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Fiberglass cloth all stressed out
By:Dale Frolander
Date: 6/28/2001, 3:54 pm

The other day I was bending a piece of scrap woodstrip/fiberglass layup and checking out how the glass fails (OK I was bored for a moment). I noticed that the glass fibers on the compression side start to get white dots all over it. This is a sign that the glass fibers are locally buckling and delaminating which is mainly due to the fact that the fibers are already bent because of the weave of the cloth.

Today I put some scraps of carpet in the bottom of a bucket, filled the bucket with warm water, stood my kayak on it's end inside the bucket of water and did the end pours. I noticed that the cloth on the outside along the seam and even in the cloth on the hull has a bunch of these dots in a small area now that the end pours are done. When the end pours fully cure I'll just sand it off and lay up some new cloth so it's not really a problem. What I'm trying to figure out is where the compression load came from. Is it just the fact that the kayak was on it's end? That's all I can think of how it would have happened. This happened to a real small amount on my triple also.

I would think that if the heat of the end pour curing expanded it would put the cloth in tension and would not cause this problem. Any ideas?

Messages In This Thread

Fiberglass cloth all stressed out
Dale Frolander -- 6/28/2001, 3:54 pm
Re: Fiberglass cloth all stressed out
Doug K. -- 6/29/2001, 11:17 am
Re: Fiberglass cloth all stressed out
Dale Frolander -- 6/29/2001, 9:58 pm
I think I have the answer.
John Monfoe -- 6/29/2001, 5:18 am
Re: I think I have the answer.
John Monfoe -- 6/29/2001, 5:26 am
Repair Discussion Link
Ted Henry -- 6/28/2001, 11:26 pm
I missed that discussion before.
Dale Frolander -- 6/29/2001, 2:18 am
Re: Fiberglass cloth all stressed out
John Michne -- 6/28/2001, 8:00 pm
Re: Fiberglass cloth all stressed out
Dale Frolander -- 6/28/2001, 9:36 pm
Re: Fiberglass cloth all stressed out
Ted Henry -- 6/28/2001, 6:45 pm