Putting A Floor In A Fiberglass Body

You ll want to use regular spray paint or a latex acrylic paint for a decorative piece or a door but for surfaces that will see a lot of heavy.

Putting a floor in a fiberglass body.

I considered the well know wooden floor but decided that i would rather like the underneath to be as good as the body. Once the resin impregnated fiberglass mat has cured usually within a few hours the deck surface is virtually watertight think of the hull of a fiberglass boat. The floor provides support to additional deck equipment such and winches consoles and. I stared off by considering the things i would need to get to like the master cylinders and the battery.

Most floors are framed with 2 by 10s and require r 38 insulation. Installation of the floor gives the flimsy fiberglass body its required strength and rigidity. But do it the wrong way and you ll end up with a misaligned body. You can buy kits from home centers department stores or auto parts stores in various sizes depending on your project.

I glassed the floor with two layers of the 1 oz. As i have only 2 pedals and no floor shifter in a tight 15 body i wanted as much room as i could get for my feet. Start by buffing away the shine using 150 400 grit sandpaper since paint won t stick to a glossy surface. It has several advantages over cloth.

Now that the body was set and the 1 x 2 s were in place i set the cutout t bucket floor inside the body and centered the floor to where the gaps were about equal all around. Purchase a fiberglass kit a kit should contain the poly polyester resin hardener catalyst and cloth for structural strength. It takes a little patience and it can be slightly messy but you ll find you can easily make a repair to your car body using fiberglass cloth. This was done prior to setting the body on the floor.

Rolls are preferred over batts because they come in longer lengths which often allow you to run continuous strips across the entire length of the floor. Finally he poured resin over the main surface of the floor and pushed it around with a paint roller until the entire mat was saturated and transparent. Fiberglass body floor installation is a critical step in a street rod build. It also goes around corners better so if you have to have the fiberglass wrap around a corner or over a piece of wood it is better for that job.

To paint fiberglass you ll need to buff it with sandpaper apply a primer then paint it. In this post we ll give you the highlights on how bob hamilton does it. You can insulate between the floor joists using faced or unfaced fiberglass. It wets out better so it sticks together better and it sticks to other things like the wood you will be putting in your body for strength.

Fiberglass cloth properly applied and hardened will leave the body ready to paint so it looks as good as new. The flooring creates a dead air space just above the hull s bottom that can add bouyancy to a boat made from materials with no inherent bouyancy such as fiberglass steel or aluminum.