Will fiberglass ever stop "wiggling"?

[Maricopa]

After 20+years & 8,000+ vintage race & street miles

8K in 20 years? No wonder it looks good, it never sees the outdoors!

Mine had 8K on it it's first year and regularly sits in the AZ sun. After 8 years it's still pretty smooth but a few problem areas can be noticed, mostly in the POS Tristates hood.

[Bernica]

I watched a friend of mine in the high-end auto painting business paint an old Corvette. He primed it with something he said was new. A carbon fiber based primer of some sort. He said that once that primer was on, nothing was going to come through, check or crack. I will ask him what it was.

[DanEC]

Originally Posted by Bernica

I watched a friend of mine in the high-end auto painting business paint an old Corvette. He primed it with something he said was new. A carbon fiber based primer of some sort. He said that once that primer was on, nothing was going to come through, check or crack. I will ask him what it was.

I would be curious to hear what it is also. It's been a regular practice for decades to spray gelcoat early Corvettes stripped to bare fiberglass (they received no gelcoat by GM) during re-paints. I sprayed my own and it's some tough stuff and a mess to work with - but as long as put on to a specified thickness, it will seal down fiberglass and repairs like almost nothing else. Some painters have converted to epoxy primer on bare fiberglass but on a rough body I think many of the pros still like glecoat. I haven't read about anything like a carbor fiber based primer over on the Corvette Forum yet.

[Bernica]

I know he said it was a ground up carbon mix with either epoxy or gelcoat. I know he said it cost $$$ and he was all excited about it, but said it was a b_tch to put on and he only got one shot. He is a typical crazy painter and loves new stuff. I will find out this weekend.

[mikeinatlanta]

This thread if full of misinformation.

1. Whether the body is hand laid glass cloth, matt, or chop gun has zero to do with this issue. Kevlar or carbon in the laminate is also irrelevant.

2. The idea that any primer has sufficient rigidity to be structurally significant in a composite laminate is ridiculous. If the composite wants to move, the primer is either moving with it or coming off. EDIT: Print through is not the same as post cure creep.

3. This issue is directly related to the quality of the resin, and the quality control in mixing the resin. If your body isn't stable after a year, you can pretty much bet on it never being stable. Without knowing the specific resin they used, there is no way to determine if your issue is a material defect, or just cheap materials that shouldn't have been used in the first place.

4. Generally speaking (very general) the resin food chain (bottom to top) is cheap polyester @ $25 per gal, better polyester @ $30 per gal, good polyester (like tooling resin) @ $39 per gal, cheap epoxies @ $75 per gal, vinylester (can you say factory five?) @ $45 per gal, quality epoxies @ $100-$800 per gal. The problem with cheap epoxies is excessive flex and post cure creep.

[DanEC]

Originally Posted by mikeinatlanta

This thread if full of misinformation.

2. The idea that any primer has sufficient rigidity to be structurally significant in a composite laminate is ridiculous. .

I don't believe anyone actually made this leap of faith - although the thread subject did get slightly hi-jacked by an extraneous comment about a supposedly new primer material. Having made major repairs, gelcoated and painted a 66 Corvette I couldn't help but follow up on it.