Fiberglass reinforcing styrene sheet

[Clerval]

I have an older model with thin (really thin) styrene walls that I want to re-inforce. I've been told it would be preferable to use fiberglass as opposed to reinforcing/building up with sheet styrene. This intrigues me, but I've never used fiberglass before, and am curious about the different applications, etc of it. Since it has many applications in replicating and fabricating, I'd love to get into the nuts and bolts of it. Or the threads and well, never mind...

If anyone has any pointers, etc, I think this may be a generally useful thread. I have spoken to a couple folks already who have the same curiosity but nowhere to really look to.

 

[Honus]

I think there was a previous thread on this.....someone had a really good method of doing this but I can't remember what it was.

I'd use lightweight woven fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin to wet it out. You can first attach the cloth to your styrene using Super77 spray glue and then wet it out using a stippling action with a short haired paintbrush. Don't try to put on a bunch of layers at once as it might warp your model. The reason I say to use epoxy resin is because polyester resin can melt styrene (that's why it's used with chopped strand mat- CSM uses styrene as a binder.)

There are a few good fiberglass books I can recommend if you're interested.

Jerome

 

[Clerval]

Jerome, many thanks!
I looked through all of the seemingly relevant threads with fiberglass as a search parameter. It has to have been dealt with here previously and probably more than once, but I couldn't find anything. There was one interesting thread about shrinkage etc, but it was tough to follow and I don't think too much on the mark for what I need. Thanks for the input, and the advice on using the correct resin type etc. And Super77, when you want to stick planets in their orbits...

And yes, any book recommendations would be awesome too.