Fiberglass repair question

I just finished a project using kevlar cloth and West Marine two part epoxy.

The project that I was doing required that I cut strips of the cloth only a couple of inches wide.

I had problems keeping the cloth from unravelling…

I finished the project and it came out pretty good, but I was wondering has any one ever used the fibeglass sticky back sheetrock tape ?

I have a feeling that it would work good in the application that I had.

I am curious to know for any future work.

thanks and cheers,

JackL

glass
overcut it,saturate and after it sets up sand off the excess.

glass
also sounds like you might working your cloth too much,drop your cloth into epoxy in an aluminum foil pan you make yourself just slightly larger than your cloth,pouring a little more epoxy on the cloth, then press the epoxy down into the cloth without pulling on it,let it soak , then apply. you can also thin your epoxy for easier saturation just takes a little longer to “kick”

but no I’ve never tried the sheetrock.

Bad Tape
The sticky-backed sheet rock tape sounds goods but works poorly. I, too, thought is sounded like a good idea at the time. Here at the Lilydipper Laboratory Of Good Ideas, we discovered the glue used to make sticky-back interfers with the epoxies and you end up with a very, very slow curing gooey mess.

You can purchase fiberglass “tape” without the sticky. It comes in assorted widths, has finished edges and works well for reinforcement.

If you have only a sheet of glass cloth, cutting it on the bias will limit fraying of the edges.

If working with cut strips…
especially with kevlar is really a pain…



Next time try:


  1. Using the sewn edge of the cloth for one of your top plys… easier to smooth out with bundles only running one direction. You can even come back to it and other edges just as epoxy is super sticky and just (gloved) finger tap/roll the edges down a little flatter… babysitting is the key.
  2. Cut one last slightly larger ply , and either wet it out partially or wet it out in place… ‘brush tap’ wet out the very edge using only enough resin to wet out fabric and not go beyond.
  3. Use a single ply of 4 ounce to consolidate entire repair… very little raw edge protruding and easy to knock down with a couple quick passes of sandpaper…
  4. Apply all cloth and then place a ply of 4-6 mil non wrinkled plastic over it and squeegee smooth…pull after cured… combine with any of above too.
  5. All this is ASSuming glass will not be faired in which case all abbove would be a waste of time.

John Sweet may have 2" Kevlar tape
with stabilized edges, either standard or bias cut. Kevlar is a bitch to handle in thin strips because the difficulty of the cutting process tends to pull the weave apart.



I almost never pre-wet cloth because it is just harder to get the excess resin back out of the weave. Most of my “glass” work is just concentric patches for breaks in whitewater boats, and once I get the cloth down in place, it is not hard to wet out thoroughly. But I would infer from your post that your main problem was with the weave pulling apart during handling, and for that, seam tape can be real helpful.

it’ really hard to cut tape out of cloth

– Last Updated: Apr-18-04 12:17 AM EST –

but if you do need to, try cutting it at an angle (or on the bias). John R. Sweet can also sell you bias tape and perhaps orthogonal tape as well. I do not know the downsides of bias tape but it has been much easier for me to handle. The sheet rock tape has no thread count, not much strength.

Perhaps Mr Nystrom can help.

sources for fiberglass tape
Fiberglast:



http://www.fibreglast.com/showproducts-category-Fiberglass%20Aerospace,%20Specialty%20Fabrics%20&%20Tapes-100.html



Sweet:



http://johnrsweet.com/Seamtape.html