DIY fibre glass for conical shapes

[Nabla1]

Hi, I've watched a few videos and read some tutorials about how to make fibre glass parts and am thinking of buying a DIY fibreglass kit. However I'm unsure as to what you would do with a conical type mold in certain cases (the nose cone of a racing car for example). I could see there being a problem with having to cut or fold over the carbon fibre sheets (like when you cut a slit out of a paper circle to fold it into a cone.). Could someone tell me how its done? Is it simply folded over and then pasted with resin as the layers go down?

Thanks

 

[rstupplebeen]

In most applications the pattern cutting is a black art. Some industries use specific composite CAD add-ins and analyze in FEA. For your application I would get some cheap fabric with similar shear characteristics and practice with different patterns. Try not to have the cuts and overlaps land on the same area for subsequent layers. Not knowing the exact geometry I might do the body of the cone as single large sheets and do more of a patch work on the rounded end. Hope this helps.

Rob Stupplebeen