We are reworking this street rod style 50 merc into a mild kustom. Now the customer wants flush mounted skirts. This merc already had glass back fenders and i could not talk him into replacing them with steel ones. So i had to get all ichey & sticly and do some shitty glass work. Had a ruff set of steel 51 merc skirts sitting around the shop so i tweaked them a little by added a 5/8" wide steel lip around them and modifeied the lower lip to add some mild kustom style to them. Then i made a fiberglass mounting frame with the skirt as the mold. Then i glassed the new skirt frame onto the glass fender. Sounds easy but i am still scratching. Would reather work with steel over glass any day of the year. GB & Thanks, Rick & Carol Erickson of EXK EXTREME KUSTOMS www.ericksonskustoms.com
Dear Lord, you used mat and polyester resin, no wonder you're itching! It doesn't have to be that way, man; that's the old, nasty way.
I believe everything but the part where you said you did shitty glass work. I have yet to see anything shitty roll out of that shop. But damn I'm getting itchy just looking at the pictures.
How do they scrap fiberglass boats, and do the reuse that crap once it is ground up? That's something I'd like to watch on "Dirty Jobs".
Always use barrier cream on your arms and exposed skin PRIOR to bweginning your glass work. Long sleeves help alot also.
A big fan behind you blowing the shit away is a must have, worked in a vet custom shop for a few months and it was cotton sweat shirts, gloves,hood sock,and levi's all the time. other than that it is a breeze to work with, you can't make to many mistakes you can't fix real quick!
The whole 80's I spent building everything from pools to cruisers and yachts and surf ski's... you haven't lived yet.
cover yourself in baby powder before you start .only wash with cold water. i hate that crap as well try to stay away from it...
I've always used those faqirly cheap long arm gloves and never have a problem but when I was younger....I'd have patches of hair on my arms glued for weeks.
I do a lot of fiberglass work, but I havent used that kind of polyester and mat junk for thirty years. That looks like something out of the 60s. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o> I use mostly epoxy today, but sometimes vinylester resins, and stitched cloth. No smoking polyesters kicking off unpredictably, no kitty hair, and no itching. Work in a t-shirt with bare arms, but I usually wear latex gloves.
cheap paper painter suits with hood (under $10 usually at auto body supply store) werk great. wash with cold water apply minimally, the more you put on, the more you have to sand off
I tape the hose from the shop vac to the die grinder or sander I'm using and it seems to help keep some of the dust off, still sucks though.
I think old glass boats simply get trashed. There's a boat shop up the street and he's taken a Sawzall to aobut 6 boats so far. Cutting them into roughly 2' x 2' pieces. Most of those were 60's-70's or so, 16 footers. Don't know the whole story, but I'm guessing he may simply be destroying his inventory due to the inventory tax thing and the tough economic times the nation is having. He's got a nice 23' sailboat, an about 24' fairly nice cabin cruiser and a fair looking flatbottom. Be interesting to see what happens to those.
spent a couple years in a fiberglass plant, mostly on a winding machine making pipe, the pipe i helped make was from 1/2" dia. up to 8ft dia. and 40ft long, about 100 people in the plant and we would use maybe 10, 45 gallon drums of resin every 8 hour shift, matt, roving, choppers guns, grinders, winding machine useing 50 plus balls of fiberglass string, all this was running at the same time in one big room, after a couple of weeks it was all good, you learn how to work around it and not get it all over yourself.
Have any info on the new better way would be greatly appreacated. I have heard of the epoxys but also heard they have a big shrinkage factor so realy never looked any further into them. I know this will not the last time i will have to play with stuff like this in my line of work.
Well, someone told you the exact oposite of the facts. Epoxy is much more dimensionally stable than poly systems. I've worked in composites for over 30 years, I never have an itch problem, even sanding. So West systems is a good epoxy to use, and comes with pumps pre calibrated so you get the exact correct ratio of resin to hardner. Also, Aeropoxy, available at www.avtcomposites.com or Wicks aircraft supply, or aircraft spruce and specialty, is an excellent, low cost, high quality resin system. Then use a nice woven fiberglass, and throw all that mat away. your parts will be lighter, stronger, easier to build, a better part in every way; and it will cost a few dollars more. It's well worth it. One of these days I need to do a tech thread for everybody here.
Is this going to get confusing like electricty? Say you have a friend with a glass formula 5000 body that is beat to crap, with the new stuff bond to the old stuff? Fabing stuff out of aluminum sheet sounds easier to me.
I feel your irritation. Excuse me...I have an itch I need to adress...AAAAHHHHH much better. Many years ago I worked at a place that made fiberglass, Kevlar and Carbon fiber parts for everything from Beechcrafts to the space shuttle in Kansas. Interesting job. Nothing better that standing at a sanding booth with a extraction system that worked for crap and sanding that shit in a hot shop with no A/C. I can feel it now. The Kansas heat, coated with sweat and fiberglass dust. help me. ARRRGGHHH!!! I'd go home after 8 hellish hours & soak in a tub of cool water and vinagar. That was supposed to lessen the torment. It helped a little but I had a terrible addiction to dill pickles for some reason. Oh yeah, Great looking car!!
I worked in a Vette shop for years and have become mostly immune to it. I can sand it all day and it doesn't make me very itchy at all. But I also usually take logical precautions. Best one is a stong fan blowing across my work area taking most of the dust away from me.
My long-winded rant: I cant believe that all these guys are still using polyesters. I see those east coast idiots on tv making speaker boxes out of plywood and polyester/bondo crap. Those things must weight 100 pounds. Right out of the 60s. <O<OIve been working with fiberglass for over 40 years. The old stuff we had to work with way back then was awful. I havent used any polyesters for almost thirty years. I rarely use mat, and I never use chopped up fiberglass strands, or kitty hair we used to call it.<O <O Epoxy is the greatest thing ever to happen to fiberglass construction and repairs. Epoxy has so many advantages over the polyesters - the most important being that it doesnt shrink like the polyesters do. And epoxy will bond to old polyester fiberglass better that the polyesters. Polyesters dont really bond to anything very well because they shrink. Epoxy doesnt shrink, and it isnt brittle like the polyesters. Epoxy is predictable, easy to work with, and it doesnt go off in a cloud of smoke. Epoxy parts are also much more stable. A dark colored car polyester body or boat hull is really unstable out in the sun. Today high-end boat builders are using epoxy or vinylester resins. Some are using Kevlar, E-Glass, and carbon fiber infused with epoxy - no wood, no polyesters. If you look at all the modern composite products being made today - aircraft components, race cars, race boats, they are all being made of exotic composites using epoxy and in most cases, by vacuum bagging, and resin infusing. Composite aircraft and aircraft parts are being made today of epoxies, vacuum resin infused, and then cured under heat and pressure.<O <O There are probably boats and maybe car bodies being still being made using chopper guns. I last used a chopper gun in 1975. Personally, I wouldnt buy a boat made that way. I see that repop car bodies are made with wood and steel reinforcements. I dont understand that. If we can build commercial aircraft and boats without steel and wood, why cant they build a simple 32 roadster all glass? <OThe best fairing compounds, in my opinion, are vinyl esters. All the advantages of epoxy, but I think they sand out better. Try a vinyl ester faring compound and youll never use polyester/bondo again. I use Duratec vinyl ester fairing compound - link: http://www.duratec1.com/dp15.html</O <O Ive used West System Epoxy, which is available everywhere today hardware stores, boat stores, building supply stores. Really good stuff, but lately Ive been using Adtech Marine Systems epoxy. It seems to wet out a little better than the West. <O<O Here is a link to some good data on epoxy vs. polyester: <Ohttp://www.epoxyworks.com/22/pdf/Ew22_Fiberglass.pdf
I think we used epoxy to make certain aircraft parts at the place I worked at in Wichita. It seemed like pretty good stuff.
Who were you working for in Witchita? Most if not all aircraft structural components, on certified aircraft, are epoxies. Some cosmetic or simple fairing migh have been made from poly's. Like I said, using a woven instead of mat makes a huge difference as well.
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