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i made a custom enclosure for my trunk and i cut the peices a lil short on 1 side......now theres like a 1/4 inch gap.... whats the best way to cover it up? maybe fill it with wood putty then sand it and put carpet over it? also i dont know what to cover it with. what do u think
lemme know

 
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What did you cut short? The panels on the box? If you did that recut the wood, it will never be strong enough with wood putty. The box has to be airtight.

 
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you can cut MDF wedges and liquid nails them in real good, not as good as if they fit flush, but they will be fine and stay sealed.

carpet is so boring, my vote is to either (easy choice) vinyl it, or (hard choice) put a thin layer of fiberglass over it and paint it. you get extra points if you take it to a shop and have them paintmatch it the color of your car.....

 
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the fiber glass sounds cool....how do i go about getting it? where do they sell it? you got me thinkin now

 
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any hardware store or even walmart sells it in a small bag. plenty for a small box. youll also need a can of resin, quart should be plenty, but get 1/2 gallon if you want enuff to really play around.

like $25 worth of stuff. youll also need rubber glves, mixing cups, stirring sticks, a plastic squeegee, a facemask (if your sensitive to chemicals), and of course, lots of sandpaper, 120, 220, and 400 grit. you can stop at 220 if your gonna vinyl and not paint.

 
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or you could just silicon the space, it would be airtight. it would take alot of silicon

 
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so you get all your stuff, and of course yoru box is already presanded perfectly flat, even 80 grit would work fine for this, your ready to start glassing.

you start by laying your cloth directly on your surface. you can take this time to smooth it out and get all teh kinks out, follow all the bends and such. if you have a cubic box this will be rediculously easy, as you can do one side at a time.

when you mix yoru resin(time to don the gloves), be sure to use the correct amount of hardener! stir for two minutes (im serious, 120 seconds, ive talked to ppl who say their stuff came out all sticky, figured out they stirred for about 10 seconds)

now you pour your resin directly on the glass, and smooth it out with teh squeegee. remember, the smoother you make it now, the less sanding work you do later. you need enuff resin to soak the cloth completely till it turns clear (its white dry) but you dont want to drown it. this is called "wetting the cloth". once the whole of it has been wet, and squeegeed so there are no airbubbles (bubbles suck! they make your stuff look like crap!) you let it set (takes anywhere from 2 hours to a day) then you can trim teh exess, and do another side.

when all sides are done and trimmed, and you have all teh glass you want on there (you can do as many layers as you want) you "fill the weave" this will take FAR less resin as did wetting the glass out. my carbon fiber trunk panels DRANK resin, took at least 4-5 ounces of resin to wet the large panel, each coating on top is an ounce of resin. basically you are putting on resin and squeegeeing it out to get it flat, but also give your box a better finish. remember, you need to sand it FLAT!

once youve finished all teh sides, maybe put additional layers on corners and such, you are ready to start sanding. this is a long and painful process! You start of course with the course grit, and start to take off resin. keep sanding untill you have nothing but a DEAD FLAT side, where all you see are uniform scratches over 100% of the surface. if there is one spot thats really hard to get, or is too low, or anythign like that, its alright to add more resin, just be careful, and if you need to do this after 220 or 400, realize you have to rough up the surface with 120 or courser, and must sand all over again.

once you have it completely flat, you use the 220 and the 400 successivly to take teh scratches out. 220 to take 120 scratches out, and 400 to take 220 scratches out. then you can spray paint it, take it to teh powdercoating place, or anywhere that will paint fiberglass. if you want to paint it yourself, your on your own, i cant help with that. in fact, i dont know if you are supposed to stop at 220, or go up to 600 or what (ive heard all three, most recently 400)

while sanding, remmeber that ANY imperfection WILL show right through, so don't do a h a l f a s s e d job at it. to give you an idea, imagine sanding your entire trunk floor. ive been going at it every other day/ every three days for about three weeks now, three hours a day on average. i am doing twice the sanding you will be doing, and i have a little less than half of it done. So take your time and do a good job and it will come out better looking than you could ever imagine it to!

 
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silicone the gap? wouldn't the silicone flex and eventually rip apart?

as for fiberglassing, its just too much work for me, vinyls good enough...

 
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WHEN SANDING WHATS THE BEST WAY BY HAND OR AN ELETRIC SANDER? I HAVE 1 THAT VIBRATES IS THAT OK? OR DO I NEED A BELT SANDER.

 
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If you wanted to use a power tool you should use a D/A (dual action) sander (what body guys use). A jitterbug sander i dont think will help you too much and a belt sander will cut grooves into your surface.

 
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belt sander is fine, and actually would sand using teh best technique. when sanding small pieces by hand, you want something that only goes in one direction because you can cross hatch grits of sandpaper, thats how you know to go on, cause all your grooves in one direction are replaced by finer grooves in the other direction.

I've used all sorts of sanders, and I like teh orbital by far the best. But due to expense, I run a craftsman POS right now, and it works just fine. only has put a couple grooves where i didnt want them, and with a bit of effort they will come out.

as to the power vs hand sanding, I cant imagine doing something larger than 10 square inces by hand, i would just want to kill myself. Ive been sanding JUST the floor of my trunk, and its taken about 2 weeks to finish or so, and that is with a gigantic power sander (uses 1/3 sheet paper) working for 2-3 hours every other day/every day.