Thread: Any Industrial Fibreglassers Out There?

Hello All,

Are there any Industrial Fibreglassers out there who can give some advice about designing and constructing a sculpture? The work is in the vein of the Mooving Art cows of Shepparton; or the Koalas at Port Macquarie. For an international flavour - the "Larkin' with Toads" from Hull in the UK.

No, I am not looking at a Land Rover art trail - I do have an interesting job though!

It would be great to hear from you!

Kind regards
Lionel

Originally Posted by Lionelgee

Hello All,

I have been watching some YouTube videos by UK-based fibreglassing sculpture company called "Sculpture Studios". A couple show the process.

Some Sea Horses for Ipswich - in the UK
Accessed 23/12/2018 from,
YouTube


and a Cubist Gorilla

Accessed 23/12/2018 from,
YouTube There is some pretty interesting work shown - not all of it too serious at times.

The most amazing video is the hand sculpting of a Welsh Dragon - then again my direct ancestors are Welsh; so there could be some bias there.... YouTube


Enjoy

Kind regards
Lionel

Qcell foam would be the go for sculptures.

I'd suggest using polyester resin, rather than epoxy. General purpose poly resin contains wax that leaves a non sticky surface that can be sanded when cured. Fine if you're going to laminate an item all in one hit, which is unlikely in this case.

Suggest you use laminating resin (no wax) so you can do one bit at a time and get each overlap or additional layer to stick to previous work properly.

Buy some wax in styrene to add for the final coat. You can add micro balloons as well to make a thick final coat (like bog) that is really easy to sand.

Chopped strand matt can be split easily to get thinner material for tight curves (using more laminations). Don't use woven cloth for things like sculpture........... it'll drive you mad.

Keep the catalyst well away from the bulk resin container at all times and don't put any object in the bulk resin. Wipe up any drips of uncatalysed resin using a fresh paper towel each time and discard.

Suggest you'll need a ribbed alu roller no wider than 70mm and no bigger dia than 12mm for getting the resin through the matt and air out.

Matt should be placed on over a surface wetted by a brush or hairy roller.

One trick you can do is wet pieces of matt on a sheet of cardboard flat on the floor, run the ribbed roller over it to get proper saturation then place the pieces on the work and smooth with same roller. You'll need gloves. Pros in the surfboard industry use dishwashing or gardening gloves, clean up with acetone.

Do your initial clean of tools, etc in acetone. As this container of acetone gets more resin mixed in it keep using it for the primary clean then rinse in a container of fresh acetone.

Keep doing this until the initial acetone gets like jelly and switch to the 'clean' stuff for primary clean and use some more fresh stuff for the rinse. IME all tools except gloves stayed in the rinse container till just before next use.

Seal your acetone containers from the air, except for a small hole to allow for expansion. Acetone evaporates like crazy in an open container.

Remember that used acetone will contain catalyst which must not come into contact with uncatalysed bulk resin. Not even the fumes.

Read all the tech data sheets and MSD's for the stuff you're using. Don't skimp on PPE.

I've been using it for 45 years and have no ill effects.

cheers, DL