I’ve got a board that is the best glassed board I’ve ever owned, super strong and relatively light. I’ve wacked it hard and the gloss coat shattered but it didn’t even dent the glass. I want to know how to describe the kind of fiberglass cloth it has.
This board is probably about 10 or 15 years old, so it is not anything new. I’ve seen a few boards with this stuff in the past, but not recently.
The cloth shows a pattern of parallel thin white lines (stripes) about 1/4" apart. The Swaylopedia shows a few different patterns of glass, but I didn’t find one that looks like mine.
Double Bias. what you can see is the stitching holding the strands in place as they are not woven but run at 45 degrees one direction on top of the other.
I’ll try to provide a decent photo later. I’m looking at it through hardened resin, but it looks like typical fiberglass cloth but with an added double weave every quarter inch or so, creating a pin-stripe pattern.
If this is indeed “double bias” cloth, what are its advantages and disadvantages? It definitely seems to be a step up compared to what most boards are glassed with. Why don’t we see more of it used?
If it’s indeed a non woven cloth, the advantage is that the thread are in layers which does not create stress in the point where the go over and under each other. It’s supposedly a hint stronger and should also be possible to laminate lighter as there is no weave to fill. The reason it’s not widely used is because it’s hard to laminate by hand with a squeegee, mostly used with vacuum bagging.