chop some glass scraps up with your scissors and then use the coffee grinder to mulch it up some more. Just don’t put the coffee grinder back in the kitchen!
Here is what I learned to do. It seems to work every time. Really, I’ve never had a problem with the 10" boxes. I do have FCS heating up quite a bit. I always mix a bit of Q-cel or fibers in with my resin. Set the box as usual and for precaution, put a few strips of tape to hold it down. Go get yourself some paper towels folded into squares and soak them with cold water. Tape them onto the opposite side of the board to cover the entire area you have routed out. It seems to keep things cool enough so no problems occur. Like I said, unless you are routing your boxes too deep, you shouldn’t have a problem anyways. FCS holes are pretty deep and go all the way to the deck, so I would definitely use this method for those. Good luck!
Hey Ray, if you don’t feel like driving to La Mesa, there is also a guy in San Diego who sells milled fibers (and resin, cabosil, epoxy, pigments, etc etc) on Ebay under the name aeromarineproducts, or you can just give him a call
Howzit Leslie, I've found that using those big Cello sponges work best for cooling the heat on FCS installs. I put a board on the racks under the board so I can position the sponge so it covers the plug area on the deck. After the mix kicks off but the deack is still hot you can flip the board so the deck is up and reput the sponges over the area.Aloha,Kokua
Although for a small volume I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just shear some very short bits from scrap cloth. Re preventing heat buildup, I agree that reducing the volume of resin with a filler will help accomplish that. Ryan’s original post seemed to identify poor heat conduction as a positive for preventing meltdown; in fact, good heat conduction (ultimately to the atmosphere) should be your friend in this case. The only way I see the insulating properties of Q-cell working favorably would be if there was some way to get all of it to migrate to the interface between the resin and the foam, and nowhere else. Resin volume and all else being equal, evenly dispersed hollow glass spheres will almost certainly increase the temperature. I never tried it, but a well-known ding repair manual cites aluminum powder as an additive to help prevent heat build-up, and I see that Fiberglass Supply sells that as well.
…in fact, good heat conduction (ultimately to the atmosphere) should be your friend in this case. Good point. This is overkill, but how about a thin cheater coat with spheres to insulate the foam, then filling normally? Just a thought. I don’t really think you’d get much protection if the resin did get hot. The only way I see the insulating properties of Q-cell working favorably would be if there was some way to get all of it to migrate to the interface between the resin and the foam, and nowhere else. Confused. Sounds like a contradiction of objective. Wouldn’t this increase chance of meltdown? Resin volume and all else being equal, evenly dispersed hollow glass spheres will almost certainly increase the temperature. Except we’re working with a fixed void volume. That addition of anything lowers the resin volume.
Howzit Ryan, Cooling off the area on the deck also keeps the deck from getting a bulge in the center of filler ring where it connects to the deck. That bulge will cause a problem when sanding before a gloss job since the ring is a little recessed and you would have to sand it flat to make for a nice gloss plus it weakens the area on the deck and that will cause failure due to the weakness. I find doing my FCS installs as my last project of the day works since I can leave the wet sponges on over night.Aloha,Kokua