Learning about fiberglass fabrication?

Of course there is a flip side to this topic. Our boat was 25 years old when we bought it. It had spent its entire life under various names baking in the sun in San Francisco Bay until we came along. Fiberglass boats like Grand Banks in the early 70s tended to be overbuilt. In the case of American Marine they switched from wood to fiberglass in '73 and they were not shy about the layers of glass they put into their hulls since the material was new to them and they felt that safe was better than sorry.

But gelcoat was new to them, too, and while their hulls, particularly the early ones like ours, are built like tanks, the gelcoat was another matter. I've been told early gelcoat was not as tough as later formulas and the manufacturers were still finding out how to apply it, how thick it should be, and so on. Our boat's gelcoat has taken quite a beating. In addition to the expected eggshellng of much of the surface, there are all sorts of chips, dings, thin spots, scrapes, etc.

We'd love to throw twenty or thirty thousand at the boat and take it up to Vancouver and have the whole boat properly prepped and painted. We actively started investigating this not long after buying the boat, and then we met a fellow who caused us to think again.

This guy was selling his deceased father's yacht, a seventy or eighty footer that had been hit by a small freighter and been completely repaired by Delta Marine, the super-yacht manufacturer located on the Duwamish Waterway in Seattle. Part of the rebuild included an absolutely spectacular paint job, the best I have ever seen on any vessel, bar none.

I was on board the boat talking to the owner and mentioned our old GB and how much we'd love to have it painted like his boat had been. He laughed and said there are two ways to go. One is to have a beautiful paint job put on and then spend the rest of your days terrified that you or somebody else will scratch it. His recommendation was the second way--- leave the boat the way it is, scratches, dings, and all, and just enjoy it without the ever-present fear that you'll get it dirty, scuffed, or dinged.

While we would still love to have the boat painted, from that moment on we have not had any heartburn over the exterior finish on our boat. It's almost 38 years old now, looks it, and that's just the way it is. We wax it from time to time, but like the helicopter pilot at the TV station I used to work at said about the station's crappy, cheap helicopter that fell out of the sky on a regular basis, "You can only polish a turd so much."

If we ever find $30k lying in a gutter somewhere, sure, we'll send the boat north and have a nice paint job put on it. But if that day never comes, we'll just continue to enjoy the boat minus the ever-present worry about the finish.

We may someday try painting it ourselves, starting with a small area like the forward cabin exterior, just because we think it would be an interesting thing to attempt. But it's right down at the bottom of the "to do" list.

You can find more information on our web, so please take a look.

-- Edited by Marin on Saturday 11th of December 2010 01:40:50 PM

Having been doing some fiberglassing over the last couple days myself, I recommend cloth over mat. The mat seems to come apart if you try to work the resin in via a brush, or even with a roller.

I've done light fiberglass work in the past to repair the glass on my race bike. Nothing like that what I am attempting to do currently.

If you are looking for more details, kindly visit xzh.

I'm currently building an enclosure to go between the engine and the trunk of my kit car that had to be cut out for the new engine to fit. Having watched many YouTube videos and a visited the advanced composite Community College school near my house I decided to try some high-tech Manufacturing in my garage.

I made a mold laid down some epoxy for a gel coat. Then put a couple layers of glass and resin rolled it up in some plastic and threw it in a huge Ziploc vacuum bag for storing clothes and vacuumed it down. All went fairly well. It needed some more glass so I gave it a coat of resin put the glass some more resin Karma threw it in the bag and vacuumed it down. It did not go so well with the second coat of glass as I forgot to wrap it in plastic before throwing it in the bag. The corners dug into the vacuum bag and tour the bag. Hit would not hold a vacuum even after the tears were taped up. I'm going to need to do some additional work.

If I ever decide to redo this piece, I think I will build a vacuum forming table to pull the plastic tight around the peice instead of using the vacuum bag.

I used what I had for glass both Matt and cloth, the mat came apart on the brush and roller, but the cloth stayed together due to its woven nature instead of random strand nature. I think the cloth also was easier to form them around the curves.

Want more information on fiberglass fabric manufacturer? Feel free to contact us.