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Old 21st June 2020, 19:22
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Mister Towed Mister Towed is offline
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Thanks for your input Froggyman, glad you like what you see.

Yes, Paul, that picture does quite nicely show how the dash will blend in to the 356's structure both at the top and down the sides of the inner bodyshell.

Over the weekend I started the process of mating the dash, bodyshell, bulkhead and bonnet by adding a lip to the dash for the bonnet to sit on.

I started by attaching the dash and bonnet together with strips of aluminium and screws so the leading edge of the dash and trailing edge of the bonnet were level.

Next step was to make a cardboard 'mould' (covered with parcel tape to stop it sticking) in-situ, both to form the lip and to give a 5mm gap for a seal between them to be added later.

I then gave the mould a coat of gelcoat and followed that up with three layers of heavy duty csm -





Next morning I split the bonnet and dash and ripped off the cardboard mould to reveal this -



Dropped in place with the bulkhead attached roughly where it's going to be and it looks like this -





...and with the main and inner bonnets fitted -







I'm happy with progress so far. It's clear that once the bonnet has a seal to bring it level with the opening it'll fit over the engine without fouling anything and everything lines up nicely.

Next step is to put some effort into smoothing the surface of the dash both inside and out with it off the car, then bond and glass the dash and bulkhead into the body.

More later
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