fabric to use with fiberglass

[mad drunx]

obviously you have no experience with grille cloth. like i said it is easier to work with for smaller things.i bet you like D.A sanding fleece blanket, and or kitty hair dont you. besides this shit is made to look nice not to have some dam kids kicking and ruining all your nice stuff. grill cloth = less sanding. you just have to resin the outside and inside. trust me, c45 and myself have plenty of glassing experience.

dont give faulty 411 on materials you have no experience with.

Correct it is easier to use with in tight spaces and real sharp curves.No I don't like to d.a. fleece that's why I use a grinder.LOL at the kid's kicking and ruining stuff.I did a door panel once and then left the glove box open and shut the door on accident and it chrushed it.Then I redid it but with fleece and did the same thing on purpose and it didn't break.So I was just sayin fleece is the way to go if you want strength.

[mad drunx]

not if the thing is small and no kids are kicking or trying to demolish your stuff.

One more word about kid's demolishing stuff,and I'll send my 16 month old doughter to rape your interior. :01nocomment8so:

[mikey634]

One more word about kid's demolishing stuff,and I'll send my 16 month old doughter to rape your interior. :01nocomment8so:

You won't do it. No balls.

[wL<3bass]

Some of the misinformation in this thread is hilarious....

[EpicenterDesigns]

Some of the misinformation in this thread is hilarious....

Yes. Yes it is.

[ptcary]

I had decent results from a "Starter" brand T-Shirt.

[EpicenterDesigns]

I'm gonna try to get some of the info in this thread straightened out. There are some good points, just relayed wrong. And then there is some info that is just wrong.

I am in no way coming down on anyone. Just trying to help and info where I can.

best thing for things that have sharp edges and kick panels is speaker grille cloth. i get it from a wholeseller out here but im sure other fabric shops carry it. if your doing a big speaker box i would use fleece blanket. for small things like kick panels door pods a pillars ect. use the speaker grille sloth. put resin inside and outside for stronger results.

I made the important issue bold above.

Your not making the fleece stronger. But you are making sure the fleece is sturated all the way thru so they are no weak spots or air trapped under the layers of mat. Mat is needed.

like i said it works hella good and is easy to use, but you need to resin the shit out of it to get it hard. but best results imo. that fleece shit sucks and your gonna need to use " kitty hair " which is bondo with fiberglass stuff in it to smooth out and add strength to the fleece.

The point of grill cloth is that it does conform to irregualr shapes quite easily and takes LESS resin to saturate. You only want to use the cloth as a form shaper. The more resin you add, the more brittle it is.

And using fleece takes more resin to saturate the form. You still need mat. Just adding "kitty hair" or any other reinforced filler over that is cutting out crucial steps and leads to an inferior build.

Now here was a question......

would kitty hair be needed for the grill cloth?

And here was the answer.....

nah just resin.

I take this as you only resin the grill cloth, then finish it. Not reenforcment at all?

ponte works the best for me it comes out alot smoother than fleece and i dont mind adding a layer or two of more glass.

fleece works very well if you dont care about doing body work but hate glassing, itll take less layers of glass to get it strong, but will require more work to get it to lay flat

Ponte' is my choice. So your on the right track there. I will explain it later.

Using fleece does not mean you can use less mat. Because fleece is thicker, alot of people get the notion that it is strong and will be ok with little to no mat on it. This is very wrong.

obviously you have no experience with grille cloth. like i said it is easier to work with for smaller things. grill cloth = less sanding. you just have to resin the outside and inside. trust me, c45 and myself have plenty of glassing experience.

dont give faulty 411 on materials you have no experience with.

Back at ya.

I was just sayin fleece is the way to go if you want strength.

Fleece is the way to go if you want to use more resin on your products, which cost you more money, and gives you a more ridgid foundation for the mat to be layed up on.

Here is my take on materials to use. And yes, I do have several years of experience. I even brought over a link where materials were put to the test to show you what happens where you use just resin and the amounts of resin used to saturate them.

Grill cloth - thin, very pliable and takes a small amount of resin to saturate to get the base. Once the material has cured, scuff it with some 80 grit and you can add your layers of mat needed for your particular project.

What I dislike about grill cloth.... it has a tendancy to sag over large spans. So I recommend this for small stuff

Ponte' - Stretchy. Pretty much all the benifits of grill cloth without the sag.

Felt - Yep, felt. It isn't as thick as fleece. When you stretch it hard, it doesn't have a tendancy to sperate or pull apart and thin out like fleece can.

Takes more resin than Ponte' but less than fleece.

Fleece - Makes a strong base. Still needs alot of mat. Uses alot of resin to get staturated. Resin is expensive.

Here is the link where a test was done using Ponte' and Felt. Felt was used over fleece cause it is close to the same thing and you get the same results with less resin.

http://www.fiberglassforums.com/showthread.php?t=1850

[B Slaps]

every time ive used speaker grill cloth, and my good boy c45 who is a custom installer and does lots of fiberglass himself. you have to resin the speaker grille cloth. inside and out and you have to bondo the top layer also. ya the shit aint gonna be strong by itself, but on the other hand the fleece isint gonna look good either without using bondo and or kitty hair or both. trust me ive done my fair share of glassing alot of different stuff. most of it turning out pretty dam good experimenting with different ideas along the way. the picture of the center console i posted was made just like this.

you gotta bondo the top also. this console has no flaws and is painted. the cup holders are made with plexi tubes and light up blue on the top with l.e.d's and was sprayed with that black stuff for doing tail lights. it looks black like the consol then lights up blue when l.e.d's are on.

[B Slaps]

One more word about kid's demolishing stuff,and I'll send my 16 month old doughter to rape your interior. :01nocomment8so:

shaved door handles FTW. no kids allowed in the hoe. sorry

[Gotloud555]

Use fleece because it will make your box strong. I use them all the time. You will need quite bits of resin but it worth making the fiberglass solid like rock...