Posted by Woodenboater on June 21, 2003 at 00:33:10:
In Reply to: What's the difference between Biaxial cloth and E-glass? posted by ken on June 20, 2003 at 20:11:29:
I ran into the same confusing delima. I'll try to handel a couple of your questions here and if you have any more, email me off-board.
The difference between E-glass & S-glass is quite a bit. The S-glass is a tight weave of about 5 different directions of strands, kinda resembles the weave in blue jeans. Much denser in look (very white) and not to clear to wet out, but much stronger per pound if you are using it sandwitched on two sides of a core (balsa, nidacore, duracore, foam..etc). I'ts a little stiffer to work as well and doesn't do sharp turns very well in my opinion. The eglass is two strands running 90 degrees of each other and is closer to what you want especially if all you are using it for is abrasion protection and to keep your wood from dinging up.
There ARE 2 types of fiberglass. Some have a treatment in them (not sure what it is) but the epoxy doesn't saturate into it like it should and it's not as good of a bond. The other is used on both epoxy and polyester (stinky fiberglass resin) with good success. I've only tryied WEST system epoxy (sold through West Marine, but not sponsored by them...??) and Raka's brand. The Raka is cheaper than the west but I can't tell much in difference. The only thing I can compare it to is from a scale of 1-10 3 being Tightbond woodglue for wood, Raka is 9 and WEST is 10. It seems to soak into the wood a bit deeper but in most if not all boatbuilding, the amount is not significant enought for me to build a large boat with exclusivly WEST because of the cost factor. Both of them seem to hold EXTREEMELY well and I'll probably just stick to Raka for the price (about 1/2) They also have most all your supplies and differnet weaves of fiberglass as well as exotic cloths like carbon and kevlar. What boat are you building?
Good luck,
Travis Duggan
Placitas,NM