Hi all,
Just a follow up on how i went with my fibreglass supplies and
glassing efforts in general. Usual disclaimers apply. i bought my
glassing supplies through FGI in Townsville. The guy i spoke to was
very helpful and sounded experienced, inidicated he had done an
apprenticeship in fibreglassing and offered advice on which products i
would need and why, and also how to use them. What i bought was;
20 metres 195gm cloth $169.40
50 metres 2" tape $63.80
10kg epoxy resin (2x5kg bottles) $153.67
1kg slow hardener $33.76
1 kg standard hardener $33.76
4kg MEK solvent $42.61
2kg Qcels $40.15
6" ring groove roller $42.61
Some notes here..... All prices include GST. This was enough for me
to do some repairs on a mirror, glass the deck of my cobra cat, glass
the bottom and sides of an old sabot, and do some repairs to a 420 and
still have around half the materials remaining. The total package was
about 5 boxes, and one roll of cloth which was 1 metre wide. 24kg
total weight and delivery from townsville to mount isa was $27.50!!!
The epoxy resin seems ludicrously cheap at $15.36/kg. This compares
to other epoxies I have seen at 3-5 times this cost. i dont know a
lot about epoxies, but this stuff seems alright and is priced similar
to many companies polyester resins.
The cloth was a 0/90 weave, and is the most common weight for light
boat work. It wets out easily and handles pretty well. Much stronger
than chopped strand, and much easier to work with.
In retrospect i would have bought a lot more tape. Ive almost used it
all up alread
Im getting very good mileage out of the resin. 2kg of Qcels was way
too much!!!! To give some idea of the volume of Qcels we are talking
about here.... 1kg of Qcels occupied the same size box as the 10kg of
resin! that means i got 2 boxes of q cels. I found that to get
peanut butter consistency for putty work and fillets, I had to mix
qcels and resin at the ration of 2:1 meaning that i have enough qcels
to turn all my resin into peanut butter. half a kg would have been
plenty for me.
I havent found any need to use the roller yet. Ive been using
autobody style putty knives (plastic) and scrapers for the putty work,
paint brushes for resin, and a 4" mo hair paint roller for wetting out
the cloth which works excellently.
I found that there is a disposable plastic cup available in
supermarkets that has a lower ring on it, and an upper ring that
equates *exactly* to 1:5 which is the mixing ratio of this epoxy.
This saved me huge time. The cups are 285ml, and filled to the top
ring I'd estimate around 230-250ml of epoxy. This seems like about
the right amount that i can work with in putty or resin form and get
good results before it goes off. When i glassed a large area I had a
friend continuously batching epoxy with the cups, he would mix, pour
onto the pre-laid cloth and i would start rolling, By the time i was
finished wetting out he had the next batch ready and we worked well
this way.
a couple of things i learned is that epoxy will generate an allergic
reaction from you with time and exposure. Wear gloves. Never wash it
off your hands with MEK as this puts it straight into your blood
stream along with some nasty carcinogens. Plain old cheap white
vinegar at 70c/litre works great for clean up of epoxy on hands,
clothes, tiles (whoops) and tools.
The Qcels are incredible! They are like a liquid rather than a solid,
and lighter than air. you have to be careful trying to mix them into
epoxy because they can go everywhere, and they can also just sit on
top of the epoxy and never blend in. I had pretty good success with
putting the q cels in the bottom of a cup, then pouring the epoxy on
top and mixing. They are super useful and miles better than sawdust
or talc which is what i had previously used. at $20/kg they are mega
good value.
Shaun
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