The eyes have it

 

The shark is going to have red, pointed tail lights, that light up for eyes.  The tail lights and their holders are mounted into fiberglass forms that will be attached to the sharks head after the head is done.

Fiberglass cloth being attached to the frame.

I wanted to see just how the head would look with some teeth. The tricky part was going to be the teeth on the upper jaw. Anyone that has ever painted overhead knows the problem. It would be much worse with brushing on of a thick layer of fiberglass resin. This problem would have to be solved.

Turning the shark head over would be the solution. Putting a pipe through the sharks jaws would give me a pivot point if I could support and anchor it some how. I had two trees on the edge of the driveway that I could use. Hanging two come along hoists in the trees gave me the ability to raise the 300 pound shark head high enough so I could spin it over.

The process was slow but steady and would do the trick.

Now work could begin on the roof of the mouth and upper teeth placement.

Gravity would now be my friend.

The teeth were attached to the jaws by wrapping a strip of 4" wide fiberglass cloth around each tooth and then fixing it in place by coating it with the resin and hardener.

After a few hours of hot gluing and fiberglassing the teeth were all in place and the shark rotated back to normal.
 

Shark teeth and fiberglass

Having learned a thing or two in the process of making 15 replacement teeth for the shark in downtown Darlington I began making the 24 new teeth I would need for the KidWind wind tunnel shark. First I would cover the original shark teeth I had with Saran Wrap. This would keep the plaster cast material from sticking to the original's tooth surface. 

After a few minutes the plaster cast material was hard and the cast shell removed from the original shark tooth.

Now the plaster cast for each tooth was covered with a layer of 9 ounce fiberglass cloth. Hot glue was used to keep the fiberglass cloth in place until a coat of resin hardener was applied.

The final step was to remove the plaster cast material from the inside of the hardened fiberglass. One down and 23 to go.

While working on the teeth I could go back to the shark frame. First I covered the 1/2" rebar with 1/2" chicken wire using hog rings to hold it in place. The chicken wire would help give the fiberglass cloth some shape and support.

Here you can see some of the chicken wire on the top of the sharks head.

I got the idea to try fiberglass made of chopped fibers about 1" long called  fiberglass matt. This was a mistake and the matt literally fell apart do to gravity when it was soaked down with the resin hardener. 

Now it was time to start covering the chicken wire with the fiberglass cloth. Again hot glue was used to hold the fiberglass cloth in place. The cloth would then be covered with resin and hardener. The finished product would be just like a Corvette body. It looked like it was going to take a lot of cloth and gallons of resin to do the job.