Maine Vette

Hey guys,

After taking a break from my resto for the past few months I'm back in the swing of things on my 71 coupe project. Most recently I've been working on some fiberglass repairs on the rear deck and have learned a lot about how to easily separate bonded fiberglass panels using a heat gun - if only I had known this when I removed the front clip!

Anyway, to help other folks avoid the mistakes I made early on (trying to separate the panels without heat) I've made a YouTube video demonstrating the process I used. I almost didn't publish it (I don't like viewing myself on camera) but thought I'd try to give back to the community I've learned so much from over the past four years.

In any case, here's a link to the video. http://www.youtube.com/user/71corvette I had to break it into two parts due to YouTube size limitations but there's a link you can click at the end of the first video to view the second part.

Hope you guys find this helpful, and thanks again to all those who have helped me over the past few years!

Jeffery73

Great video. Thanks
I learned something today.

DZRick

Very helpful, I only wish you had posted this 6 months ago.

'75

Thanks for making the video, very informative and interesting.

Glassbowtie77

Very informative, thank you for sharing,

400hp427vette

Thank you, that was educational.

7dSHARK

great video. that is the easiest way to learn, by watching. thanks

pbcanney

awesome!

929nitro

Thanks for sharing, found it very useful. Where is East Waterboro. I go up to Leeds Maine every other weekend for fishing and camping, great country.

JohnnyRotten

Good job on the video....
very informative.

CalHusker

Thank you for the great video's....I am about to take off on a 72 restoration and I wondered how they did that.

Mike

BB72

I'm on my 4th heat gun, the 2nd and 3rd ones caught fire, thats all I ever use to clean things up. It stops a lot of damage and excess sanding.

Maine Vette

It's in southern Maine, about 30 minutes west of Portland. It's not quite like central and northern Maine, but it's still nice country out where I am.

Maine Vette

Dang! That's not good!

BB72

I bought a cheap one thinking I wouldn't need it very much...well...I did.

autoist

Enjoyed!

A question: Can you, after you remove the panel, 'peel' the glue off the other panel in the same manner?

Maine Vette

If by glue you mean bonding compound then the answer is essentially yes. Although you can't "peel" the bonding compound off per say, if you heat it up it can be scraped off the fiberglass with a putty knife pretty easily.

OURSHARK

Thanks for posting, I saved it for future reference.

autoist

Thanks - that's what I wanted to know....I cut through the bonding material with a tiny saw when I removed my front clip & now have bonding material on both surfaces that I have to remove.

Going to buy a heat gun today!

BB72

Heat guns also work VERY well at getting paint off the body. Especially where you don't want stripper to penetrate any existing body fill or areas around the bonding strips or any tight spots like around the marker lights or head light bezels. If you get stripper into any fill or bonding strip, all the contaminated material must be removed and refilled and sanded. It WILL soak the stripper up and it will be a lot more work.