Fiberglass is a fairly common material in everyday life. It is used to make boats, ladders, tanks, and insulation just to name a few examples. Although it has been replaced by plastic in some applications, it remains relevant because of its strength and ease of patching/forming. Fiberglass is basically a mix of two things: fibers and resin.
The fibers are about the width of floss, and come in the form of a cloth like mesh. In this state, the cloth is very flexible and can be shaped in any way. The beauty of fiberglass is that first you shape the cloth, and then using the resin, it will harden and stay in that shape. The resin can be imagined as glue that dries very hard.
The first time I used fiberglass was actually for one of my own projects. I bought an old sailboat and it happed to have a hole in the hull. Of course, boat don’t work very well if they start to sink, as I figured out when I was testing it for the first time. Since the boat was made of fiberglass, it was fairly simple to patch it with fiberglass. The hole was about the size of a quarter.
The first thing to do when patching with fiberglass is to roughly sand around the perimeter of the hole. This is to get rid of the “gel coat”, which is a glorified paint on top of the fiberglass. It is essential to sand this off so that that the new fiberglass will bond to the old fibers, and it will make the final patch smooth.
Once the area around the hole was prepared, the next step is to cut out a piece of cloth to patch the hole. It should be larger than the hole on all sides so it has material to grab on to when it solidifies. After the cloth is ready, you need to mix the resin. Like many adhesives, it comes in two parts. In this case, there is resin, which reminds me of syrup, and then hardener. It is important to wear rubber gloves and be very careful with the chemicals because they will stick to your hands for days and permanently stain clothes. After you mix the two together you then saturate the cloth with the mixture, and then press it onto the sanded area, covering the hole. To make sure it sticks properly, you must press all of the air pockets out with a stick or a roller.
Fiberglass usually takes a couple of hours to dry completely, depending on the ratio of hardener and resin. Once it is dry, you just sand it down and apply another layer using the same procedure as last time. This process of adding layers makes the patch very strong. Once you are satisfied with the patch, it is very easy to sand it down and paint/gelcoat it to blend with the rest of the object.
I find fiberglass to be a very useful material because it allows you to add thin shells in any shape you want, without needing complex tools. It is waterproof, will not rot, and is reasonably strong.
That’s really cool! Is this easily accessible? Hearing about this makes me want to try it out! Also, where do the fibers of the fiberglass come from? Do you know how it is make into the material?
The only thing I can say I have experience in the realm of fiberglass is insulation in my house. I remember when I was younger my dad would always emphasize the importance of not touching the insulation and that it would make you itchy. Also, I used to have a hockey stick made out of fiberglass and once the blade of the stick has been rubbed and scraped on a road enough, it turns into an actual blade. Based on those two experiences, I have no interest in working with fiberglass. It seems like it’d be more of a pain than a help.
I hate working with fiberglass. One of the first projects we had to do in my shop class in high school was to make this name stand/paperweight thing. It had a wood base and a fiberglass top. We had to sand the wood and the fiberglass until both were nice and smooth and in the shape we wanted. That sucked so much. I specifically hated sanding the fiberglass due to the unique and unpleasant smell that came with it.