how to increase the toughness of Fiberglass?

[PAR]

Yaasaay, there's no free rides in this venture, you need an education on several levels. The net can provide some specific details for research, but not the education.

Most of use study for years, some also have many years of industry experience. There's no short cut to understanding the various disciplines and I'm not sure why you're persisting on finding an easy, "Dummies Guide to Yacht Design and Engineering", as none exists. You can spend a few years in collage or several years attempting to acquire the information through books.

[BPGougeon]

Yassaay, the picture is a polyester resin. All polyester resins are two part systems, Resin and catalist. You mix the two together and they will react. The more catalist you use, the quicker it will cure. It is often refered to as resin or boat resin. When you hear this it is refering to both the resin and the catalist. The resin is then used to wet out fiberglass. The reason its difficult to answer your question is because the strength of your hull will largly depend on the hull desingn and the thickness and orientation of the fiberglass. Its a very complex question, that people a lot smarter than me are paid very well to answer.

[DOPatrick]

Hello,
ive been reading the post and have a solution to your problem. question....?.... how long is your boat and what did you make the frame out of? To answer your most basic question how to make fiberglass strong. Its all in the amount of layers and type of fiberglass and resins. theres 3 basic types: 1 for making molds, 1 is a general purpose use and then one for making the boats inside the molds. All have different qualities but all just as strong as the other. Queston.....?......did you make a ribbed frame and cover it with plywood or 1 by 4 wood slats or something like that?....................... Hers how we do it in our shop. we make 14ft to 23 ft tunnel hulls, cats and mod V's. we have a shinny mold. waxed 10 times. then we spray a layer of gel coat, then we lay up 5 layers of fiberglass as follows over the gel coat. ( chop from a chop machine, woven roven hand laid, chop, roven, chop again and were done. then we pull it out of the mold. then we lay in our stringers and glass them and then install a deck) theres alot more to it but thats the basic of it.that combo will give you about a 1/4 to 1/2 thick hull which we give a lifitime warrenty. that makes a super strong hull and the key is the roven woven.

[river runner]

Some epoxies are made stronger by heating them up (in place). You'd almost need a paint baking booth.
The most important thing in making epoxy strong is mixing it correctly. If it says 2:1, it better be 2:1 and not 2.2:1. Measure very accurately, and do a double mix procedure. Mix well in first container, then pour and scrape everything into a second container and mix again. Scraping o the mixing stick and sides a few times during the process.
Sounds like you are covering a wooden boat with epoxy and glass. I glue the edges first with structural epoxy (let that cure), then fillet the inside of the joint between panels, while that is still soft, tape over the joint with laminating epoxy and fiberglass tape (I'd let that cure a while, you need a break). Then lay down the cloth and laminating epoxy. Sometimes I brush on some epoxy first to hold the glass in place, otherwise I lay down the cloth, pour on some epoxy and spead it out with a plastic spreader. I've used a foam roller, but a spreader seems to work as well as anything. You want to put on enough resin to get fill in the glass completely. It might take two or more coats.