Which material?

[LittleCar_w/12s]

I am about to make a pod for my kick panel, and would like any recommendations as to the best material. I have experience with fiberglass, so it won't be too hard no matter which one.

I could make a cheap one with ABS, a better one with Fiberglass, or the best with carbon-fiber. -- or anything in-between.

The pod will be about a 1' wide triangle where it attatches to the car, but will have at most a 6" mid and some components facing rearward. That needs to be strong, but budgetable. I would probably like it to match my interior, a blue-gray color.

Rec's?

[bknauss]

Seems like the majority of people do fiberglass. ABS probably doesn't have the acoustic qualities of MDF or fiberglass (although I can't confirm or deny this), and from what I've heard, you need to be pretty good with carbon fiber to get it to come out correctly (again, I can't confirm or deny this... its all things that I've heard from installers).

[LittleCar_w/12s]

I also pulled up the links on the other post covering this. Thanks for those as well... I have never done stretched fabric type fiberglass work... only on cars ar a repair.
Thanks.
--Jerry

[neomagus00]

this site (http://web.njit.edu/~cas1383/proj/main/), mentioned elsewhere, contains a carbon-fibre link. i believe that this method uses primarily fiberglass techniques; i only looked over it briefly, though, and i'm not sure what the 'standard' method for carbon fibre is.

jerry - assume i'm a complete n00b at fiberglassing... what other techniques can be used beyond stretched-fabric 'glassing?

[LittleCar_w/12s]

Well, when I have worked with large repairs on cars, I use kind-of a fiberglass tape for the first layer, or if it's large enough, I have used masking tape to hold the resin from oozing out the back, then the fiberglass tape. For the most part, I haven't done much matting, as the repair material I use is Bondo fiberglass filler, which is a resin-putty with chop-mat in it already. I haven't ever done anything quite as complicated as to need sheet matting, cloth, etc.
-Jerry