>
>I've wondered myself if a good gelcoat finish would protect against
further
>cracking,
========
An epoxy gelcoat bonded to a suitably roughed up substrate will be
stable assuming the gelcoat is as thick as the base material. Check
out a quality Cobra replica body. They don't stress crack (assuming
they're properly mounted), but look how thick they are. Hard to
achieve this kind of thickness / surface integrity outside the mold.
They weigh more than an equivalent steel body. Who will be the first
to fabricate a steel, or better, an aluminum, or best, a carbon
fiber Bricklin body?
========
but it seems to me that it's still a potential problem. The
>reason that the cracking happens in the first place is because the
glass and
>plastic have different rates of heat expansion, so if you heat a
panel or
>cool it, it acts like a bi-metal spring and the resulting
mechanical forces
>cause it to deform or crack.
========
Correct. Witness the Bricklin's hood or light covers during
temperature changes. The best idea I've heard so far is whoever was
going to try laminating carbon fiber to the stripped panels. A
daunting task.
GM
>Phil Martin
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