Cause I did it as a trade for 15yrs and know how to tame it to my advantage.
I don't wet the mat out so much and let the resin soak thru then brush a little more on the frosty bits, next is using a roller for the job, not a buntings paint roller..a small ally cerated roller to squash out bubbles and last is check and lightly brush /dab to soak out any excess resin.... Much like wallpapering.. I don't wear gloves either as they get sticky and stuff things up .

You might have a thing there about the inner spats.. I have a few sets of spats I could copy from , might have the front guard ones ( near headlight) as well . If people want them I'll do it

I'll check if mk1 and mk2 are the same, if they are that'd be good, I'm suspecting the rubber seal is the only difference due to the shape of the guard.
So you want mk1 for your mk2 van, ok sir !

I checked those inner spats and both are the same and do is the rubber seal part, I have no idea if they fit Capri, never owned one.. my guess is they'll fit but some mods will need to take place .
Yestdy I finished off the mold fglassing for the first mk1 guard, I won't be doing anything to it until Friday at the earliest and this will just be trimming of excess overhang material.




Deano, I'm now using waxed polyester resin which is suited for boats and tanks etc as it came up cheaper than regular resin, that's prolly why my fglass looks so good. It's still fine for car parts , just makes the part more waterproof !

The wax is in the resin not gelcoat at a small percentage, the rules say if I stop a layer then start the next layer after its cured or in "green" mode I need to scuff up the layer with 80 grit to at a key for the next layer.
After waiting a few days and doing other stuff, the guard mold has just about cured so it was time to trim off excess glass shards, drilled holes for bolts at same time


It took a gentle 30 min to get the guard to release as didn't want to go straining anything while removing it, once it was out I did some light sanding in the edges and where the gelcoat had creeped to far into the no go zones

Slight imperfections like this worm in a couple of shots but I'm fine with how it's came out

The original guard wasn't damaged at all except some slight scratches

And now I'm starting the build a guard process, they are made with way less material and are best made in parts then the mold bolted together and filler strips glassed in to join everything together , I've chosen black for the actual guard as it'll show any bubbles between gelcoat and glass layers

Enter the driver front guard that is the original for this car, it's not too bad of condition except it had so many paint layers and the front was loaded with filler, this is as started.

The Coral Reef style grind wheel was just about down to the core once done

Guard is all bare metal and being panel beated while being pinned on the car to hold shape.
I have cut the front closing panel where the headlight tucks into to gain access to the dent surrounding the leading edge, once happy I'll weld the parts back together , the red is reflection from the grit blast box

This is the tabs bent out to match as close as possible to the underside of the arch


I got the arch to sit on the pretty snug so I used panel screws to secure it in position


Mixed up the resin and talc combo to a thick paste and applied it to the guard, this will become the super strong glue bonding both panels together , I didn't get a pic of this as time and messy hands etc, here's the guard all screwed on but not going to tight as the arch will concave at the screws



Now it's let it dry for a couple of days before the screws are removed