Eric Dellamater
Well-known member
With all the discussion lately on Ed's thread and Phils threads on what type of wood and differing techniques on how to do things, one topic that was recently brought up on Ed's thread was fairing in the repair. John was mentioning using fiberglass mat over the glass to help fill in the weave so you do NOT sand the glass. Sound advice.
however, there area few concerns with that. Mat is cheap, yes, but it likes to soak up LOTS of epoxy, which as we all know, is not cheap. Second, mat does not offer a lot in terms of structural strength or rigidity, notice please, I did not say none, just not a lot, so in essence, you may not really be gaining a whole lot over just using microballoons/epoxy and filling the weave of the glass. But, those that know balloons, know they then need a skim coat to cover them to fill all the micro holes created when you sand that down...further effort.
One gentleman who made a rather unique boat has a different method. I know this has been linked on here years ago since that is where I first saw it, but I thought I would bring it back up for others to see it and discuss.
http://duckworksmagazine.com/03/r/articles/glass/bottom.htm
(the advanced editor is not working for me right this minute, so I apologize for that link not being a hot link, I will try to edit that later if/when it works again)
Anyhow, you will notice that this man took .30 poly film in a roll, and applied it directly to wet epoxy, please note the effects. At the bottom of the page, there is a further link to his entire boat project. it is stunning and worth the 10 minutes you might give it.
I have used this technique to fix 3 different issues on my wife's boat where she dinged the gel coat...once on the dock...once on a sea wall....and once with water skis.....(imagine if it was us guys who did that....the horror of it all!! )
Anyhow, after applying all the layers/resin etc, I simply layed on the plastic film, rolled it, and unless you get extremely close, you will not notice the repairs, but even then, it is not because of unfair or unevenness, it is a color match thing that I was not able to hit exactly perfectly.
Ed, I was thinking of you with this one...
however, there area few concerns with that. Mat is cheap, yes, but it likes to soak up LOTS of epoxy, which as we all know, is not cheap. Second, mat does not offer a lot in terms of structural strength or rigidity, notice please, I did not say none, just not a lot, so in essence, you may not really be gaining a whole lot over just using microballoons/epoxy and filling the weave of the glass. But, those that know balloons, know they then need a skim coat to cover them to fill all the micro holes created when you sand that down...further effort.
One gentleman who made a rather unique boat has a different method. I know this has been linked on here years ago since that is where I first saw it, but I thought I would bring it back up for others to see it and discuss.
http://duckworksmagazine.com/03/r/articles/glass/bottom.htm
(the advanced editor is not working for me right this minute, so I apologize for that link not being a hot link, I will try to edit that later if/when it works again)
Anyhow, you will notice that this man took .30 poly film in a roll, and applied it directly to wet epoxy, please note the effects. At the bottom of the page, there is a further link to his entire boat project. it is stunning and worth the 10 minutes you might give it.
I have used this technique to fix 3 different issues on my wife's boat where she dinged the gel coat...once on the dock...once on a sea wall....and once with water skis.....(imagine if it was us guys who did that....the horror of it all!! )
Anyhow, after applying all the layers/resin etc, I simply layed on the plastic film, rolled it, and unless you get extremely close, you will not notice the repairs, but even then, it is not because of unfair or unevenness, it is a color match thing that I was not able to hit exactly perfectly.
Ed, I was thinking of you with this one...
