I got the new pumps from West Marine, so now it’s time to glass the tube. I placed the tube on a section of PVC pipe and suspended that between a couple of saw horses.
Next I mixed up some epoxy and coated the tube with the epoxy resin before I started applying the fiberglass.
Next I took my fiberglass and laid one edge on the line I had previously drawn. Then I slowly pressed the glass into the wet tube and started rolling the tube and applying the fiberglass. After I had about 4 inches or so started on the tube I then brushed some more epoxy resin on the glass to get it thoroughly wet. When the fiberglass is clear and you can see the tube underneath then it is wet enough. But you don’t want the resin dripping off either, just enough to get it wet. I then rolled the tube and applied more glass. I smoothed it down and toward the tube ends with my hands as I applied the glass. I also was checking for air pockets in the glass as I was going and smoothed them out as I went. This continued until I made it back around to where I started and then continued with more resin and more rolling the tube. I cut the fiberglass so I had enough to wrap the tube twice. Two layers should be enough for this build. I’m sorry I don’t have pictures of the actual process, I was doing this by myself and my gloved hands were sticky with resin so I didn’t want to touch my phone. Anyway here is the tube after it had two layers of glass applied.
I wrapped the ends with some masking tape to try and keep the ends attached to the tube. Keeping the ends smooth without any wrinkles is one of the hard parts of glassing a tube. When the fiberglass is at the just barely tacky stage but not fully cured then you can remove the tape. When the fiberglass is still at the plastic stage but not hard cured you can cut the ends of the fiberglass cloth flush with the tube ends. Here is the tube with the ends cut off.
You can see I brought it into the house. I did that to help with the cure. When the tube was cured to the point that the resin was not wanting to run anymore I brought it in. The weather just didn’t warm the garage up enough. The warmth of the house finished the cure nicely. Next comes the fun part of sanding the seam smooth and doing any necessary touch ups on the ends. Anyway that’s where is stands as of now. More to come and thanks for looking.
Luhman-ations 