posted
it depends on what weight mat(and how many layers) you use, but a properly designed box is usually anywhere from 50-75% as thick as wood. The thing with fiberglass is that you usually use it because of contours that would be difficult to fabricate out of wood, and these contours will stregthen the fiberglass a lot, so it can be thinner than if it was on a big flat span like mdf would be used.
posted
you can actually build very thin walls using fiberglass but you need to brace it so it wont flex.
All enclosures require bracing unless it's a really small enclosure.
depending on the size of the walls you need, you can go as thin as 1/8".. once you start getting 3/8" thick yer wasting materials.
I build a ton of stuff with fiberglass and carbon fiber. I've build a number of fiberglass hulls for jetskis modified for racing and those hulls dont get any thicker than 1/4" and sometimes have 3 feet between the internal support structures.. very little flexing if you build it right.
Use fiberglass cloth like a biaxial cloth or knytex weave. Measure the weight of the cloth and use the same weight in resin. That gives you a good 50/50 ratio to start with, thenn once the cloth is completely wetted out use a brush and pull up all the excess resin. If you can get a metal roller for fiberglass that's even better cause then you can roll the airbubbles out much easier as well as compress the layers together and get even more resin out.
The strength of the part relies on the cloth, the resin is only there to transfer the load to the fibers.
------------------ Mike Pipes Digital Illusion Custom Graphics
R POT Designs - Carbon Fiber Watercraft Performance Products
Posts: 431 | From: Lake Havasu, AZ | Registered: Jun 2000
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