GTR Stagea - New Sideskirt Moulds (Patreon)

So the issue we had was the front lip was sitting around an inch lower than the original Stagea front bumper and sideskirts. Obviously I want this conversion to look as clean as possible and so I had to find a way to extend the factory side skirts to match the new height.For the past few weeks I've just been holding the sideskirts up with a block of wood. I actually used these blocks to measure the height of the lip and the sideskirt to figure out exactly how much I needed to drop them buy.Once I knew what I had to add I ripped the sideskirts down the middle and added a polycarbonate dam so that I could extend them by 30mm. There was a little body line that ran down the sideskirts that I wanted to keep so I was sure to cut on the other side of that (didn't really make any difference in the end with the rivets I'll have to reshape and sand the whole thing)That was all super quick to be honest, only a couple days work for that.Unfortunately in messing around with these after finishing them I got an idea of just how bad the bond between fiberglass and plastic is. I mean I already knew it was bad because I've done this in the past, but if it's worth learning and forgetting once, then it's worth doing it as many more times as it takes.I was hoping that these would at least hold up long enough to use as plugs to make the final moulds, but I doubt they'll even make it that far before cracking or warping so I'm actually going to have to remake them out of fiberglass before even starting on the plugs.In short, I've got to make a super quick and dirty mould for a one time use part and then I'll have to make another set of moulds once I've actually finished these.But, it did finally give me an opportunity to get the car outside and get some nice photos before it goes back in the barn for the next few months while I pour the foam to shape the widebody.The last few photos really show off just how much higher the GTR fender sits than the original Stagea one. I get a lot of people suggesting I leave the car as is but there's no way I'd be happy with that difference in arch height even ignoring the massive difference in offset this kit is going to need.

I really wasn't happy with how they were holding up and even though I knew I would be making a mould of these down the line once the widebody was made, I just couldn't deal with working with these and so I started on a quick and dirty intermediate mould just to save myself a lot of headaches.That meant that I had to brace up these flimsy plastic things and while I was at that I got them straight for probably the first time in their life since they were spat out of an injection mould at a Nissan factory.

Quick and dirty sideskirt mould time.Because I'm only going to be using these moulds once I didn't bother making any special flanges, just tape was more than enough. I also couldn't be bothered wetsanding and polishing so I just put a layer of packing tape over the rougher areas, put down 1 heavy layer of wax without buffing it off, and then absolutely coated the thing in PVA.Even though it was just a single use mould, there'd be no point in any of it if it wasn't straight and rigid so I did end up adding some simple wooden bracing to it.The layup process was pretty straight forward:-spray the gelcoat in the evening-come back next morning and put down 1 layer of 80gsm tissue followed by 1 layer of 225gsm chopped strand-after that's cured, sand it down, add 2 layers of 450-let that layer cure, then add another 2 layers bringing to a total of 4 layers of 450-cut all the bracing and then come back and put 1 more layer of 450, then the bracing, then add a few strips to join them together.So if you were to cut through the mould you would see:gelcoat80gsm tissue225gsm chopped450gsm chopped450gsm chopped450gsm chopped450gsm chopped450gsm choppedWooden bracing450gsm strips