Anodised Fiberglass

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VT_Jeff
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Re: Anodised Fiberglass

Post by VT_Jeff »

JBPhoenix wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 10:14 pm I got a couple of samples of Anodised Fibreglass this morning.
Does it come in white?
There are only two seasons in Vermont: boating season, and boat-building season.

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JBPhoenix
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Re: Anodised Fiberglass

Post by JBPhoenix »

user_id=82106]
JBPhoenix wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 10:14 pm I got a couple of samples of Anodised Fibreglass this morning.
Does it come in white?
[/quote]

They do this ......but I think that is probably more of a silver?
Ha956090927da4c3ea08dba26313e7bfcY.jpg
Ha956090927da4c3ea08dba26313e7bfcY.jpg (181.09 KiB) Viewed 595 times

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VT_Jeff
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Re: Anodised Fiberglass

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JBPhoenix wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 10:19 pm user_id=82106]
JBPhoenix wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 10:14 pm I got a couple of samples of Anodised Fibreglass this morning.
Does it come in white?
They do this ......but I think that is probably more of a silver?
Ha956090927da4c3ea08dba26313e7bfcY.jpg
[/quote]


That is pretty darned interesting! If you sheathed a hull in that as a final "coat", and then sprayed on some uv clear coat, you'd have quite a finish/look.
There are only two seasons in Vermont: boating season, and boat-building season.

Completed Paul Butler 14' Clark Fork Drifter
Completed Jacques Mertens FS14LS + 10%, Build Thread
Started Iain Oughtred Tammie Norrie

joe2700
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Re: Anodised Fiberglass

Post by joe2700 »

I'm not saying painting is easy, but getting a perfect layer of glass down over an entire hull where it is ready to clear coat with no fairing, filling, or significant sanding sounds a lot harder. Maybe doable if you vacuum bag?

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Re: Anodised Fiberglass

Post by OneWayTraffic »

joe2700 wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 11:25 pm I'm not saying painting is easy, but getting a perfect layer of glass down over an entire hull where it is ready to clear coat with no fairing, filling, or significant sanding sounds a lot harder. Maybe doable if you vacuum bag?
And then I'd always be stressing everytime I come up on something. There's a reason my rubrails are UHMWPE. Not the best looking, but I'll never need to worry about it.

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Re: Anodised Fiberglass

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joe2700 wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 11:25 pm I'm not saying painting is easy, but getting a perfect layer of glass down over an entire hull where it is ready to clear coat with no fairing, filling, or significant sanding sounds a lot harder. Maybe doable if you vacuum bag?
I may be dreaming Joe but my thought is this: the hull is already fair, ready for paint, but instead you apply a single sheet of the annodized glass, fill the weave with raw epoxy. That should not create too much a a fairing problem. This is done on strip-built boats all the time, which is kind of where I got the idea. They get the hull fair, lay on a layer of glass for abrasion and leave it bright, no fairing compound etc. I don't see a big difference.

I'll freely admit that I'm far more interested in discovery than in perfection when it comes to boat-building, so different ways of doing things are always high on my list.
There are only two seasons in Vermont: boating season, and boat-building season.

Completed Paul Butler 14' Clark Fork Drifter
Completed Jacques Mertens FS14LS + 10%, Build Thread
Started Iain Oughtred Tammie Norrie

JBPhoenix
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Re: Anodised Fiberglass

Post by JBPhoenix »

Well, we got some decent weather allowing me to get a couple o 300 x 300mm samples down on a piece of standard ply - no marine ply on hand as yet.

Here are my observations.

Epoxy: West Systems 105 with 206 Hardener.

Cutting: The glass cut beautifully with my Fiskers HD Circular cloth cutter. No issues cutting clean edges and lines, I even cut a few tight curves - no worries. The fibre threads that can pull away from the cloth once cut are more like feather quills than fibres from the common cloth. What I mean by this is they are defiantly stiffer and don't spread out like cotton candy anywhere near as much as standard cloth.

Wetting: Ass always I let gravity work for me during the wetting stage - I put a good even coat of epoxy on the ply then add the cloth over it and just leave it for a few minutes. Standard cloth wets itself out about 90% just using gravity to pull it down into the epoxy. I was suprised that although the Anodised cloth is stiffer, it still wetted itself out about 80%. This pic shows the two samples after just being laid on to the epoxy.
tempImagelZVJxM.gif
This after about 5 mins...
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As you can on this red sample, it wetted itself through about 80% on its own. Then using a thing foam roller I added only to the dry areas then a final roll over the full piece.
tempImageQiXfZE.gif
The next test I wanted to do was to use a spreader/scraper onto of the glass to see if I could raise any of the Anodised powder from the cloth. I used a Tongue Depressor and gave it some decent pressure while scrapping of any extra epoxy. As you can see, the blue powder did lift some. but as I pressed with more pressure than I would with a scraper, I dont feel this an issue. **Unless I thought later, you were going over thick edge and needed some extra pressure to get it to conform. That will be my next test.
tempImage6i1R7K.gif
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I only scraped down one edge so I could compare the two.
tempImageqXhuF6.gif
Here is a close up of the two with a filler coat on, no finishing. Gotta say, it looks pretty good. although it did lose some of that woven carbon effect once it was filled with epoxy. BUT I haven't done any finishing/polishing as yet so I am hoping the effect comes through a bit more once shinned up.
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Ill do the Shaped testing soon, more than happy to answer any Q's

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