Fibre Glass

[ragey]

Hi chaps.

I have been thinking of using my 2b body to make a fibreglass mould so I can put a fibreglass body on it.

Today I rang a fibre glass company and he said there wouldnt be much differance in weight is this true.

Im not too botherd in the weight but i always thought glass would be a lot lighter.

paul.

[Shaft]

Hi chaps.

I have been thinking of using my 2b body to make a fibreglass mould so I can put a fibreglass body on it.

Today I rang a fibre glass company and he said there wouldnt be much differance in weight is this true.

Im not too botherd in the weight but i always thought glass would be a lot lighter.

paul.

 

Hi Paul,

 

Glassfibre is not heavy in it's basic make up, but to achieve a suitably strong part it will be considerably thicker than Alloy or St/St sheets.

Due to the amount of resin used to achieve the thickness is where all the weight will come from.

 

That said, it is possible to get the weight down by laying up the part in dry fibres, then it's sealed in a Vacuum bag and resin is infused into it.

This method will use less resin, but cost a lot more to do and not a common practice for low volume quantites of parts due to the cost of tooling it up.

 

Another option is where the part is layed up using Pre-Preg glassfibre, again this method uses less resin than wet lay up, but will need a Vacuum to compress it as it cures and ideally should be cured in an Autoclave to allow excess resin to bleed out as it cooks.

 

HTH,

 

Nick.