I thought I posted this already, but looks like I didnt, so here goes. Following a chat with a guy at JEC 2012, the old timer shared the story, this process could be used now even, should anyone want to build a custom dash. The process is quite simple, and was first used in early Audi dashboard construction. It was ground breaking at the time, and the process still stands today, albeit very different in respect to production. Here goes... A hard model, in full size is first made of the dash in high density foam. This can be cnc machined, cut and sanded by hand, hot wired, or a combination of all. The dash form can take any shape. Any cutouts for vents, or radios, switches, levers, etc are made in the foam model, and are only made 12-15mm deep - not all the way through. You then paint the foam with epoxy, when painting epoxy, I always use hollow glass spheres, as they lighten up the epoxy, and give it a really tough surface. This epoxy coat is then sanded with oxide paper - nice and smooth. Once you decide on what type of finish pattern you want on the dash show surface you get some of that material with your chosen pattern on it. You can have anything, leather effect, croc skin, geometry patterns, and so on. you will find that you can get any of these patterns replicated on a 3m style film, or plastic sheet. The Audi guys used actual leather for this. You spray the foam dash model with adhesive. The plastic film of your choice is then wrapped down onto adhesive, covering all the foam dash model. I have used this type of film ,and it is not the nightmare of a job you would think. A hair dryer, and a stiff sponge, and it conforms to any shape, incl compound curves pretty easy. If you are using leather, boil it it hot water first to make it soft, and use a water base adhesive. Once this is dry you will have the foam model, full size, covered in your chosen skin /texture. This is now what you will use to strike the fibreglass female moulds off. You now have to pick your lines with some chalk on the foam model. These lines will be where all the fibreglass female shell moulds join up. Its important you take care on picking these lines as you will need to make sure you can remove all the fibreglass shells off the foam model. If you have negative draft angles, you will have to work around these with a few sections to prohibit shell locking. Im not going to go into much detail on making the fibreglass female mould as there is loads of info out there already on glass work. But, the main objective is to build up many layers of glass on the foam model to create female shell moulds. A dash may comprise of 3-8 sections in total, that will have to be laid up at different times, and onto eachother - isolated with release wax to make sure they can be all separated. Once all dry, you start removing all the female sections off the foam model. These now have the texture you have chosen on the inside. You are finished with the foam model now. The shells are now all assembled again on the bench and checked for twist/etc. Its no harm to glass in steel bars for strength while you were building them on the foam model. The shells have turned up lips where they join, and bolts are fitted through these to secure. The female shell now complete ,is checked internally for parting line alignment and given a coat of release wax inside. If you're stuck with having to put a shell parting line along dash in a visible area, this can be hidden with a red or chrome strip fitted after. This is common in many cars, and is there just for this reason. A pvc or other polymer solution(there is a million choices out there) which is also the colour you require is now sprayed into the complete female shell mould. You would be aiming for around .4mm thick, so it may take two coats. This is allowed to dry. The metal dash structure with contains the brackets, and fixing points for all the stuff/mounting/etc is now placed carefully into the shell mould. This frame is kept back/away approx 6mm min from the skin you just sprayed in. The frame is secured in its suspended position within the mould with wire/brackets/whatever. Its pretty easy to get the metal structure a close fit if you draw it within the foam model which you will have on your cad/cam drawings. It is also easy do it if your making by hand, measure twice and all that... Once you are happy with the position of the frame, a pourable closed cell foam is mixed up(thickened if needed) and poured between the metal frame, and pvc skin. Care is needed doing this obviously, and any holes which may allow the foam to enter parts of the metal structure where wires and stuff need to go should be taped closed. Once the foam is set you can now remove the fibreglass female shell moulds from the front of dash. The pvc skin will now be bonded to the foam from the rear, and the metal frame also bonded to the foam. A little polish to remove release wax from skin and you will have a very nice dash that would pass as a factory item. This is exactly how Audi did it for years. Im getting flash backs of posting something like that before, but I dont think it was here. Brian,
I remember the build quality/interior is what drew my dad to the VW Group back in the eighties after a succession of F**D's and Montego's and why i've been f@nnying about with the Group cars ever since. If it wasn't for dudes like him then my dad would have ended up with the 205GTI he was looking at instead of the mk2 he bought and I could have been corrupted! I even nearly went to the dark side myself many years ago when my friends got some tuned F**D Fiesta and Escort turbo's (don't want to swear in front of the kids). Awesome engines at the time but I just couldn't get into them as the interior looked like some hobo had left his home there and painted it grey so no one would steal it! Just goes to show how much thought is put into interiors and it's them which seem to get dated in terms of style more quickly than anything else! Kudios to the designers that put such thought into it!
