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fiberglassing large areas

Haha, please, no Mr, I get exceptionally dirty for a living! :wink1:

Catching me between coats here, got a minute...

Couple ways to go about it..

First off... If you wanna do some sort of hard tonneau cover, might best to see if any from a pickup could be modded, something for a shortbed might be close dimensionally..

But for a custom glass one.. There are quite a few ways to go about it.. You can handlay it up on a mold (basically a board for this app, unless you wanna get fancy with a bend, etc).. Glass comes in 60" wide rolls.. big, messy job.. can be done on the cheap in polyester.. You can take it further with vacuum bagging, coring, and other things.. But it's basically what you would guess.. I can go into excruciating detail on these subjects if need be...

Another alternative, far superior and would be my choice, would be to make one out of machine made composites... Haha, actually have to call my guy tommorrow and get some for my project..

Machine extruded under high pressure.. Could never handlay anything remotely like this stuff... bulletproof.. It comes in structural shapes of all kinds, angles, i-beams, sheets, etc.. cut it like plywood (diamond tipped blade). workable, glueable, etc like any other glass product... comes in 48" x 96" sheets in any thickness 1/8 to over an inch.. a sheet off 1/4, which wont even bend, in a full sheet, runs about $250... pricey, but amazing product..

http://www.creativepultrusions.com/stand.html

It's what my dash and console are made of...


13480dash_install.jpg


13480console4.jpg
 
ryoken said:
Haha, please, no Mr, I get exceptionally dirty for a living! :wink1:

Catching me between coats here, got a minute...

Couple ways to go about it..

First off... If you wanna do some sort of hard tonneau cover, might best to see if any from a pickup could be modded, something for a shortbed might be close dimensionally..

But for a custom glass one.. There are quite a few ways to go about it.. You can handlay it up on a mold (basically a board for this app, unless you wanna get fancy with a bend, etc).. Glass comes in 60" wide rolls.. big, messy job.. can be done on the cheap in polyester.. You can take it further with vacuum bagging, coring, and other things.. But it's basically what you would guess.. I can go into excruciating detail on these subjects if need be...

Another alternative, far superior and would be my choice, would be to make one out of machine made composites... Haha, actually have to call my guy tommorrow and get some for my project..

Machine extruded under high pressure.. Could never handlay anything remotely like this stuff... bulletproof.. It comes in structural shapes of all kinds, angles, i-beams, sheets, etc.. cut it like plywood (diamond tipped blade). workable, glueable, etc like any other glass product... comes in 48" x 96" sheets in any thickness 1/8 to over an inch.. a sheet off 1/4, which wont even bend, in a full sheet, runs about $250... pricey, but amazing product..

http://www.creativepultrusions.com/stand.html

It's what my dash and console are made of...


13480dash_install.jpg


13480console4.jpg

How would you work a composite like that?
 
For a tonnaeu style cover? or working with the composite in general?
 
ryoken said:
For a tonnaeu style cover? or working with the composite in general?
In general you mentioned cutting it, but what about shaping/ bonding etc
 
well, you can apply many standard glass techniques to it.. tabbing, filleting, laminating, etc... filling, fairing, refinishing...

say you had 2 pieces butted up to each to each other. grind a 2" strip, 1" on each about 1/2 thru, than lay a 2" bandage down it..

better yet, you can also do lap joints... 1/2 thu one side, 1/2 on the other side of the other piece.. lam the joint together with thickened epoxy.. you can do many "woodworking" style joints.. good grinders and saws a must.. diamond-tipped...

for right angle stuff, like my console. I lammed 1" x 1" woodstock into the corners. But what would work better is using the composite "angle iron" style stuff, and lamming that into the corner... you could also just tab the corners with fiberglass strips...

it absolutely needs to be primed before painting tho..
 
Interesting. Ive never done glas before but i can see most of what your talking about.

So with this you can just use regular glass materials, meaing they are compatible?

All in all you do some great work man definetly a :waytogo: for ya:D
 
yeah, pretty much everything is compatible... We use it extensively on cockpit floors, replacing outer glass on hulls, etc...

and thanks for the props! :D
 
ryoken said:
yeah, pretty much everything is compatible... We use it extensively on cockpit floors, replacing outer glass on hulls, etc...

and thanks for the props! :D

Thanks for the tips. Im definetly gonna have to apply some of these techniques:D
 
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