A Lesson Learned in Fiberglass
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I spent part of the day today scraping the boat hull, rather than sanding/grinding it. All the literature states that when grinding one should wear clothing head to toe, but it's still 100°F here - there's no way I'd survive that. So I settled for chipping away with a wood chisel and scraping with a paint scraper, assuming that without the airborne bits of fiberglass I'd be okay in almost no clothing. Wrong. This s$%t gets everywhere, no matter how you remove it. I thought that liquid epoxy stripper would soften it and make it clump up - wrong again. The meanest stripper I can find barely smudges this stuff. Some kind of brown resin was used to ineptly patch the hull, and it's a lot tougher than the original fiberglass that Boston Whaler used. That stuff delaminates in a heartbeat. As will be obvious to anyone who has worked with fiberglass, my everything itches. This crud spreads no matter how you remove it, and finds its way into the pores of your skin. It's going to be a long winter... Just for grins, when I found that the glass has separated completely for a couple of feet on the stern port chines, I shoved one of those plant moisture meter probes into the gap. The meter was pegged - the foam inside is saturated with water. Any ideas about how to remove the water, aside from the traditional method of bagging the boat and applying a vacuum? I have two ideas in mind, and maybe someone here has past experience that can guide me. One is to drill a series of holes in the hull, the other is to cut slots with a cutoff wheel alongside the keel - well, actually about midway between the chines and the keel. Then I'd place heat lamps under the boat for the winter and let convection do its thing. Any better ideas out there? "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
(Garth, From CHICAGO <big grin>) I was wondering Roger if there's some sort of wicking you could poke into a hole to draw moisture away from the foam - then it could be evaporated off with a fan ... you need something hydrophilic that would suck up the water ... I dont know what you could find and wether the effect would be localised in the foam to a small radius ... Garth (Wednesday its Boston, Friday its San Francisco, until 22nd)
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(Garth, From CHICAGO <big grin>) I was wondering Roger if there's some sort of wicking you could poke into a hole to draw moisture away from the foam - then it could be evaporated off with a fan ... you need something hydrophilic that would suck up the water ... I dont know what you could find and wether the effect would be localised in the foam to a small radius ... Garth (Wednesday its Boston, Friday its San Francisco, until 22nd)
What about silica gel crystals (like the ones that come in little sachets in new electronics boxes) - those would certainly suck up any surrounding moisture, but I don't know how you'd remove them afterwards, unless you make slots big enough to poke in the sachets, rather then inserting the crystals directly -- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Phoenix Paint - back from DPaint's ashes!
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What about silica gel crystals (like the ones that come in little sachets in new electronics boxes) - those would certainly suck up any surrounding moisture, but I don't know how you'd remove them afterwards, unless you make slots big enough to poke in the sachets, rather then inserting the crystals directly -- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Phoenix Paint - back from DPaint's ashes!
What about enclosing the boat and/or the open section, with sillica gel crystals in behind a gauze net, that will allow moistutre through, but not crystals. You just have to ensure the crystals don't absorb enough water to dissolve and escape into the boat. Learn which South African airlines never to use on my blog.
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I spent part of the day today scraping the boat hull, rather than sanding/grinding it. All the literature states that when grinding one should wear clothing head to toe, but it's still 100°F here - there's no way I'd survive that. So I settled for chipping away with a wood chisel and scraping with a paint scraper, assuming that without the airborne bits of fiberglass I'd be okay in almost no clothing. Wrong. This s$%t gets everywhere, no matter how you remove it. I thought that liquid epoxy stripper would soften it and make it clump up - wrong again. The meanest stripper I can find barely smudges this stuff. Some kind of brown resin was used to ineptly patch the hull, and it's a lot tougher than the original fiberglass that Boston Whaler used. That stuff delaminates in a heartbeat. As will be obvious to anyone who has worked with fiberglass, my everything itches. This crud spreads no matter how you remove it, and finds its way into the pores of your skin. It's going to be a long winter... Just for grins, when I found that the glass has separated completely for a couple of feet on the stern port chines, I shoved one of those plant moisture meter probes into the gap. The meter was pegged - the foam inside is saturated with water. Any ideas about how to remove the water, aside from the traditional method of bagging the boat and applying a vacuum? I have two ideas in mind, and maybe someone here has past experience that can guide me. One is to drill a series of holes in the hull, the other is to cut slots with a cutoff wheel alongside the keel - well, actually about midway between the chines and the keel. Then I'd place heat lamps under the boat for the winter and let convection do its thing. Any better ideas out there? "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
How 'bout a bunch of really thirsty barnacles? :)
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I spent part of the day today scraping the boat hull, rather than sanding/grinding it. All the literature states that when grinding one should wear clothing head to toe, but it's still 100°F here - there's no way I'd survive that. So I settled for chipping away with a wood chisel and scraping with a paint scraper, assuming that without the airborne bits of fiberglass I'd be okay in almost no clothing. Wrong. This s$%t gets everywhere, no matter how you remove it. I thought that liquid epoxy stripper would soften it and make it clump up - wrong again. The meanest stripper I can find barely smudges this stuff. Some kind of brown resin was used to ineptly patch the hull, and it's a lot tougher than the original fiberglass that Boston Whaler used. That stuff delaminates in a heartbeat. As will be obvious to anyone who has worked with fiberglass, my everything itches. This crud spreads no matter how you remove it, and finds its way into the pores of your skin. It's going to be a long winter... Just for grins, when I found that the glass has separated completely for a couple of feet on the stern port chines, I shoved one of those plant moisture meter probes into the gap. The meter was pegged - the foam inside is saturated with water. Any ideas about how to remove the water, aside from the traditional method of bagging the boat and applying a vacuum? I have two ideas in mind, and maybe someone here has past experience that can guide me. One is to drill a series of holes in the hull, the other is to cut slots with a cutoff wheel alongside the keel - well, actually about midway between the chines and the keel. Then I'd place heat lamps under the boat for the winter and let convection do its thing. Any better ideas out there? "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
As one who spent years working around fiberglass, I found a couple of remedies for the itchiness. A small bit of vinegar on the affected area can help. The most effective for me, though is cortizone skin cream. Hope this helps.
α.γεεκ
Fortune passes everywhere.
Duke Leto Atreides -
I spent part of the day today scraping the boat hull, rather than sanding/grinding it. All the literature states that when grinding one should wear clothing head to toe, but it's still 100°F here - there's no way I'd survive that. So I settled for chipping away with a wood chisel and scraping with a paint scraper, assuming that without the airborne bits of fiberglass I'd be okay in almost no clothing. Wrong. This s$%t gets everywhere, no matter how you remove it. I thought that liquid epoxy stripper would soften it and make it clump up - wrong again. The meanest stripper I can find barely smudges this stuff. Some kind of brown resin was used to ineptly patch the hull, and it's a lot tougher than the original fiberglass that Boston Whaler used. That stuff delaminates in a heartbeat. As will be obvious to anyone who has worked with fiberglass, my everything itches. This crud spreads no matter how you remove it, and finds its way into the pores of your skin. It's going to be a long winter... Just for grins, when I found that the glass has separated completely for a couple of feet on the stern port chines, I shoved one of those plant moisture meter probes into the gap. The meter was pegged - the foam inside is saturated with water. Any ideas about how to remove the water, aside from the traditional method of bagging the boat and applying a vacuum? I have two ideas in mind, and maybe someone here has past experience that can guide me. One is to drill a series of holes in the hull, the other is to cut slots with a cutoff wheel alongside the keel - well, actually about midway between the chines and the keel. Then I'd place heat lamps under the boat for the winter and let convection do its thing. Any better ideas out there? "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
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(Garth, From CHICAGO <big grin>) I was wondering Roger if there's some sort of wicking you could poke into a hole to draw moisture away from the foam - then it could be evaporated off with a fan ... you need something hydrophilic that would suck up the water ... I dont know what you could find and wether the effect would be localised in the foam to a small radius ... Garth (Wednesday its Boston, Friday its San Francisco, until 22nd)
Good thought, and if I could be sure that the moisture was localized the wicking idea would work great. It's windy here, too, except when it's so hot you really wish the wind would blow. Unfortunately the core of the hull is foam, and any trapped liquid is likely to be widely dispersed. "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
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One small piece of advise, whenever working with fiberglass, you should washup using cold water. Cold water will cause your skin pours to close which helps keep the fiberglass out. Just trying to help.
Hmm, I never thought about that. Bathing in cold water - brrrrrr.... Oh well, whatever works.:sigh: "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
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As one who spent years working around fiberglass, I found a couple of remedies for the itchiness. A small bit of vinegar on the affected area can help. The most effective for me, though is cortizone skin cream. Hope this helps.
α.γεεκ
Fortune passes everywhere.
Duke Leto AtreidesI'm going to need gallons of vinegar! Either that, or get into the habit of wearing more clothes when I work outdoors... X| "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
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I spent part of the day today scraping the boat hull, rather than sanding/grinding it. All the literature states that when grinding one should wear clothing head to toe, but it's still 100°F here - there's no way I'd survive that. So I settled for chipping away with a wood chisel and scraping with a paint scraper, assuming that without the airborne bits of fiberglass I'd be okay in almost no clothing. Wrong. This s$%t gets everywhere, no matter how you remove it. I thought that liquid epoxy stripper would soften it and make it clump up - wrong again. The meanest stripper I can find barely smudges this stuff. Some kind of brown resin was used to ineptly patch the hull, and it's a lot tougher than the original fiberglass that Boston Whaler used. That stuff delaminates in a heartbeat. As will be obvious to anyone who has worked with fiberglass, my everything itches. This crud spreads no matter how you remove it, and finds its way into the pores of your skin. It's going to be a long winter... Just for grins, when I found that the glass has separated completely for a couple of feet on the stern port chines, I shoved one of those plant moisture meter probes into the gap. The meter was pegged - the foam inside is saturated with water. Any ideas about how to remove the water, aside from the traditional method of bagging the boat and applying a vacuum? I have two ideas in mind, and maybe someone here has past experience that can guide me. One is to drill a series of holes in the hull, the other is to cut slots with a cutoff wheel alongside the keel - well, actually about midway between the chines and the keel. Then I'd place heat lamps under the boat for the winter and let convection do its thing. Any better ideas out there? "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
Roger, When I was a teenager I worked stripping the big electric motors that ran the oil field pumps, which threw the fiberglass insulation everywhere (mostly on me). One of the tricks the old timers taught me was to take a shower using a common kitchen sponge (new sponges work best) instead of a wash cloth. It seems that the fiberglass bits more easily get caught up in the sponge and extracted from your skin. I don't remember any advice about hot or cold showers (it's been a long time since I was a teenager), but logic tells me that at this point, normal hot showers might be best so that the pores open and let the sponge draw the fiberglass out. I never took cold showers. Well, not related to fiberglass, anyway. And by the way, I was in Midland, Texas in the dead of summer, and clothed as completely as possible nonetheless. Working with fiberglass in the nude is not an experience I'd recommend... Christopher Duncan Today's Corporate Battle Tactic Unite the Tribes: Ending Turf Wars for Career and Business Success The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World
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I'm going to need gallons of vinegar! Either that, or get into the habit of wearing more clothes when I work outdoors... X| "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
A Tyvek suit will help, if you can find one (link at bottom), with rubber gloves duck taped to the sleeves of the suit, and a dust mask. These are the things we wore when working around the fiberglass. I worked in maintenance at a Japanese auto manufacturer in north-central Kentucky for seven years. My department (plastics) made the headliners for the autos we manufactured. The headliners were made of a fiberglass substrate, and the trimmings and such were ground and sent out. When the grinder went down, maintenance had to come to the rescue. Boy! Sometimes is could be downright miserable. 90 degrees with the above protective equipment, fiberglass dust all in the air. Ugh! I don't miss it a bit! Tyvek suit link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/search.html/ref=xs_ap_l_xgl193/002-3574880-0896829?index=apparel&node=1036682&keywords=tyvek[^]
α.γεεκ
Fortune passes everywhere.
Duke Leto Atreides -
I spent part of the day today scraping the boat hull, rather than sanding/grinding it. All the literature states that when grinding one should wear clothing head to toe, but it's still 100°F here - there's no way I'd survive that. So I settled for chipping away with a wood chisel and scraping with a paint scraper, assuming that without the airborne bits of fiberglass I'd be okay in almost no clothing. Wrong. This s$%t gets everywhere, no matter how you remove it. I thought that liquid epoxy stripper would soften it and make it clump up - wrong again. The meanest stripper I can find barely smudges this stuff. Some kind of brown resin was used to ineptly patch the hull, and it's a lot tougher than the original fiberglass that Boston Whaler used. That stuff delaminates in a heartbeat. As will be obvious to anyone who has worked with fiberglass, my everything itches. This crud spreads no matter how you remove it, and finds its way into the pores of your skin. It's going to be a long winter... Just for grins, when I found that the glass has separated completely for a couple of feet on the stern port chines, I shoved one of those plant moisture meter probes into the gap. The meter was pegged - the foam inside is saturated with water. Any ideas about how to remove the water, aside from the traditional method of bagging the boat and applying a vacuum? I have two ideas in mind, and maybe someone here has past experience that can guide me. One is to drill a series of holes in the hull, the other is to cut slots with a cutoff wheel alongside the keel - well, actually about midway between the chines and the keel. Then I'd place heat lamps under the boat for the winter and let convection do its thing. Any better ideas out there? "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
Have you tried any type of fan / dust extraction setup?
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Good thought, and if I could be sure that the moisture was localized the wicking idea would work great. It's windy here, too, except when it's so hot you really wish the wind would blow. Unfortunately the core of the hull is foam, and any trapped liquid is likely to be widely dispersed. "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
well, Im not sure if it wont work (sorry for not getting back to you, what with this course over here and trying to complete work as well) ... anyway .. the foam must have a saturation point - but, maybe, when a part of the foam goes dry (eg, by wicking the water away), the water continues to flow towards the wick to reach an equilibrium - Im not saying it will get the foam perfectly dry... you could test my theory of course - you would have access to the sort of foam wouldnt you ?? - if so, soak a chunk, put in in a clear plastic bag so you can watch if it equalises - then insert a wick, and maybe use a fan ... if Im correct and you can find a good enough wick, ie, a material that the water prefers more than the foam, the wick will run with water, and the foam will attempt to equalise the dry area around the wick - it will progressively dry from 'all points' since its trying for a balance 'G'
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well, Im not sure if it wont work (sorry for not getting back to you, what with this course over here and trying to complete work as well) ... anyway .. the foam must have a saturation point - but, maybe, when a part of the foam goes dry (eg, by wicking the water away), the water continues to flow towards the wick to reach an equilibrium - Im not saying it will get the foam perfectly dry... you could test my theory of course - you would have access to the sort of foam wouldnt you ?? - if so, soak a chunk, put in in a clear plastic bag so you can watch if it equalises - then insert a wick, and maybe use a fan ... if Im correct and you can find a good enough wick, ie, a material that the water prefers more than the foam, the wick will run with water, and the foam will attempt to equalise the dry area around the wick - it will progressively dry from 'all points' since its trying for a balance 'G'
What I think I'm going to attempt is to attach a wet/dry vac to each site of weeping, surrounded by plastic sheeting secured by duct tape. Although I can't acheive the levels of vacuum possible with commercial vacuum/bagging techniques that way, it should cause enough differential pressure to make most of the water migrate to the exit point. I had assumed that most of the water would be dispersed evenly throughout the hull, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Some of the hull fractures are seeping liquid, but others are not. Apparently the foam blocks at least some of the migration. I'm just wondering at this point whether it would be worthwhile to slit the hull open with a cutoff disk and apply suction to it. I'm not sure what the structural impact would be from repairing such a rift. My gut feeling is that, if I backfill the cuts with Kitty Hair, then lay down glass fiber over the slits and top it off with two layers of glass over the entire hull, the result should be far stronger than the original. Obviously, I'm still learning...:sigh: "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City