirror material they will be receiving:











Cut to fit stuff from the auto parts store. Should be enough to do all three mirrors, but if not I'll go back and get another sheet.

Medical issues and floral foam

Thursday, the work done on the Seven was purely in the areas of personal learning and conceptualization. I started reading up on the work needed to shorten the stock Miata wiring harness, both on the locostusa.com forums (see the stickied thread in the "Interior, lighting, and electrical" subforum), and in Keith Tanner's book How to Build a Cheap Sports Car. I'm not sure how much, if any, of the body harness(es) I get with my purchsed project, but I know that the previous owner had several Miata donors so I suspect that he salvaged them and will include them in the shipment.

Which brings us to today --I found out this morning that the previous owner had to have an emergency appendectomy!!! To further complicate matters, it happened while out of town on business. He was still in the process of preparing the shipping crates for my new project, but I told him not to worry about that. I will get it eventually, he just needs to take care of himself right now.

In the meantime, I've continued working on projects that can be completed (or at least started) without the car itself. As mentioned in the previous entry, I have some carbon fiber laying around, and a desire to use it for fun and profit (well, perhaps not profit, but at least to minimize expenditure on off-the-shelf car parts). While out and about this morning, I stopped at a crafts store and purchased some floral foam for pattern making. This stuff is great -- you can carve and sculpt it like plaster. More easily than plaster, actually. I also picked up a sheet of cut-to-fit adhesive mirror material from the auto parts store. I think that you know where this is going (because it's obvious) -- custom carbon fiber mirrors. I'm partway through making the first housing, and it looks good so far. Pictures to follow when I'm feeling up to moving around.

Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that I got a vasectomy this afternoon. My balls hurt. That is all.

Carbon Fiber Dreams

Yesterday I did little else for the Seven except dream up different uses of carbon fiber. I have made items in the past, and I still have a small stash of the stuff for future projects. Here's a hood vent I made for the old Swift GT:

Ideas for the Seven include:

1. headlight bowls

2. side mirror bodies

3. bodywork (!)

4. floors (!!! Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!!!)\

5. Rear "tonneau" cover

6. seats (also potentially dangerous)

7. dash (of course)

And probably a hundred other things. I love carbon fiber.

Shipping Finalized!

I finalized the shipping arrangements yesterday. $474 from Lincoln, NE to Houston, TX!!! I'll have to go pick up the crates at a shipping terminal, but that's the easy (and cheap) part -- especially if I can get a friend with a trailer to help rather than renting a Uhaul truck.

4/7/08

The only thing that I did yesterday was to list the shipment of my chassis and engine on Uship.com. So far I have two quotes... $811 and $495.

4/6/08 - Spray Paint and Hammers

Quick blog entry before work... yesterday I cleaned up most of my workbench (no pics yet) and took a hammer to my Grant GT wheel.

I bought this thing at a garage sale a couple of years back for $5 or $10, and discovered that is was a little bent after I installed it on my '86 MR2. The hub is not on the same plane as the rim. Well, after several blows with a hammer, it's closer.

The wheel is easily removable, so if there needs to be anymore "adjustment," I'll do it after it's been on the car and I've had a chance to test drive it.

The other project for yesterday (aside from changing the oil in the WRX) was to wire brush and spray paint the radiator and fan shroud from the Swift GT.

Nice! That radiator will have to go eventually, though. Looks like there was a little patch repair done in a couple of places -- and not very well. I'll use it to get the car on the road, though, as it does hold water.