fiberglass ????

Im redoing the floors in my flatt as we speak. I have all the glass stripped off of the stringers and the Mahogongy floor. Im curious as to how many layers of glass I should put back on it. Im going to use epoxy instead of resin. & what ounce cloth should I use should I use some matt ect. What has anyone else used?

Flattie, we just finished the floors in our boat with epoxy and S-2 cloth we got from TAP Plastics in Stockton, they came out bitching. To answer all your epoxy questions get the EPOXY BOOK from System Three Resins in Seattle Wa. It'll tell ya what ya can and can't do with epoxy.

I would use two separate layers of 2 oz mat and 2oz cloth (mat, cloth, squeegee, mat, cloth, squeegee, flow coat) I use West System epoxy for lots of repairs and have had excellent luck with it, but for that size of a lamination, you will need to get the right mat that has no polyester binders in it. I am really not sure how well your wood is going to show though using epoxy resin. If you use West System, you will need to thin it down, and I am not sure what they recommend. One trick I can tell you about epoxy is to mix smaller batches of resin.....

I want to take another opportunity to thank Ducky for taking his time to give me some good advise on a fiberglass repair job that I had to make on my Daytona.
Since I'm in Michigan it wasn't like I was ever going to be a customer at his shop in Havasu either.
THANKS FOR THE HELP

You are very welcome. I am glad it worked out for you. Feel free to call me anytime.

boats are typically layed up with a polyester resin. You can use epoxy over polyester, but you cannot use polyester resin over epoxy resin. Epoxy contains petroleum products and the polyester does not bond well with it.

Rick is correct, and I should have mentioned it before. Once you go epoxy, you can never go back. Epoxy leaves behind a chemical when it cures that is reddish in color called amine. Commonly referred to as "Amine Blush", amine screws with the cure of almost anything put on top of it later, except 2k (catalyzed) paints, and more epoxy. Epoxy resins didn't exist when your boat was built, so obviously your boat is polyester. Todays epoxy resins provide adhesion qualities that polyester resin could only dream of. That's why I use it if I find myself making a repair that I feel has a high chance of failure. I am just not sure that it is the right material to use for what you are doing. If you do choose to use it, I would strongly suggest getting some scraps of plywood and practicing the lamination procedure before tackling the inside of your boat.

I have used epoxy on someone elses boat and the adhesion was awesome due to the wood floor. I was going to use John Greers epoxy I believe its Aeromarine Non blushing. THe other reason Im using epoxy is that Im doing this in a garage that is attached to the house "No Fumes"

My brother and I repaired his floor in his hondo. When we went to pick up the materials we were considering using epoxy, but the guy talked us out of it. His reason was when you do a repair you want the structural integrity to be comparable to stock. So we tried to use the same cloth and polyester resin. I was going use epoxy before I talked to this guy. I don't think either way is wrong. I do know that once you use epoxy you can't go back to poylester.
http://www.***boat.com/image_center/data/500/345819.jpg

When we use epoxy on floors using exposed Carbon Fiber / Carbon Kevlar Hybreds, we found that the Mediam (set time) Hardner is far clearer than the Fast or Slow Hardners.... jest food for thought ........ :) :) :)