I'm making some fibreglass headlight shells for my new project. Some of the gaps are really tight, too small to get a finger in, in places only a couple of mm wide. How do you sand in tight corners and difficult to get at places?

What about making some sanding sticks, glueing sand paper to some strips of thin ali?

Rich

have you got any work in progress pictures of your headlight shells? I'm needing to do the same sort of thing on my car soon, with the same headlights

Here's a pic. There will be a perspex cover over the top, which will be vacuum formed. The shell will be painted with spray on texture and grey car interior paint but I want it reasonably smooth before applying the paint.
Rescued attachment headlight shell raw.JPG

thats exactly what i'm trying to make too (well, want to try to make )

i'm going to go for the single hi/lo beam hellas, but i want a perspex cover with indicator and sidelight in there too

how did you make the mould (spelling?) for it?

as for sanding into corners, how about a thick piece of steel plate, 3mm perhaps, with sand paper wrapped around it?

[Edited on 8/11/08 by blakep82]

Sandpaper on a stick sounds like a good idea.

The shell is made from flat pieces of fibreglass cut with an angle grinder and bonded together with glass fibre bridging compound (I love that stuff). The round pieces are grp set inside a plastic tub of the right diameter.

Credit / loyalty cards with wet and dry wrapped round. However, the best are the extra thin promo ones they send you for things like Airmiles. Even more flexible. I use them evey day on bumper mouldings and other tight areas.

For the really tight stuff just double or triple up the W&D and use that way. You'll need to be patient as it'll take a while with 1500, 2000 grit!

Edit:
Just seen you pic. If you're going to use standard car texture paint as used for bumpers then you will cover fairly heavy grit sanding marks with a couple of coats.

With that shape i would use doubled up Abranet sheets which are very flexible.

HTH

Mrs hal has some finger nail sanders, they might do the trick, but you'll have to get your own

The shells are now complete. Thanks for all the advice. My first attempt at vacuum forming the covers was a little less than successful but that's a topic for another thread.
Rescued attachment shells.JPG