Composite Targa Top Development

[toddc]

A few of you have seen the posts in the classified section under the heading "composite roof teaser" and have asked about the possibility of targa tops.

This thread should serve as another introduction to Helion Composites and the process we will go through to bring carbon fibre and fiberglass targa tops to market.

In this thread, I will show all of the steps involved in the modeling, tooling and production of our composite targa tops and explain the processes to the best of my ability.

It is my hope that anyone interested in learning what it takes to produce quality composite body parts will glean at least a few kernels from this thread.

This thread will be updated as progress in the process is made.

The first few pictures are of the starting point.

We took an existing fiberglass top with known good fitment and stripped all of the texture coating off of the surface.

This revealed a very uneven surface that needs to be corrected. The surface will be corrected by spraying Duratec Vinyl-ester fairing primer and lots of block sanding. Once a class A surface has been obtained we will proceed to the tooling phase.

For now, enjoy the first couple of pics and feel free to ask as many questions as you like.

Thank-you,
Todd Candey
Helion Composites

[kach22i]

Looks like a good start.

[NoYouRelax]

Looks nice, any idea how that material stands up to UV rays? Are you considering a paintable surface?

[toddc]

NoYou,
the material you see here is not designed to stand up to UV, it is designed to be used as a surfacing material only.

we're still in the modeling phase.

The material we use for production is absolutely UV stable and is further finished with standard automotive paints and clears which are by nature UV stable.

[toddc]

NoYou, in answer to your other question, we are contemplating offering clear carbon, body color painted and black texture coated surfaces. Time will tell.

Thank you,

[cali4sun]

Todd

Looking forward to following this thread with great interest! I'll be in the market for one soon.

[NoYouRelax]

Sounds great! I will follow the progress.

[nineball]

trust me, you will all love the outcome.

[Weaver]

Targa owner subscribe

[Hydrocket]

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread!

[redridge]

interesting... thanks for sharing. Looking forward to the finished prod.

[Joeaksa]

Todd,

Are you using a factory Targa top or aftermarket to work off of? If you use a copy of the SundialEnt sure hope that its one of the new generation as the first ones were terrible. Anything above 45 mph and the top would raise from the "A" pillar and you could stick your hand out the opening...

Glad to see you working on this. I have a factory Targa top but there are loads of guys out there who do not and want them. Also am waiting to see what you come up with for a latch as thats something that we need duplicates of even with our tops now.

Joe A

[prebordao]

subd

[SchnellSchweitz]

I'm watching with interest.... ;-)

[toddc]

Joeaksa,
we're using an aftermarket top and resurfacing it to develop the outer skin and we'll most likely 3d scan a factory top underside to develop the internal structure, replacement pins, latches, etc.

The reason we're using an aftermarket top is that we can make necessary changes in terms of overall surface, rain gutters or not, how we want to incorporate seals etc., without hacking up and potentially damaging a rare, more expensive factory hard top.

Here are a few pics from yesterday.

light guide coat



Longest sanding block we have in order to keep things level






Surface block sanded to reveal high and low spots. The dark spots you see in the last picture are actually low spots in the surface. Some of these patches are .050" deep, Some of the light spots are where I broke through the original gel coat.

After leveling the surface what I could, I sprayed another coat of fairing primer and will block that when I can.

I didn't bother taking a picture of that since it looks just the the blue one above

--todd

[lpsalsaman]

Definitely watching this! Would love to have a body color hard top!

[Joeaksa]

Todd,

I can take photos of my factory hard top inside if that would help. The latches are nothing like the stock Targa top latches.

Salsaman,

Several people tried to get me to keep my factory top black but nope, wanted it to match and now that it does, very happy with it.



Joe A

[toddc]

Joe,

I would love pics.

Please send to helioncomposites@yahoo.com

[toddc]

From today,

the factory folding top frame shown with the important parts off to be duplicated...

[group911@aol.co]

Seems like it would make more sense to copy an original? Not sure how many pieces they were molded in.