Working with fiberglass

[nevermind65]

Hello,

I ran into a few complications with the fiberglass body on my car. It looks as though I'm going to have to remove portions of the wheel lip/rear quarter and reattach it to the body.

I always used Duraglass on fiberglass, but never for an application such as this. Is there any type of fiberglass filler that will work better than Duraglass? Duraglass seems to work good as a filler, but it doesn't seem to have the strength of regular fiberglass.

Thanks in advance.

Ron

[vettestr]

I will send you a PM to make a few suggestions on basics. I am jumping to belief you glued components together and did not lay the parts up so my bad if wrong here. Adding panels or installing 2 components too each other should be layed up to become 1 and not glued together with kitty hair. Not talking down to efforts but making a general thread statement for others in the same boat. A high quality filler can be made from resign and micro bubbles and fumed silica. Use a resign like PolyEster that has a 2 - 6% shrinkage compared to a generic (ace hardware type that will shrink like 15 to 18%. Bondo is not allowed in our shop !!! and will shrink like 15% ++ and does not bind as well as a resign based product. Also avoid talc based fillers even with resign fillers. Duraglass is not a bad product but mechanical lay-up or gluing parts together is my point.

[shultz]

I agree with Vettestr; I make my own epoxy mud and I use 3M Micro Balloons and System Three Epoxy Resin, I like System Three the best because it is the most flexible; you will have a choice of hardener slow , med , fast; I like slow or medium. I keep my epoxy resins in a old refrigerator because it will not go bad or solidify. When I do any job and have some extra mud in the mixing cup I put it in the refrigerator because it will slow down the curing process and you can add to the project. I've been doing custom fiber glass work for twenty eight years and I never ever use BONDO. I also use Interlux 3000 epoxy primer marine primer; it will not reject any paint of any kind and sands like a dream and you can really build it up. I also have resins custom made to my specs. and some cost $950.00 a gallon. This link has the best products on the market. www.fiberglasssupply.com
Check out the Divinycell.

[nevermind65]

Thank you both for all your help on my fiberglass problem. I really appreciate the information you gave.

Thank you!

[PaulProe]

I want to make some mods to my bodY (reduce size of headlight bowl cutout) and am trying to learn the correct procedure of "patching" to existing fabrication.

I need to shrink the hole from about 6" to about 5" then recut. Building on an edge really subjects the build-up to the probability of cracking.

Do you know of a FAQ page on processes such as this.

Thanks

Paul