: Hey Sam

: How the hell you doing anyhow? Invent more cool things while I was away or
: craft more of those incredible works of art you call mere kayaks?

: The trip was good and I promise to start posting to the trips section when I
: get out from commitments and sudden real work generated from the problems
: exposed by the recent fires. So I'll be doing some consulting and of
: course what the findings are will be ignored. As I always said
: "Management isn't and planners don't"

: So this s-glass thing is a real mystery. My glass and epoxy suppliers both
: have opinions and wondered what the conditions were and epoxy used. The
: 6522 is supposed to be one of the cloths for enhanced clarity! My glass
: supllier and the boyz in the back all gathered round the image I sent and
: opined that they fibers didn't wet-out properly. Gee, we knew that! C'mon,
: why! So, after the meeting of minds after bumping of heads the ideas
: where: 1. epoxy and/or cloth were too cold
: 2. epoxy was too viscous for proper wet-out
: 3. contamination of the cloth
: 4. failure in the manufacturing process in the finish portion, possibly in
: the yarn manufacturing portion.

: The trixial glass is a term used loosely for the tight weave fine cloths used
: in light applications. All are under 3 oz and are used for such things as
: model airplanes, etc. Industry, or course, uses it for all sorts of
: applications. In fact, Boeing and Lockheed have established standards for
: the cloths out there. The fine weave multi-directional cloths differ from
: the common 90 degree angle weave by the number of points in the weave
: harness. There's apparently 4 point and 8 point, and the stuff I use when
: I can get it, the real 120 degree weaves which is the real meaning of
: triaxial. The other stuff I like for it's tightness and smoothness in
: layup, and that I have this theory that 2 three oz layers are stronger
: with less epoxy then one 6 oz layer of plain weave. Of course, there's no
: sound reason that this is true, in fact, there are sound reasons why this
: is NOT true, but it does leave a slick finish and we all have our
: illusions we cling to. One of mine is the that 3 oz theory. Another is
: that my hair isn't thinning (at least in places where it's not totally
: missing). Now that I think about it, the list is rather long.
: I think I'll go have a beer.

Mike,

Good luck with the clean up. My mom is just inland from Del Mar and the stands of eucalyptus about 3/4 of mile up-Santa Anna-wind have her real nervous… She had the shake roof torn off the house a few years ago, but her neighbor still has one.

Looking at the image it may be hard to convince yourself, but there were no wet out problems with the S glass. I used Raka epoxy with their slow hardener, following a seal coat. Conditions were perfect, about 75 F, and the E glass panels were wet out in the same session. I mixed a different batch of epoxy for each set of 4 panels (4 panels S, 4 panels E), so each set saw the same changes in resin viscosity with time. The S glass yarns are perfectly clear, but the surrounding epoxy rich regions between yarns (which are also perfectly clear) are evident - hence the difference in appearance. I think it would be interesting to look at the two panels with polarized lenses. I checked the BGF web site, but only found finish information for the 6522, so I sent JR Sweet an email asking if they knew more about the finish on the 1522. If there is a difference in finish, perhaps that is the explanation - but I don't expect it is. It seems resonable to me that this type of appearance is why some people have stated that S glass does not wet out "clear". It is clear, but it (often?) shows this "ghosting".

Sam