Method of thickening phenolic resin and use thereof to form vehicle components

A method of building viscosity in a sheet molding composition comprising:

• mixing into a phenolic resin liquid or solution, a thickening agent of at least one of magnesium oxide, magnesium hydroxide, calcium oxide, calcium hydroxides, zinc oxide, borates, aluminum ion chelates, aluminum trihydrate, polyphosphate, epoxides or combinations thereof, with the proviso that novolac-phenolic resin is present in said phenolic resin liquid or solution, to define an initial viscosity for a mixture;
• and
• allowing viscosity of said mixture to build from the initial viscosity such that:
• the initial viscosity is between 500 and 50,000 centiPoise (cP) and at 24 hours thereafter builds to between 1 million to 50 million cP, and a terminal viscosity thereafter is between 10 million and 200 million cP, wherein the phenolic resin of the phenolic resin liquid or solution includes novolac-phenolic resin and resol-phenolic resin in a weight ratio of (greater than 1 but less than or equal to 2):1.