ive decided to build a center console for my truck. i want to put one 10" sub in the bottom, cup holders, armrest with storage, power outlets, and mount my satellite radio controls/pre amp into it. i have never worked with fiberglass before, but i have that "cathair" crap. because the box is gonna be 99% mdf, would it be easier to glass over the box and then smooth and sand or use the cathair type glass to build and smooth? or am i an idiot and no one knows what im talking about? i want to paint the box and smooth the lower part of my dash to match and wrap the top of the armrest in suede(sp). thanks for any info or advice

 

well if you make the box the shape you want it out of mdf then you can use the fiberglass resin over the entire box to fill and smooth it out, then if you want anything more than a thin layer you will want the cathair.

so if you can get the box to desired shape out of mdf then skim a coat of resin, sand it smooth and lay down your paint
i hope this helps

 

all i need is the resin or do i need the fiberglass mat as well. the only thing i will need to build up will be in the console part, i want to round the edges inside instead of having 90degree corners. i figure this will have a better appearance.

are there any good write-ups on smoothing the lower part of the dash. and then i need to remove the upper dash to paint ALL the inteior plastic black and do silver accents

 

i almost forgot, i have seen people a LIGHT coat of bondo over the fiberglass to help smooth everything, anyone done this or should i stay of from the bondo

 

you can but!!!!!! should be like 8 hours of sanding at least

 

ive seen many people use bondo on there boxes, just keep it light, just to do some leveling, on my box i used bondo on all the seams and it turned out great. its only been two weeks but its holding up fine.
if you do a search there was a post not too long ago about a center console
are you making downfiring sub or is it going to be on top of the box?

 

it will be facing forward, it will come back from in front of the power outlets, down at a 45 back about 5 inches and the straight to the back of the seats with a console built in to the top like the factory console, dvd/tv in the back for the baby, and the unused space in the bottome will be a sub box for a 10" memphis m class. the sub box will start at the back of the seat and come to about the front of the seats with a square hole or some design cut into the sides infront of the sub for airflow. above the sub will be a red neon to light up the sub face and floorboards. the top of the console will have 2 cupholders and on the angled piece will have my switch panel for my fire dept lights, sattelite radio controls, and 2 power outlets. im putting the amp on the back wall behind the seats so it wont be visible.

 

when painting fiberglass, no matter how good you sand, it almost always cracks eventually....i decided to cover mine in carpet for this reason and because my truck is a dd and i use it as a truck (would probably scratch the crap out of the paint anyway) just somethin to think about.....

 

i thought about covering it but i dont know how to do all the curves and contours. plus i want to paint the interior plastics anyways so i think the console would look good matching everything, but thank you for the though, i might wrap the outsides and paint the top only....