rruff
Explorer
Most of mine is 17oz 1700 (45/45 biax), 10oz (0/90) (both of those are stitched not woven, bought from FiberglassSupply) and a 6oz very tight normal weave, that gives it a smooth finish. I don't recommend the 6oz though since it's a horrendous bubble trap. I recently bought some of this from ThayerCraft and like it much better: https://thayercraft.com/volan-finish.html. It hates compound curves though, even more than the 6oz I used, so keep that in mind. I bought 11oz carbon from FiberglassSupply also... plus tape from both, for corners and edges. Both companies have good prices; Thayer is best really but they only sell stitched cloth in huge quantities. Good selection and prices on normal weave, though.
The reason I used stitched FG was so that I could easily balance the direction to get more isotropic strength and stiffness. It's also a little stronger and stiffer for the weight. I did the floor/base in carbon (4x 11oz each side), and had originally intended to balance it by angling half the layers 45 deg, but quickly realized that would be a **********... plus I'd need to buy more cloth, so I just did it the normal way. It does make the layup weaker and less stiff on the diagonal, but... hey, it's a box and I don't know that it matters much. Bottom line is, you can use normal cloth and not angle them and it will be fine... I think.
I used that amount of cloth because it stood up well when I whacked it with a small sledge hammer. Weighs ~.5 lb/ft^2 on each side, and the foam weighs about the same.
You are going to have ridges at any overlap of cloth. Usually 50" is as wide as they go, so any panel larger than that will have ridges. The 1700 being the thickest, leaves ~.5 mm ridge, which doesn't seem like much but sure is noticeable! You can pretty much make them disappear by fairing with microballons mixed with epoxy.
I use Ebond epoxy. 1285 part A resin, and 1289 part B (slow) hardener. Seems to work fine, and it's inexpensive. They just raised prices to $36/gal and shipping works out to ~$13/gal from FL to NM, so <$50/gal total. You have to call them... ask for Barry.
The reason I used stitched FG was so that I could easily balance the direction to get more isotropic strength and stiffness. It's also a little stronger and stiffer for the weight. I did the floor/base in carbon (4x 11oz each side), and had originally intended to balance it by angling half the layers 45 deg, but quickly realized that would be a **********... plus I'd need to buy more cloth, so I just did it the normal way. It does make the layup weaker and less stiff on the diagonal, but... hey, it's a box and I don't know that it matters much. Bottom line is, you can use normal cloth and not angle them and it will be fine... I think.
I used that amount of cloth because it stood up well when I whacked it with a small sledge hammer. Weighs ~.5 lb/ft^2 on each side, and the foam weighs about the same.
You are going to have ridges at any overlap of cloth. Usually 50" is as wide as they go, so any panel larger than that will have ridges. The 1700 being the thickest, leaves ~.5 mm ridge, which doesn't seem like much but sure is noticeable! You can pretty much make them disappear by fairing with microballons mixed with epoxy.
I use Ebond epoxy. 1285 part A resin, and 1289 part B (slow) hardener. Seems to work fine, and it's inexpensive. They just raised prices to $36/gal and shipping works out to ~$13/gal from FL to NM, so <$50/gal total. You have to call them... ask for Barry.
