Fiberglass Experts

[Shawn Hollis]

Guys I am a Golf Course Superintendent and I need help with a little project at work. We use a cooler made to drop in the back of a utility cart as our traveling beverage service. It is made of fiberglass mat it looks like to me. The young lady who operates the cart had an accident (read as the clumsy blonde wasn't watching what she was doing) the whole cooler came out of the cart and broke on a couple of the corners, and the lid cracked. I figure this thing is made out of polyester resin because the bottom looks like the inside of a fiberglass boat. Should I go back with polyester resin with my patch job? Or would epoxy resin do a better job? Either way sand down thru paint and patch from both side with cloth and resin? Thanks for your help, Shawn

 

[Lou Tisch]

Guys I am a Golf Course Superintendent and I need help with a little project at work. We use a cooler made to drop in the back of a utility cart as our traveling beverage service. It is made of fiberglass mat it looks like to me. The young lady who operates the cart had an accident (read as the clumsy blonde wasn't watching what she was doing) the whole cooler came out of the cart and broke on a couple of the corners, and the lid cracked. I figure this thing is made out of polyester resin because the bottom looks like the inside of a fiberglass boat. Should I go back with polyester resin with my patch job? Or would epoxy resin do a better job? Either way sand down thru paint and patch from both side with cloth and resin? Thanks for your help, Shawn

Personally, I'd go with polyester and CSM (chopped strand mat). Grind through the gel coat and into the fiberglass.......dishing on both sides of any cut or break, down to thinnnnnn at the break. That way you an get your glass to bond to a larger area and a full repair. Back it with tape if necessary. Cut your glass to fit in layers, prewet & start your laminating with the largest piece FIRST and then move to successively smaller pieces. Over fill the area and you can sand smooth and shoot a coat of gel coat if you'd like. You can even add some gel coat pigment to your polyester resin to tone it closer to the finish color.
Holler if you need more info.
Lou
www.lockstockbarrell.com

 

[Shannon K]

if the cracks are very small and you want a quick easy fix, look for a product called solar-rez they sell alot of it at surfboard shops to patch dings, or check ebay, get the big tube, not the small size. it is very eay to use, it comes in a tube like toothpaste and is solar activated by sunlight. what i do is sqeeze it into the cracks that you roughed up with sandpaper "in the shade" then i level it out with a razor-blade, then let it sit out in direct bright sunlight for a few minutes till its cured. then wet sand it with 600 grit, and mabie paint it if you want to. you might have to use clamps to hold the pieces together untill the solar-rez kicks. never mix polyester with epoxy resin it will cause a chemical reaction that will release some of the more toxic ingrdients in the polyester resin,mkep's.... styrene...(sp) this has happened at some surboard factories and it has put guys into the hospital with bad reactions.