Stagea Widebody progress. Fiberglass panels fitted.

So back to the Stagea finally. I was able to finish the upcoming video early so once that's finished rendering I'll upload it here but in the mean time, here are the photos I took along the way.

Starting off with sealing and release agent-ing the moulds.

Because the gelcoat and finish on the moulds was pretty good, I didn't need to go too heavy on sealer and release agent so stuck with the manufacturers recommendations with 3 layers of sealer and 3 layers or release agent with a final layer of wax on top to clean up the streaks left on the surface.

After that I sprayed the gelcoat on all the moulds.

Followed up with a skin coat of 225 gsm chopped strand on all the parts, left that to cure and then two layers of 450 gsm to finish the laminate.

The only time it's convenient making videos was that I had something to fill my time while I waited for these to cure. All up it was about 4 days from gelcoat to popping them out of the moulds.

The parts all released perfectly. A little too well in fact. I had one spot on the rear quarter piece that actually delaminated from the mould when I was ripping my fiberglass to size and I ended up with a small dent in the finished part. It will be easy enough to fill and sand over so not worried, but it's a little annoying.

After that the parts were trimmed and sanded and the cosmetic bolts were fitted to the front fender.

Then it was finally ready to install the kit. To make sure the whole thing lines up you want to start with the panels with the least guess work first. This meant the front fender was first to go on, then the sideskirt. I left the rear door piece for last so that I could make sure it lined up with the rear quarter piece and the sideskirt before drilling any holes.

I did have all the holes pre-drilled in the rear quarter from when I made the plugs so that did help and everything lined up perfectly.

Overall I'm really happy with it. Fitment is absolutely perfect and even without any hardware all the fiberglass pieces sat perfectly on the metal panels with no gaps, so it's a relief to know there was no warping with the moulds.

On top of that the surface finish is incredible thanks to the release agent. These parts come out of the mould already gloss black and ready to show off any minor imperfection immediately.

One thing about how it's all looking though, I noticed that now since the parts are black the rear fender feels a lot smaller than it did when everything was in primer but that's just an optical illusion. Some extra motivation for me to get the whole thing primed and painted asap.