fiberglass help please...

[3car]

yesterday i put a couple pieces of plywood down on the deck of my boat and started glassing them in with poly resin. well, i think i didnt add enough hardner to the last batch, because its still wet. what do i do now? am i gonna have to strip it off and start over?

 

[ondarvr]

Re: fiberglass help please...

If it' not hard by now it will never cure correctly, even if it does sort of get hard. You need to clean off all the wet stuff and do it again. Not Fun!

 

[3car]

Re: fiberglass help please...

If it' not hard by now it will never cure correctly, even if it does sort of get hard. You need to clean off all the wet stuff and do it again. Not Fun!

ok, whay do i use to get the wet stuff off? will thinner work?

 

[BillP]

Re: fiberglass help please...

Is it just a tacky surface or is it soft? If tacky that's laminating resin and normal. If soft it may be peeled off with little or lots of effort. Styrene will help with the removal.

bp

 

[Chris1956]

Re: fiberglass help please...

3Car, The hardener is actually a catalyst. It speeds up the hardening. usually the resin will eventually get hard, unless the temp is very cold. I would first try some heat on the resin. It could be a simple as putting it in the sun for a few hours. If that doesn't work, and you can get to all the surfaces, you can overcoat it with additional resin, which is mixed with the cataylst in a proper amount. This should mix with the original and harden everything up.

 

[BillP]

Re: fiberglass help please...

ondarvr has it right. Coming back a few days later won't do it. Once polyester misses a certain "kick" window it will never reach full cure strength. Even if kicked later to make it hard, hot coats have to be done close to application time unless all you want is a hard surface with questionable strength. Most resin mfgs can tell you what the kicking window time is for max cure strength.

bp