Heating ideas for warming shop area for cooler weather fiberglassing

[Truefire]

I am working on a custom project that involves extensive fiberglass work. Of course the weather has dropped well below the optimal working conditions for Isophthalic Polyester Resins. There is 'no' awaiting spring to return to complete this project, it is already behind schedule as it is. I am needing to heat the workable space and the project itself with some form of heating that is ok to use in a combustible vapor environment. I know that already limits many of the well known heat sources out there.

I plan on heating the project itself along select regions of the project with directed infrared bulbs. I also need the ambient environment to be heated as well. I am looking for some of the larger oil filled radiant heaters available but can only seem to locate residential models, as always. I am familiar with an alternative industrial type, no-flame, oil filled heaters that use diesel fuel that are used a lot out in the midwest and northern climes. This would work perfectly as I could pipe the heat in via canvas duct from a slightly remote location. I thought some of the equipment rental places in the triad area might have them, of course they do not.

Anyone have any ideas how I could heat up this area without any open flame, or electric strip sources.

I have considered purchasing a barrel heater kit with legs, etc; and make a 50 gallon horizontal drum heater. I could pump the heat off of the barrel alone, into the area with canvas duct and a ventilation fan. The positive pressure within the duct would prevent any vapors from meandering up the duct back towards a hotter heat source. It does not need to be hot in the area, just warmer than 50 degrees.

I can work the Isophthalic polyester resin down to 60 degrees without any structural issues.

Thanks, chris

 

[Clutch]

Radiator style, with the boiler outside.

http://cleangreenenergyzone.com/homemade-wood-boiler/

 

[cwsqbm]

Radiator style, with the boiler outside.

http://cleangreenenergyzone.com/homemade-wood-boiler/

+1 If you're worried about vapors, the only true safe method is have the heat source in a separate air space. Of course, there are plenty of oil or natural gas boilers commercially available too.

 

[Truefire]

Kermit, thanks man....what a great idea with the homemade wood boiler..(laughing) that would be another project. Having to cut and weld, that is one of my problems already with this project, not enough time to complete successfully. I might look around for something already made along those lines. great info , thanks for the forward

Chris

 

[Clutch]

Welcome, might be able to make something out of an old water heater.

A junkyard or craigslist, you might be able to score an old radiator.

Betcha there are plenty of plans out there on google. That one I linked to, was one that came up in my first search.

 

[fluffyprinceton]

If you use peelply on your lay ups an electric blanket works nicely...The idea of course is to avoid heating the space. We rigged a water heater to heat pex tubing that we "stitched" into a large blanket of insulation to handle larger areas. The nice thing is you can control the heat over the entire layup & get fast cure times even in winter.Moe

 

[Truefire]

Cool, have not thought of electric blankets for the mere 'adherence' related issues and I am not familiar with the peelply. I really like the idea of having an entire blanket with buried pex tubing. That's ingenious. Perhaps you should erase that comment and consider patents. lol I bet it is rather stiff, but it does not necessarily have to touch the surface, just hover over the seams. That would work well i suppose.

How are you getting water from the heater through the pex tubing. Is the hot water heater connected to a water supply system that provides pressure or is it a stand alone system with a complete loop and you are using a pump? If so, how does the pump perform with such heat passing through its diaphragm?

Chris

 

[fluffyprinceton]

Peel ply goes over the wet laminate soaking up excess resin and generally leveling the surface - it has a release agent so you just pull it off cure. It leaves a relatively smooth surface ready for more laminate or for finishing. A tremendous time saver... The peel ply would keep the blanket from bonding...it might be necessary to put a plastic film layer over the peel ply if your layup is really wet... It's used when vacuum bagging but also for just reducing the sanding on open (non mold) laminating. Here's one supplier, but it's pretty common.

http://www.fiberglasssupply.com/Product_Catalog/Vacuum_Bagging/vacuum_bagging.html

The water heater had a Johnson pump to circulate the water. It was mounted on a dolly, run off a 220 circuit. There are a few complications - you need an expansion tank in a closed system like this and a way to bleed off the trapped air - it's all familiar to a plumber who knows something about home heating. The "blanket" started life as a couple sheets of thin ply to bend around the hull sides, it's lined with foil wrapped bubble wrap and the border is a 3 inch pipe insulation foam. The pex is zip tied through the bubble wrap & ply. So you have a heated shallow box - the temp is well under control & you can leave it without fire danger. We had a computer muffin fan to circulate the air within the box. Pretty slick - we would flip the box over & use it to cure small parts. Keep in mind this was to post cure fancy boat composites - so just to kick off polyester resin you could just use electric blankets...

http://www.johnson-pump.com/jpmarine/products/circulation/cmco.html

Had some scary close calls with heat lamps over the years...

I got the idea from Stephen Olson writing in Professional Boatbuilder #136 to give proper credit. Moe

 

[Truefire]

Thanks Moe, really helped, composed very nicely. i could actually envision the contraption. Cool beans! Thanks bro. chris