Making Your Own Hatches & Doors Page 5
You should have selected light weight fiber glass cloth for use in this process. When I say light, I mean between .6 to .7 oz. to the square yd. Cut fiber glass cloth squares about a half inch larger than the template perimeter. Prepare no fewer than (5) five "layers", for each template shape. Each layer should be cut from identical weight of fiber glass cloth. Set squares aside, taking care not to unravel thread.

 

Selecting finishing "epoxy" resin will enable the "sandwich" we are going to construct, to cure evenly, and slowly. You can use slow cure epoxy, but it does not have as fine a viscosity as finishing resin. In either case, you will dilute the "mixed" epoxy with alcohol so as to increase flow characteristics. This reduces the viscosity of the epoxy allowing it to "evenly flow" into the fiber glass cloth weave. The ratio can exceed 50 to 60 % of epoxy, by volume.

Caution should be taken to
not reduce "mixture" beyond a controllable viscosity. Alcohol will not significantly effect the cure rate of epoxy, as it will evaporate quickly. Alcohol functions as a flow agent, lubricating each fiber glass thread to allow epoxy to soak in evenly and flow like heated honey, not running water.

More

scalaro2.gif (2313 bytes)© '98, '99, Y2K,2005