Our Body Prep Process

At FormaCars we complete our body prep a little differently. We noticed early on that body seams tend to be a challenge and there’s nothing worse than a bubble in beautiful paint job, especially when it seemingly wasn’t there fresh out of the paint booth. We realized that with the traditional method of sanding seams and applying body filler still had the potential to trap tiny air pockets under the paint, so we developed a method for filling with fiberglass resin.

Fiberglass bodies are created by bolting the mold panels together, applying mold release, followed by gel coat, then alternating fiberglass mat and resin. Excess mold release at the seams often bubbles into the gel coat when it’s applied to the mold, this is what creates air pockets in the gel coat and first resin layer.

The pink area you see at the seam is excess mold release that settles into the mold seams and is trapped in the Gel coat.

First, we sand the seams a few inches wide and then use a sharp tool to fully expose the air pockets.

Once the air pockets are well exposed, we apply resin to the seams, using a brush. The resin will settle in, filling the fully exposed air pockets. Larger defects may need an additional coat or resin.

Once fully filled, the body is sanded and prepped for paint without risk of air pockets under the paint job.