Noob Question For The Noob Forum

[MWPftw]

Hey guys.



I'm totally new to this whole thing, but I'm in love with the process. My friend Jimmy (rimshot09, he posts pretty sporadically) and I are going to Dragon*Con this year as Daft Punk. Everything was going great until we hit a snag. We started fiberglassing but something didn't seem right.



Then it hit me.

We were using the fiberglass mat, which was stringy and itchy and proved to be a huge pain to resin in. Now we've bought the fiberglass cloth, and it looks like it's a good option, but would we have to start over? The insides are already completely covered in the itchy stuff. What would you recommend for a Noob?

 

[KevlarSpartan]

Hey guys.



I'm totally new to this whole thing, but I'm in love with the process. My friend Jimmy (rimshot09, he posts pretty sporadically) and I are going to Dragon*Con this year as Daft Punk. Everything was going great until we hit a snag. We started fiberglassing but something didn't seem right.



Then it hit me.

We were using the fiberglass mat, which was stringy and itchy and proved to be a huge pain to resin in. Now we've bought the fiberglass cloth, and it looks like it's a good option, but would we have to start over? The insides are already completely covered in the itchy stuff. What would you recommend for a Noob?

My recommendation(s):



Option 1: Take a sheet of the fiber cloth and resin that to the inside, as a barrier beween the itchy stuff and you.



Option 2: Cover the inside with resin till it's smoothed off.



Option 3: Sand down the inside with wet&dry sandpaper (the really fine stuff) until smooth (although you'll wanna wear heaps of protection when doing this, and probs cover the inside with thick cotton cloth afterwards)



Option 4: Put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye!



I hope at least one of those options puts you on the right track!



Cheers!

 

[mkshane81]

It really depends on how much of the actual piece is already reinforced with the fiberglass mat, but here are my thoughts:



Use a dremel, or other high speed rotary tool to cut off and sand down all of the stray strands that could poke, puncture, and inflict discomfort from the inside. Once done, put a layer of resined fiberglass cloth over it, and finish glassing the rest of the piece. To finish it off, I would spray the interior with a spray-on bedliner. It is a rubberized coating that is used in truck beds, similar to undercoating. This will also help to highlight any stray fibers that may still be sticking out through the mat, although you should be able to find those when laying down the cloth. Let us know if you hit any other problems, but this should help.



-Matt

 

[MikyVengeance]

if this is a helmet, I would resin it with the new, better stuff and just add padding so your head doesnt go in contact with the stuff at all, just in case.

Good luck!

 

[MWPftw]

Thanks guys for all the advice. My only concern with layering the cloth on the inside and liner and all that is that it's close on my head as is. I'd be afraid of it getting too tight. On top of that I have to do the LEDs on the inside of the visor. I'd be afraid of compromising too much space. I mean, there's still plenty of time if I have to start over, I'd just like to try salvage this one, you know?

 

[sidewayz]

Ok heres the thing you want to tear chunks off the fiber glass matt then resin it and put it in your helmet. By doing this the fiber glass strands will loosen up and help it to go flat. You could alway drem down the sides that stick up and redo them, great part of fiber glass.

 

[shmalofan]

I did my entire helmet with fiberglass cloth, i didn't even know there was fiberglass mat. :eek



well i guess i'll go back to reading, i thought i researched enough.



anyway, my helmet turned out OK.



actually i have a big roll of fiberglass cloth that i bought for a really good price. (the place was going out out business)

 

[MWPftw]

I did my entire helmet with fiberglass cloth, i didn't even know there was fiberglass mat. :eek



well i guess i'll go back to reading, i thought i researched enough.



anyway, my helmet turned out OK.



actually i have a big roll of fiberglass cloth that i bought for a really good price. (the place was going out out business)

Wait, are we talking Cloth or Mat? Because we did the mat and that's the itchy stuff. We had no idea there was a cloth. The worst part is that the Lowe's out by where we were working only had the mat, hence how we ended up using it, but the Lowe's near where I live only had the cloth. And what's even better is that when we compared the receipts, they were the same price. If I had known better, I never would've bought the mat. I just don't want other noobs to have to start their projects over again because they experienced the same thing.

 

[AceHigh]

If I'm not mistaken, the difference is something like this:



Fiberglass mat: a lot of short strings of fiberglass that has been pressed together with some sort of adhesive.

Fiberglass cloth: long strings of fiberglass that are woven into a fabric.



The reason you get itchy is because small glass particles actually breaks off and get rubbed into your skin irritating it. I'm assuming that these small particles break off at the ends of each individual piece of glass, and since the fiberglass mat are lots of small strings, you also have a lot more ends that are present all over the fabric.



From what I've read, fiberglass mat is easier to have follow a shape, while fiberglass cloth is mostly used for larger flat areas. Shouldn't really matter that much which one you use if you cut it up into really small pieces though. Since you resin it down, either end result shouldn't really be itchy.

 

[0235]

well, i cant get hold of fibre galss mat, only "tissue" as they call it, whitch is basicaly the cloth stuff.

 

[soul products]

the mat and cloth are the same matterial theyre just for two different jobs. the mat (the tangled one) is used for anything that needs to withstand high impact or never bend, in our case ud want to use this in the shoes, fronts of the shins, inside of the thighs,butt plate, and maybe parts of the chest.

on the other hand is the cloth, this 'version' is used for parts that need to be hard yet still have some flexability, in my opinion this is the one to use, ud use it in the biceps, forarms, hand plates, back of the shins, parts of the chest, helmet (if u need to save room), ect.



the mat is better in my opinion for getting those high detail areas because it tends to fall apart and get in all the nooks and crannys. be carefull though because if u put too much resin it wont stick and it will bubble when the resin heats up,this is bad because the area where this happens wont have any fiberglass therfore no strength

the cloth is used for more large flat or none detailed corners simplely because it likes to lay flat and is woven instead of meshed, keep in mind that it still follows the same rules though, little resin, little heat, little bubbling.



ive used both and my advice is to use a mixture of the two like i said above, this will keep hard pieces hard, flexable pieces felxable, and detailed parts from breaking





i hope this helps, if u have any questions feel free to PM me

 

[MWPftw]

Thanks for all the advice, guys. Monday we're going to start working on them again (I've been at work everyday since Friday, so it'll be nice to get back to the helmets). I think we're going to try to clip the stray ends and try to sand the inside. If it's real bad, we'll go with some of the suggestions you guys had.

the mat and cloth are the same matterial theyre just for two different jobs. the mat (the tangled one) is used for anything that needs to withstand high impact or never bend, in our case ud want to use this in the shoes, fronts of the shins, inside of the thighs,butt plate, and maybe parts of the chest.

on the other hand is the cloth, this 'version' is used for parts that need to be hard yet still have some flexability, in my opinion this is the one to use, ud use it in the biceps, forarms, hand plates, back of the shins, parts of the chest, helmet (if u need to save room), ect.



the mat is better in my opinion for getting those high detail areas because it tends to fall apart and get in all the nooks and crannys. be carefull though because if u put too much resin it wont stick and it will bubble when the resin heats up,this is bad because the area where this happens wont have any fiberglass therfore no strength

the cloth is used for more large flat or none detailed corners simplely because it likes to lay flat and is woven instead of meshed, keep in mind that it still follows the same rules though, little resin, little heat, little bubbling.



ive used both and my advice is to use a mixture of the two like i said above, this will keep hard pieces hard, flexable pieces felxable, and detailed parts from breaking





i hope this helps, if u have any questions feel free to PM me

This is great, soul, thanks a lot. I'll probably save this page for future reference. If all goes well, I'll post some pics on Monday.

 

[soul products]

i have to say though as common as fiberglassing is im suprised so many people like it, me personally, i hate it.

i highly recommend using smooth on plastics, and then most people are like "but thats expensive" well... its not really. they just look at the $100 price tag and say forget it. im making an HD mark IV through smooth on and if im right and dont mess up too badlly ill finish under $200(its also cleaner and quicker)while my mark VI suit that i made a year ago cost well over $350+

it also doesnt need the molds either so 200 is about right



if u want to now the process just PM me

 

[MWPftw]

Okay, well Monday came and went and I said I'd update...so this is that update.



Turns out just a bit of light sanding did the trick on the inside. We dremel'd the tips around the ends of the helmet and began bondo-ing. What do you think?