Busted Fiberglass

This first pic is typical of the kind of damage that every square foot of this flip had!

Example of a Crack

Many of the cracks were jagged, with fiberglass "tabs" that wouldn't allow both halves to fit properly.

The Ugly Dremel Buzz-Saw

Taking my handy Dremel with a sharp cutting wheel, I cut along the jagged lines and let them naturally line up with each other...

Finished Cut

Once cut, the pieces flexed back to where they should be quite nicely, and allowed for less bulging and eventual shaping work on the exterior. Here's the "after" of the previous jagged break...

Holding It Together

After cutting and ensuring that pieces lined up well, I duct taped them together to ensure they maintained their shape while glassing in, and to help ensure that the resin didn't go too far. Here we see one of the corners taped that was heavily damaged.

Corner Busted

Here's the inside of that same corner...

Laying Glass

The next step was to sand the inside with 60-grit, and wipe it all down with acetone. Then I cut patches of fine cloth to act as structural band-aids. Here are the pieces laid out prior to glassing.

Cured Glass

Using a paint brush, we smeared out a small amount of resin on the shell, laid the cloth down, then put more resin over the cloth, working from the center out to prevent bubbles. We were careful to not use too much resin, because that would actually weaken the fiberglass. A good mix gives a really nice patch, like the one you can barely see in the middle-left side. The aluminum bar, by the way, is to act as a stiffener. We put it in because the flip wanted to sit too low when it was mated to the shell.

 

I don't have final shots yet because of the mess we were involved in.  Time is a premium when dealing with large sections of glass, and picking up a camera in-process is the last thing you want to do!  Basically the last step was to take rough cloth and cut large sections to shape into the contours of the entire flip.  I made the pieces as large as possible to give good structural stability, and cut into the cloth where necessary to meet contours.  The cloth itself has some give to allow it to contour (more than the fine cloth, to be sure!), but the fibers get sparse the more it has to contour.  We ended up with bubbles in some places, and I'll grind those out and replace them with more rough cloth and resin.  I kept the ends that meet with the A-panel together with some wire, duct-taped to the out-sides of the flip.  This kept the panels from flexing outward while curing.  The final work will be cosmetic to grind out any of the oil/dirt in any jagged edges and back fill with glass and resin.  Fiberglass reinforced body filler will smooth off any irregularities.  Final finish will be a gel-coat, and then paint.  For the inside of the flip, I'll glass in some brackets that will hold the tabs that the air rams will attach to, as well as the bonnet latch, and tabs to mound the bumper to the front (something flips tend to lack).  I'm pretty happy with the results so far! 

A final few words of advice to anyone wanting to tackle fiberglass: 

1)  Buy a box of vinyl gloves.  You will go through TONS of gloves throughout the process.  The resin gets everywhere, and being able to strip off gloves and put on a new set before the resin cures is a blessing.  NOTE:  acetone eats the gloves, so have some chemical resistant ones handy for cleaning. 
2)  Buy lots of cheap paint brushes (Harbor Freight sells a pack of 36 for $12.99 or less).  They are great for spreading resin.  But they will be one-use-only, and that's why I recommend a lot.
3)  Put down a thin layer of resin with the brush, lay the glass into it, then brush a small amount of resin over the top of that.  Work from the inside of the patch to the outer edges, spreading resin quickly as you go.  This will minimize air bubbles.  You want just enough resin to coat the glass, no more, if possible.  The strength of fiberglass is not in the resin, but in the glass.  Too much resin will actually weaken the fiberglass matrix. 
4)  Have someone else there to help!  There is just not enough time to mix the resin, place patches, add resin to the patch, smooth it out, and do other patches.  Having another set of hands willing to get in there is a must. 
5)  Wear a good particulate mask when grinding the glass!  Wear gloves.  Wear eye protection.  Wear hearing protection.  And do yourself a favor and either wear long sleeves, or run duct tape along the underside of your arms.  Few things are as annoying as bits of glass irritating the tender undersides of your arms...