killerballerina said:
So this is probably a stupid question, but I've started the pep process and am now looking at fiberglass. I have looked in forum and haven't found a best choice for the fiberglass, weight or type. I have looked around off site and found chopped mat and cloth and numerous different weights for possible choices and am now completely at a loss of where to go with regards to the fiberglass. Any suggestions?
At Home depot or walmart there are 2 types of fiberglass (I'm assuming the same at other auto stores too):
Chopped Mat (Otherwise refered to as fiberglass mat) - Looks like a damn rats nest was pressed flat. Per layer it is stronger than the fiberglass cloth. The main drawbacks to this type of fiberglass is that it is very hard to work with when resined, it sticks to your gloves and brushes like crazy, and hairballs of fiberglass/resin build up quickly. After every coat of fiberglass I usually go in with a dremel, sand down the burrs and add another layer. That said, you need to do more prep work for the next layer than the cloth. It also absorbs alot more resin than the cloth.
Woven fiberglass (Otherwise called fiberglass cloth): Easier to work with, woven pattern. The cloth won't fray as much as your mat, and whatever comes off is usually very nice and neat, you can usually lay a fresh layer of cloth over a cured layer without much prep work. But it is not as strong as the mat, you need about 2 layers of cloth per layer of mat. It also uses less resin.
Both are good and bad in their own ways, also the weights just mean how much fiberglass there is per unit (larger the number the more fiberglass there is), for all intensive purposes the ones you find at HD or Wal-mart are more than enough. There are also tricks to working with both that will allow you to apply them with minimal cursing.
You can buy them on line, but just going to your local walmart you can get a 8sqfoot piece for around 4 bucks and some change.
As always wear a mask, gloves, longsleeve shirt and long jeans when cutting/handling fiberglass. It *IS* very fine glass strands, and just by cutting them, you release shards of glass into the air. If you don't have a mask, you breathe them in (and if you breath in enough, you will cough up blood), if you don't wear long sleeve/pants, the glass shards will get on your skin and poke you... alot... and you can't get them out...
And always wear a resperator and gloves when working with resin. But I'm sure you already knew that
