Home made cowl

[pcnewman]

I need to make a cowl for a boat. I have made a model of what I want out of closed cell foam insulation and plan to use a heat gun to hopefully mold a sheet of acrylic over it. Does any one have any tips? Is acrylic fuel proof?
Shoud I be using Lexan?
I'm new to this forum, hope I posted this in the right place.
Thanks for any help

[charlie eaton]

You will most likely soften or melt the mold as well as the acrylic. Acrylic is fuel proof if you plan to use a nitro or gas engine. Do you have a picture of the hull ( Is that what you mean by ''cowl''?)

[Prins Willem]

Have you considered vacuforming the part? I did a google search and in about 5 seconds came up with this:

http://www.studiocreations.com/howto/vacuumtable/index.html

One of our members has an old Mattel Vacuformer like the one in this link http://www.samstoybox.com/toys/Vac-U-Form.html he uses with good results.

A shame they don't sell them any more. Lawyers won't let kids play with hot plastic anymore.

[blownjet]

I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM! boat was missing cowling, so I made a new one. You'll never believe what I used for the base! you know those clear acryllic licence plate covers? the formed edges were perfect for overlapping the opening on my 24" flat bottom, just cut a strip out down the center, placed them over each side(my boat has a raised section around the opening) and ca glued a couple strips at each end to keep the shape. then made my shaped cowling from cardboard tube& foam, covered that with packing wrap(saran wrap) cut some fiberglass mat to conform to the shapes and used finishing resin -wax is in finishing resin-saturated mat just one layer to keep light , let set up , and it popped right off my mold ( dont use laminating resin, because it stays sticky) just make sure you sand through the upper waxy layer and wipe down w/ acetone if you want anything to stick to it! glue, paint etc. reinforced w/ balsa bulkheads & it came out light & strong, ca glued it to licence plate cover pieces after fitting of course and used flexable lightweight polyester body filler to finish final shaping, primed, and painted. not saying it will work for you, because i dont know the size or shape of your hull, just get creative!! you'll figure it out!