body work materials

[Farzaneh]

Hi.
we are first year team. we want to know what materials can be used for body.
we now decide to use fiberglass or maybe composite.
what do you suggest?
mr. Amin Farzaneh

[dbc]

Our first car also had a Bodywork of Fiberglass reinforced plastics. I would say, any Resin-Fibre-mix would work but glass fibres and cellulose are common.
Many teams switch to Carbon fibre reinforced plastics (-> Alternative Frame Rules) instead of a steel frame with separate bodywork after some years.

[mdavis]

Kydex plastic. Extremely cheap, pretty easy to work with and weighs approximately nothing.

-Matt

[Simactive]

What school/country are you from? It depends really what is most available/country in your area to be honest.

[mech5496]

There was a UK team at some point using plastic "cardboards" zip-tied to their spaceframe, something like this:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-48-in-x-96-in-White-Cap-Corrugated-Plastic-Cardboard-10-Pack-WC4896-10/202489118?N=5yc1vZbrdg
Cheap as hell, minimum effort to build (you need to cut triangles and fit them between tubes), good-looking if you like angled X-Bow-like bodyworks, easily replaceable, lightweight.

[Simactive]

The plastic corrigaded board is good and cheap, plus you can heat up and round around tubes. Fiberglass and composites are easy but you are going to spend alot of time on molds for the car before layup

[Farzaneh]

thank you all.



What school/country are you from? It depends really what is most available/country in your area to be honest.
I'm from Iran , Ferdowsi university of Mashhad.

[Simactive]

Cool,

Well to be honest not sure what is openly available there but corrugated plastic board works well and can heat form. Use some good paint and primer and it'll look awesome.

Another would be just fiberglass body panels but will take a while to make the molds. The bigger question is......do you actually need it?

[SomeOldGuy]

We used a couple layers of heat shrinking material normally used on remote controlled airplanes last year on our tube frame car. Worked remarkably well.