The MINI Club of Ireland

Hey All,

I'm making this for Christine's mini:

1: mask up the area with several layers of masking tape. You might find that using a degreaser on plastic areas is needed, especially if any plastic shine products have been used:



2: Before you get mixing any resin, cut your fibreglass sheets to size and test fit them.

3: Mix your resin. Only mix as much as you can use before it will start to cure. You need to be very careful to use the correct measurements. Too much hardener will prevent it from curing, to little the same.

4: Pour some of the resin on the sheet and use a very cheap paintbrush to stipple the resin. Don't try brushing, you will just pull all of the glass mat apart. For curves just put a bit more resin on and keep stippling, it will eventually conform shape.


5: When you put new layers of mat over previous bits, keep stippling until it looks like it is part of the rest and not an individual sheet.


As you can see in this picture, even though there are several layers, it all looks as one:


It currently has about 3 layers, 4 round the edges. Some guides say you should have 5, I don't think that will be needed, since this one will be ported.

That's it for now, since the resin is currently curing and further updates will be weather dependant (and lazy dependant ).

Great work Michael !!

Can't wait to see the finished product

I have progressed slightly with things

Mark off where you will need to cut the excess fibreglass:


Then you can take it out.


Next you need to create a speaker ring. Most subs do come with a template so you get the size correct, but I decided to make something a bit different:



Trim the base. Make sure you are wearing a high quality dust mask and eye protection. You do not want fibreglass dust in your lungs.



You need to add some legs to the speaker ring so that it can be held up from the base. I used some staples here so I could bend then slightly to the direction I wanted things to be in:



Use some car body filler to hold the legs in place.


Once that has hardened, drape the very stretchy fabric you bought over(You did get some right? :P) over what you have made and staple it into place.


Next you need to stretch the fabric under the base and secure it. A word of warning, I tried using a staple gun, it wasn't powerful enough for the thicker bits of the base. Do not do what I did and get some spray glue. As the next step will melt the glue. A hot glue gun would have worked better. Also make sure there aren't wrinkles in the fabric like you see I did.

Also make sure you tidy the fabric up under the base. As if there is too much there, things won't fit back in the car properly.

The next step, which sadly I forgot to take photos of, is to soak the fabric with resin (which is where the spray glue dissolved/melted for me).

Once hardened, you can start putting fibreglass over the whole thing. I have done about three layers of glass on the outside. I also put a few more layers on the inside on a panel where I will have the amp and also reinforced the edges between the fabric and base from the inside.


As you can see you do get left with a lot of glass strands sticking out. Once the resin is hard they will pierce your skin very easily so be careful. The hardest part to do is wrapping a bit of the glass from the top to underneath, as it isn't easy to do if things are overhanging/upside down.

Next step is to cover the whole thing in body filler.


Now there is lots of sanding and more filler to try to get everything as flat and smooth as possible.



I think I might get my belt sander out as just using a rasp and a sanding block is taking too long.

Great work Michael !!

About 12 more fill and sands + 2 coats of primer + 1 coat of black + 2 coats of colour =



Just maybe one or two more coats of colour, a very light colour sand with some wet n' dry and a few clear coats and it will finally be ready for fitting.

Looking good.

Finally finished:

Great work Michael !!!

Now installed:

Wow great job!!! Bit handy aintcha?

BlueZed wrote:Bit handy aintcha?

I really like trying my hand and doing things myself. I don't think I will try to get a mirror paint finish on any future ones though. That filling and sanding was a soul destroying process

Apparently, the remote lead doesn't turn the amp off with christines alpine radio. Battery dead this morning ><

I will try to work out which one is the power antenna lead and swap it to that one instead

Never a dull moment!! Impressed by your customising & attention to detail. Hope you get the leads sorted out.