Steve's74

OK, I'm looking for a good book on Crovette fiberglass repair. I've seen a few posts about Eckler's Fiberglass Repair, but the book appears to be discontinued and replaced by expensive video's. I've done minor body repairs and work in the past, but am looking for pointers specifically on the Vette body. Any suggestions?

70BBvert

Try these guys http://www.glas-ra.com/

vetteboy1976kr

:iagree: I have one of those books and they are pretty good. The videos are about the same price as the book though.

motown 71

Try the local library, you'll be surprised at the automotive books they have !

owsi15797

A book on fiberglass boat repair also has great info.

I have been working with fiberglass on my boats for well over 20 years. Applying the same techniques to my vette to repair a few stress fractures and tape some seams was pretty easy considering I didn't have to worry about gel coat.

Use epoxy resin with glass fibers because epoxy adheres better and is stronger than polyester resin. I actually like making my filler myself using epoxy, microballons, and the strands of lightweight glass matting cut into ½ inch lengths. This is a bit easier to work with compared to commercially available fillers because I think the commercial fillers use strands that are too long (good for larger jobs, but not for fine work) Also, for a larger job, I would suggest actually using glass matt or woven roven mat simply because the finished job will be stronger and lighter weight then globs of filler.

Oh yeah...epoxy is very poisonous...gloves, high quality mask, etc are a must.

Steve's74

Thanks guys. I'll check all of these out. Quite a bit of work needed on my '74.

Twin_Turbo

??? There's no styrene in epoxy so the fibers will not crosslink, instead it will be like the fibers are just sitting in epoxy and you can pull them out. They do not form a matrix through crosslinking and are just "floating" in the epoxy plastic. Styrene is the solvent and cross-linking agent.

Eopxy is nice for woven cloth but not for crushed fibers or loose fibers.

I once did a trial sample with epoxy and matte and the result was terrible, jsut as expected. It looked fine when cured but when you mechanically shape it it will

Looks fine when cured: (this is a SMC hood!!! Normal polyester won't stick either, need specially formulated resin)



but when you start to work on it:



TERRIBLE!!


Another thing when using epoxy, get wax free mixing cups and those small dosage pumps, the mixing quantities are very important, it will be the difference between a good curing product or soemthing that cures too fast and develops way too much ehat or doesn't cure at all.


[Modified by Twin_Turbo, 8:02 AM 2/26/2004]

stingry

I just finished my "legroom mod" where I cut out the firewall in front of my feet and moved it forward 4 inches. I had to do a lot of fibreglass for that. Heres my .02

The instructions with some of the kits show how to "feather" both side of the repair which helps bonding a lot. (ie gives more surface area by giving a tapered area to fill with fibreglass. If you sand further out from the repair you will give the resin and fibreglass more room to stick wheich may partially eliminate the bunch up.

Buy a fibreglass ROLLER. It is hard to explain what it looks like but most boat stores sell them in the repair section. I bought the corner roller as it was the right size for little repairs. It looks like a paint roller but is smaller. The roller part is actually a whole bunch of little plastic wheels molded as one piece. You roll that over the wet mat/expoxy and it gets out all the air bubble and also rolls everything flat. It will stop the bunched up look you have on your reapir in the picture. Before I bought this I used a paint brush to spread the matt out and the results were terrible.

Lay several layers at once. I had a friend mix up several layers of expoxy in batches and I concentrated on laying the matt. If you apply extra layers while it is still sticky/tacky then it really stciks and builds up quick. If the fibreglass is hard then you need to sand between layers to help reduce air bubbles.

Don't be afraid to experiment. If you put enough resin and matt in there it will stick. If it doesn't hold then it is only a quick job to cut out the bad repair.

The woven matt looks better but is harder to lay. The regualr matt looks terrible at first but builds up layers easy and bends around corners. It is also hard to see the regular matt under you paint as it starts to thin out over the years due to its random pattern.

Good luck.

rponfick

I ended up with two copies of vol. 3 and 4 of the Glas Ra books. They are listed in the Zip and Ecklers catalogs. I'll sell you both for the price of one if you are interested.

Slownlow

If he is not i am shoot me an e-mail at Slpysmurf@aol.com. O have birthday money burning a hole in my pocket

wacked

Glass is real easy to work with. I made the replacement for this to. (pics)
I'm puting a 68 tail panel on a 82 clip:)
I have my spoiler temped up to.
:EDIT: spelling. NOTE: the hole.

Steve's74

rponfick,

send me an e-mail at skrech1@aol.com.