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Fiberglassing wood

lebel409

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Hi All

I'm making a box to fit in my canoe...went a little overboard and made the top out of walnut and mahogany...anyway I want to fiberglass it to make it bullet proof.

I plan on resining it, then applying glass, then re-resining it. If this is wrong let my know.

My question is how fine should I sand it to look good under glass...like a wood deck?

Thanks,
 

coolchange

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There is a ton of ways to go.. But if you resin and glass it,look into surfboard resin. Its water clear.
 

Heylam

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I would put on a sealer coat of poly laminating resin thinned well with styrene. I would let that sit a day or two, then I would laminate a coat of cloth using laminating resin. After that set up, I would brush on a hot coat using sanding resin. I would then sand that out and put a gloss coat on using gloss resin. Wet sand, polish, and sit back and admire the beauty of the wood.
Sounds like a lot of work, but it would be really easy and would come out beautiful.
 

lebel409

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I'm not worried about the finish of the fiberglass...but what the wood looks like underneath. 120? 400?
 

Heylam

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With the method I described, the fiberglass would be invisible. It would look like a highly varnished finish but would have added strength and a waterproof finish.
 

Heylam

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Are you talking about final finish? If so, wet sanding to 400 would give a nice smooth finish, but it wouldn't take much more to really put a beautiful finish on it. Then again, I'm not sure what finish is existing on the canoe, and I would match to what I had. It would never look right to ave mismatched finishes. Where are you located?
 

lebel409

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The canoe has gray gel inside.

To be honest, I don't care what the fiberglass looks like...it's just to protect/reinforce the wood. I just need to know what grit to sand the wood. If 400 is too fine to adhere, if 120 looks like ass, etc. Just a utility box to hold camping stuff, going on the beach, sand and rocks.
 

Heylam

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I wouldn't sand any finer then 120 grit for proper adhesion
 
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