Fiberglassing walls flat or upright

[danlott]

I am pretty much finished with the construction of my walls. I need to decide if I want to fiberglass them laying flat and then install them on the trailer or do all the fiberglassing after I have assembled the trailer. The only benefit I can see at doing them laying flat is the ease, which sounds good to me. My concerns though are that if I do fiberglass them laying flat it will make it harder to assemble the trailer. If I used screws though the outside and then patched over the screw heads then I am breaking the barrier of the fiberglass and losing the water tightness. I will be painting over the fiberglass.

Dan

[pohukai]

I've only glassed kayaks and level is always easier for me. Also, depending on the wt of fiberglass you're using will determine the additional coats of epoxy needed to fill the weave; again easier done flat to avoid sags that you won't need to sand out.

I understand the difficulty with the handling the fully glassed sides. I'll have the same problem with that when I get to that point. My plan is to build a block and tackle system attached to the major beam in the garage. I wished the handing of bulky and somewhat heavy materials was discussed more.

Jim

[Oldragbaggers]

I did mine laying flat. The walls are now up. I used screws from the outside into the spars and the galley bulkhead, plus the screws that attached the wall to the frame. After assembly I filled all the holes with epoxy thickened with cabosil. After I lay the cloth on the roof and wrap it over the edges the holes from the screws that went into the spars will be completely covered again. The remaining holes are filled to flush, with epoxy, and when I am done with everything I will sand the entire trailer, roll on one last coat of resin. On top of that it will be primed and painted. I do not see any breaks in the integrity of my skin at all.

[CliffinGA]

Did my little bit standing up and it stinks because you always have some runs in it.

Cliff

[Jkester]

I did the fiberglass and 3 coats of epoxy while the walls were flat. Like Becky, once I stand them up and complete the roof I will add a final coat over everything (plus 2 on the roof) and finish up with some kind of UV protection. Hopefully that will happen this month.
James

[NathanL]

You can do standing up but it takes practice. Contrary to what you might think you get less runs starting with the epoxy at the bottom and going up rather than down. You really have to make an effort as you go up to squeege the epoxy enough to not only move the epoxy up the wall but stretch or keep the glass flat. You can take a paint brush with natural bristles and brush over your glass a few times and it will stick due to static electricity, depending on how light of a glass you use you can get it stick to the wall all together. But if you have the option I would go flat as long as you can reach in the middle of your wall while it's laying down.

Using something like a 4oz glass you can actually get it to stick overhead and work that way too, I don't recommend it tho