Fiberglass 101, Part 2: Glassing

Text and photos by Barry C. Forrest.

Get your resin, hardener, mixing tools, brush, and squeegee out. Support the frame with a piece of PVC so you can turn it while brushing. Put your gloves and respirator on again.
Mix a batch of resin (I used 1 pump of resin and 1 hardener for this 1 section of frame). The key here is to get enough resin on the frame to saturate it and "wet out" the fiberglass once squeegeed. Too much resin will make the glass hard to work with in the next few steps. You can always brush more on later. The strength is in the glass and not how much resin you have. The resin is just a binder to set the glass to the tube and act as a finish layer. Here is the saturated frame ready for the first layer of glass.
Remove the PVC and lay the frame on the glass at one end. Make sure your have adequate overhang on the ends of the frame. Roll the frame a bit while pulling the end of the glass up on to the frame. Squeegee the excess resin from the end.
Continue rolling and squeegeeing the frame. Take your time and make sure the glass has no dry spots (white areas) and is laying with no creases or wrinkles. WORK SLOW IF NEEDED! You have time with this brand resin.
Note dry spots (white areas). This is where I dab some resin and squeegee until coated.
Here is the finished product after squeegeeing all the excess resin and putting back on the PVC support.
Here is the texture after the first layer was applied.
After about 1 hour or so, you can start laminating the second layer. It is best to laminate all layers in this manner for best bonding. You can always let the first layer cure completely, scuff with 80 grit, wash with acetone, and laminate next layer. This will yield a mechanical bond though. When bonding within an hour, the next layer will form a chemical bond with the resin and not a mechanical bond.
Lay out the next layer of glass (1.45 oz shown here). Place the frame on the end of glass 180 degrees to the first layer's overlap. Make sure you have adequate overhang on the ends. Roll the frame and squeegee the glass as you did in the first layer. Brush resin on to wetout the glass if needed and squeegee out excess being careful not to disturb the underlying layer. You most likely will need very little resin to wet out the thin glass.
Here is the texture after the second layer.
Here are the finished frames while curing. Full cure time is 24 hours.
I even brushed some excess resin onto the payload section coupler to build it up for a better fit.
Total time to laminate all 3 sections with 2 layers: 2.5-3 hours with 1 hour setup between layers.

Continue to Part 3...