This is an on-going page of tips, tricks, and "reasons" for the home builder. If you have any great ideas that you want added then please send them to me by e-mail..........thanks for tuning in and I hope you find something that is useful.

 

Plywood/glass sandwich: There is almost nothing that we have found easier, cheaper, and better than this basic structural panel. Plywood makes a great "core". It's inexpensive, pretty flat, great compression, and very easy to work with and later mount things to.

Fiberglass both sides of the plywood with epoxy resin and you have a VERY long lived panel......there are 40 year old boats still winning races with this construction technique. We have even made marine head holding tanks with this method which have been perfect for 13 years.

Tips? Glass the plywood before you assemble your box, or hull, or shelf, etc. Glass the plywood when the temperature is dropping and not in the sun. You want the wood to be INHALING, not EXHALING when you glass it. Also, you should place the epoxy resin in the sun and warm it up first. This will allow the resin to penetrate better and make the glassing easier. With light cloth (8 oz. or less) we "dry glass"......which means we lay the dry glass down and smooth it out first, then pour resin on the cloth and squeeze it through the glass. Make sure to check the layup after a few minutes as some plywoods will soak up the resin and leave the glass too dry....so more resin should then be squeeged down. For heavier glass, you can pre-coat the plywood and while still wet, lay down the cloth and then pour resin over it.

 

Cutting glass and glass/plywood panels:

Glass is very abrasive and will ruin a good jigsaw (or bandsaw) blade in a heartbeat. Use abrasive (carbide bits) blades which are usually sold for tile or cement. They are inexpensive and are just carbide pieces glued onto the blade........they sand their way through the material rather than actually cutting through it, there are no teeth on the blade. They last almost forever.