Fiberglass on Foam

This may be simply silly but is there a way to fiberglass on foam without sheeting or some kind of film that wont melt the foam? Im new to this and haven't seen a tut on it yet.

Nitro

 

Foam sandwhich construction is very common in boat building. If you use the right foam with the right glass and the right resin it will be fine.

To get a better answer that this you will need to be a bit more specific as to what you are hoping to do

 

I guess the main question is, can you apply fiberglass resin directly to foam? I would think it would melt.

 

If you mean polystyrene or styrofoam and polyester resin you are probably right. But those types of foam generally have no place in for boat building anyway.

If you use proper structural foam formulated for composite construction and talk to your supplier about the type of resin you want to use it will be fine.

 

I live in the middle of Missouri and a boat building supplier is kinda rare around here. I didn't know about the poly and Styrofoam thanks. I'll keep investigating. What would be cool is a scaled down "Garvey" type boat or something one could build as a learning tool for construction ideas like a model boat from scratch but true to actual techniques. Maybe a very good book that's simple for the novice to grasp too.

Nitro

 

Online shopping is the ticket, as UPS can have it at your door, pretty quickly. As a rule, costs associated with these construction methods are higher than other methods. Also, it's very difficult to match the weight/performance of a taped seam, plywood build, compared to foam core construction, in small craft.

If you want to fool with the techniques and building methods, associated with a foam cored build, you don't need a boat, just build a foam box, maybe with curved sides, so you can find the joy in fairing a curved surface.