Peel Ply instructions

[slowpoke]

Guys, I've never used peel ply before, could someone give me a rundown on just how you use it? do you wet it out with the cloth? Doesn't it stick? Why not? Can you re-use it?
Thanks for the help,
Rocky

[micah202]

1..wet out the wood with epoxy resin where cloth is going to go
2..apply fillet material
3..lay peelply on worktable with f.g. cloth on top,,wet-out with roller
4 ..lift cloth and peelply together and apply to seam--the peelply will help prevent the f.g. cloth from distorting
5...use a roller to push the glass cloth into the filleting material,,which will nicely form a radius to the corner and fill voids
6...once the epoxy resin is fully cured,,the peel-ply will lift off the cured epoxy,,as long as the peelply is a nylon fabric.
7...discard the used peelply-it's now full of cured,hard resin.

[ryderp]

I didn't do the peel-ply on the seams on my boat. The biggest single advantage of the peal ply is that you get a nice even surface with the glass fabric weave completely filled in, and a slightly rough texture that will easily accept paint or additional layers of epoxy. Another huge advantage of the peel-ply is that seams at the edges of overlapping glass cloth fill in and you get a very nice smooth transition between the two, which greatly cuts down on the need to fair those joints.

Like every other task in this project, I got pretty good at it just about the time I was done with it. The important thing when laying down the peel ply is that it be nice and smooth and that epoxy soaks through the nylon cloth evenly. It should be pretty much transparent everywhere. If there are white areas (assuming that you're using white nylon cloth), you can just wet them down with epoxy from the outside using a rubber squeegee or a roller. If you don't do this, then every area that is not "see through" is going to be a surface imperfection. When it's done it looks like it is never going to come off, but it does. Actually I love the sound and feel when pulling off the cloth. It seems like a shame to have to throw out the cloth afterward but it is not reusable. I bought my peel ply from supplier of glass and CF that I use (Solar Composites), but I understand that you can just buy nylon from any fabric store.

The nylon doesn't stick because the fibers that are used are not very porous, and the nylon plastic itself does not adhere to most glues. This is true of very cheap nylon fabric but not necessarily of higher-end fibers that have been engineered for texture or elasticity, etc. This is the one case where buying cheap is better. One of the reasons why I bought the peel ply from the composite supplier was to insure that I got the right stuff.

[Kevin]

I'm personally a fan of the plastic scraper because they do a great job of removing excess resin and at this point, I've been using them so long that anything else just doesn't seem to work as well to me.

I use the cheapest nylon I can find. A fabric place by me has it for 1.29 a yd for 60" width.

My life would be completely different now if I had known about this technique 4 years ago. Definitely worth the cost of the peel ply in saved time. No second coats when you are completely exhausted from filleting and taping but want to get the 2nd coat on before the first sets up. No sanding the tape so you can fix an air bubble or other issue. It's just move on to the next part of the project.

Cheers, Kevin.

[ryderp]

In my note above I left out the fact that I didn't use peel-ply for the seams because I didn't know about it at the time. I tried the nylon cloth first on a small project that my son was doing and I was amazed at how much easier it was. I agree with kevin on the plastic spreader. The ones that I use are actually Bondo brand (made for putting Bondo on cars) and I get them at Home Depot.

[Kevin]

u.s. composites has spreaders in 10 packs for pretty cheap. If you clean them up after you are done you can use the same one for months. I also used their "fairing compound" which is a blend of many things including micro balloons which I found to be easy to sand. You can also get straight aerosil silica and straight balloons.

[micah202]

....yep,,spreaders a a -must- in the glasser's toolkit,,,
...in the instructions I gave above,I was focusing on seamwork--a spreader could still be used when wetting-out the cloth on the lay-out panel,,,though it's not a bad thing at all to be a bit resin-rich on the seams,,especially when the woods going t'be absorbing some resin.
...for flat surfaces I'd definitely use a spreader,,,but prefer a flexible rubber one available at glass supply shops....if you try one,,you'll know why!....usually a 3' length costs ~$15--cut a few different lengths,,radius the corners for applying fillets,etc.

[Chad]

Peelply won't make it into some of the corners that the cloth will, so if you're running tape from shear to shear for instance, then you want to apply the peelply in three segments from shear to chine, chine to chine, and chine to shear. You can try to run little strips in the corners but you'll be fighting it. Best just to use ye old double-gloved finger to poke and stroke the glass into the not-cured fillet.

Here's some examples dug from my picture library of places where peelply would, might, and wouldn't work.

Wouldn't work:

IMGP1581.jpg

Works a little, see bubbles at corner:

IMGP1731.jpg

Doesn't work in the corner, but really helps keep the bias cloth from distorting from the wet out table to the boat:

IMGP1761.jpg

Definitely works nicely here:

IMG_0166.jpg

If you buy nylon fabric from the fabric store instead of a composite shop, make sure it isn't too smooth. You want a little tooth left behind by the weave of the cloth. Some nylons are almost slick- I haven't bought/used any like that, just heard that it should be avoided.

[noemar]

Has anyone tried laying wax paper over fiberglass tape and epoxy? After wetting out the tape and laying it out I have placed wax paper over and then smooth out with a plastic putty knife. When dry most of the wax paper peels off easily leaving a rather smooth finish on the tape.
Noemar

[noemar]

Chad,
The shear on your boat pictured above looks great. Did tou use a moulding or a router?

[Chad]

Careful with the wax paper if you need to bond/coat the lamination later. Wax contamination and so on.

And yes, I used a router. It's a 1/2" radius bit and a fence, done in a couple passes since the slope below changes the fence's bearing surface. I set the fence so it only exposed the upper 3/4 of the cutter leaving an erris or small point at the bottom. Then sanded and longboarded it sorta egg shaped. Most of the shaping nuance gets lost with a wrap of biax, though

[slowpoke]

Chad did you put a gybing keel setup in your boat?

[Chad]

Holy hijack!

Yes, it will jibe. Makes the keel case easy to construct- just a rectangle...

I have half a dozen different ways of controlling (and preventing) the jibe sketched on various notepads, still not exactly sure what I'll end up with. Anybody seen the Leech6.5 on SA with the jiber?

[Kevin]

Back to the wax paper for a moment...

I used wax paper over fairing compound on my bow. I found it very useful in preventing sagging on the nearly vertical sections of the boat. In my case these areas needed lots of work as I pulled everything tight to the frames. As for wax contamination, I washed down the fresh stuff before sanding with 60 grit before applying anything on top of the areas and I've had no issues at all. This was all pre-glassing work.

I routed my gunwales with a 1/2" router as well. Forward 1/3 it works great. Beyond that you have to use care as Chad described. I finished mine off with a hand plane with great success and a lot less effort than a longboard requires. Some old school tools are still the right ones for the job.

Now back to that jibing keel hi-jack....

Kevin.

[ryderp]

One quick note on peel ply. Don't let all of the edges of the peel ply be buried in the epoxy. You need to have a nice section of nylon cloth exposed to be able to grab it when you rip it off. I had ones section where I only left a bit exposed and I had a very hard time getting it off.

[Chad]

Oops, memory failing again- I checked the boat and my router bit collection and it was a 1" bit, with the top 3/4-5/8" showing.

Try ripping off peel ply at night in a darkened shop, nice lightening show!

[slowpoke]

Sorry about the hijack. Chad, could you start another thread about your jibing keel and why you decided to go with it?
Thanks, Rocky

[lohwaikin]

Seems like the instructions here given are for peel ply use during FG laminating.
How about post-laminating use of peel-ply to achieve surface finish for primer/painting?

I'm already done with FG lamination of top deck, and the sanding down (especially at those cloth joints) is painfully slow (<1 sqft per hour).
The prospect of slapping on more epoxy followed by long-boarding them down to primer standard is pretty demoralising...

Cheers,

[Chad]

Heavier grit sandpaper is what you need, nothing finer than 80 grit. You're using a fairing filler of some sort, and not silica in your epoxy, right?

I was able to sand the deck and cabin top in an hour or two, the hull bottom in maybe three.

[lohwaikin]

I'm glassing one side of my keel foil and using rip-stop parachute Nylon fabric as peel-ply for the very first time. Looks charmingly alright, but I'm beginning to notice folded creases on the peel-ply rising slightly. I scrambled to tauten the peel-ply by appling cellophane tapes all over the edges, but the sticky tape doesn't stick to Nylon I supposed. Anyway it sure beats trying to sand down "gravity-levelled" glass-epoxy lamination which I did for the whole top deck. I'll keep everybody posted if I can remove the Nylon fabric tomorrow evening...

Cheers,

[noemar]

Happy New year everyone.
Anyone out there ever done business with a ebay seller elitemotoring? They sell peelply and nylon bagging material . I was considering buying the nylon bagging material (item #12104464413 on ebay)but not really sure it could be used as a peelply. The price seems right $4.95 a yard for material that is 110" wide'

Noel

[Tim Ford]

Yes, I have...I bought some CF twill from them a couple of years ago. Product was fine, could not tell the difference between it and the stuff Jamestown sells. I would buy from them again.

[lohwaikin]

I had good results from my first peel ply use...however I noticed the Nylon rip-stop lines kind of cringe together forming some minor grid-like ripple on the resin coating. No big issue, I'll mow them down with my 80-grit sanding block.

[noemar]

I plan on laying down some carbon fiber/ glass combination fabric on the bottom next week. Thinking I'm going to spread a thin coat of WEST epoxy over the entire area ,laying the fabric in one piece,add more epoxy and then the peelply. Am I approaching this task the right way?
Noel
noemar@verizon.net

[Chad]

Is the bottom already rough-faired and epoxy sealed? -then skip the pre-wetting of the surface which will make the cloth more difficult to apply neatly. Otherwise, sounds fine to me. If you haven't wet out this particular fabric before, do a warm up session with a one foot square on plastic or window glass, to check the underside and to be sure you're getting a full wet out.