C1 corvette repair

W

wisch79

I have a question about fiberglass repair on c1 corvette. The car has fire damage and in some places has strands of glass bare and other spots are soft. I assume the correct way is to grind out damaged area and build it back up with resin and mat. This is the first time I have dealt with fire damaged glass. Does anyone have any advice?
 
The mat that looks like window screen may be stronger but it also shows through paint more readily. Make sure to use the "scatter mat" on anything close to the surface that will be in contact with your paint finish..
 
use epoxy resin only. cloth is for structure , mat is for fill , always use veil cloth as a final layer.
any areas heated by the fire needs to be replace.
 
shine said:
use epoxy resin only. cloth is for structure , mat is for fill , always use veil cloth as a final layer.
any areas heated by the fire needs to be replace.
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Shine, what oz. do you use for veil cloth? I was looking at getting some 2oz. plain weave cloth. Looking to stay away from cloths with binder in them.
 
A note about using veil cloth: If any repair areas are rough shaped and in need of grinding to remove high areas, this should be done and the whole repair area sanded slightly below contour before the veil cloth is applied. Sanding the veil cloth only enough to achieve a smooth surface will help preserve its ability to hide the repairs beneath it.
 
Shine I have many questions for you. Working on a 57 vette that is stripped through sanding. I did my research and decided on epoxy reseign as it is stronger. After I repaired all the stress cracking on my hood with epoxy and matt I started getting all this different information. I was going to put waxed gellcoat over the whole car. Everyone at the dealers tell me I can not put polyester over epoxy. I get this from several places. So now I grind out all the epoxy and put in polyester and matt. I had always intended to use cloth but all the information I see tells me it will telegraph through. I am grinding out, or at least grinding down, the cracking and putting a layer of matt to form the new surface. About half of the information says use gellcaot and half says use epoxy primer. I had wanted the initial layer to add some structure or at least form a very durable surface that would prevent stress cracking in the future. I am worried with the waxed gellcoat that I will not get all the wax out. Where do YOU go from raw fiberglass? What is veil cloth and where is that available. I have some very fine matt but have not used it yet. Allmost all the major repair work has been done and I feel fairly comfortable with that and am now working on the finish stuff before starting to get ready for paint. I will listen to any advice anyone has. I am on this site because the painter recommended it.
 
polyester filler over fresh epoxy is not recommended but i know of no reason not to gel coat over cured epoxy resin. i do epoxy only unless it is a very bad body. spider web cracking or really degraded glass i will gel coat. both ways are fine. i do my repair then block well with 100 grit to get to good resin. then i start epoxy. 1 double coat then block and repeat .
if using polyester resin DO NOT use any dynatron bondo or 3m brand !
 
Shine thanks very much for your reply. More questions. I was going to repair a few areas and all the stress cracking before I either used gellcoat or epoxy primer. You had talked about cloth as being more structural and I agree. Do you use cloth and if so how do you keep it from telegraphing through to the paint. I looked up veil cloth and it looks very thin. If you put this on top of cloth how do you make sure you do not sand it all off. When looking for veil cloth I ran across something else. At fiberglast.com they had the veil cloth but they also had style 120 e-glass which looks like a very fine weave and something that finishes very fine. It is quite pricy but nothing compared to a bad paint job. Do you use woven cloth in all your repairs? Directly on the fiberglass I have been using Evercoat vette panel adhesive / filler. The guy I got the car from says it best duplicates the characteristics of fiberglass. All other fillers and putties I would put on after the gellcoat or epoxy primer. Only new glass and the Evercoat would be on the glass directly. The Evercoat people said I had to wait at least 78 hours before putting the putty over epoxy reseign. I assume that as you are on this sity you use this epoxy primer. Do you follow with this product line through the entire paint process. Again thank you very much for your advise and time.
 
Proper veil cloth mat isn't woven. Don't use woven material on the outside of repairs that need to be smooth.

I'm calling it the wrong thing. Textile-type weaves will map out onto the surface, the kind most commonly used is non-woven.

 
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