unowhi

I was wondering if anyone has painted their Corvette themselves. I'm going to attempt to paint a couple of cracks on my Corvette and wondered if shrines has used bondo-glass on their Corvettes. I have all the equipment to paint a car like compressor and hvlp guns.

There are small cracks in my paint and I was going to sand down the areas put bondo-glass to fill in the cracks, sand again. Prime, paint and clear. I know about blending the paint and everything but didn't know if putting this bondo-glass on the Corvettes to patch these cracks was a good idea. Any thoughts? Any painters/body guys on the forum? Thanks

Alan 71

Hi U,
I'm not sure what "bondo-glass" is but I believe the proper way to repair cracks in the fiberglass is to grind the crack in to a wide but shallow v shape and then build up the repair with layers of fiberglass mat (not cloth) and resin. Then use a minimal amout of filler to finish the repair.
Good Luck!
Regards,
Alan

unowhi

Bondo-glass is bondo with fiberglass properties I believe. Its suppose to be more flexible and durable than regular bondo. Aka body filler. Maybe i'm just doing it the quick way by not building it up with regular fiber glass? I just want to make sure i'm not setting myself up for failure down the road.

Easy Mike

Are the cracks you see actually in the fiberglass or only age cracks in the paint? There's a difference.

I am not familiar with bondo-glass, but bondo is a filler, not particularly a fiberglass repair material.

unowhi

i'm not sure if its just in the paint or fiberglass yet.once I sand it down I'll be able to take a better look. I betting its in the fiberglass though. I can run my finger along the paint and feel them and they seem deeper. I'll see about posting some pictures up. Thanks.

Roco71

I would not make fiberglass repairs with Bondo glass or Duraglas it is a filler with short fiberglass strands for added strength. If you have cracks in the glass they should be repaired with resin and matting as described in Alans post.

unowhi

Ok sounds good. What kind of resin is this and is this something I could do on my own? thanks for the advice.

Easy Mike

68-71 are genite fiberglass and use the older polyester resin. Rear fenders on the 71s and pretty much all 72-82 are SMC fiberglass and require SMC compatible repair materials.

Yes. We all had to start somewhere. Do the Google thing for fiberglass repair books. Eckler's has a repair manual. The Glas-Ra folks have two volumes. http://www.glas-ra.com/