Art & Inspiration Fiberglass history

Lately, I have been making a fiberglass deck lid for my T coupe and my neighbor across the alley has been making carbon fiber infusion body panels for his car, so while I'm waiting for my resin to harden, why not do a thread on fiberglass history? This is not intended to be a rant of glass versus steel cars but rather to talk about how long this stuff has been available. Looking things up on Google, I found out that the Stout Scarab built in the 40's was fiberglass. Remember seeing a Saturday matinee at the Capital theatre "Johnny Dark" as a kid about guys starting a sports car company and entering a race with a Woodill Wildfire made in 1953. Also 1953 Corvettes and Dee Westcott from back then. This is definitely traditional building material. Anyone else have fiberglass stories to tell?

 

Years ago I worked for Owens Corning Fiberglass. I remember a training video where they said fiberglass was discovered when they tried to spray molten glass.

 

Interesting. I have never really considered the history of fiberglass but do actually like working with it. My dad restored Corvettes when I was a kid and showed me a lot about working with it. After my first Corvette rebuild of a butchered up car about 20 years ago, I became decent with it and have built several parts since. Seems to be quite the marketable skill too since most folks hate itching...

 

My job was grinding the fiberglass tanks we built!

 

I like working with it, I've made several parts for odd duck race cars over the years.
Make the mold then cast the part.

 

Not being critical of your spelling at all, but noticed the article about Dee Wescott had his name wrong and thought it may make internet searches a little smoother with the correct spelling for anyone interested in doing so.

 

The funnest and most profitable fiberglass project I did was building a custom hood for a very OT tractor that is somewhat of a hot rod marketing tool for my company. Some industrial design agency that we had worked with before quoted building an updated hood for the tractor to match our new models at $150k for one piece. When I heard that, I asked if I could put in a quote. I did it for WAY less money and still made plenty. And, it is somewhat famous I suppose at least in the construction equipment world.

 

https://www.ensignautobody.com/car-talk/2016/12/30/fiberglass-smc-carbon-fiber-and-beyond

This one is kinda long but if ya scroll to the boat and car part it’s cool
https://www.inventionandtech.com/content/fiberglass-story-0

 

....greetings guthriesmith!....HAMB brother, you know the rules.....PICTURES or it didn't happen!!!....cmon bro this has got to be HAMB worthy!

 

Some t bucket info
https://www.tbucketplans.com/the-real-history-of-the-fiberglass-t-bucket-body/

A cool glass car
https://silodrome.com/glasspar-g2/

 

I looked at a running driving Glasspar in the '60s. It was on a 1940 something Ford chassis. Imagine a body shell sitting on a chassis. Thats all there was, no inner panels to separate and join the body to the chassis.. It looked cheap and incomplete even though it had an interior and paint and was being driven.

 

Sounds like those "dorky" fairgrounds cruisers people would screw together, we would see all sorts of oddball stuff at different events.
Funny the things people will do to get their picture in a magazine.

 

Very impressive Jeff.

 

I worked in a truck body shop about 25 years ago. I made the mistake of being pretty good working with fiberglass to repair busted up truck front clips. I repaired quite a few tilt hoods that boss was ready to write off. I really won him over after the shop bought a rebuilt hood from a local vendor and I had to spend a few hours cutting it up and repairing the screwed up hood that wouldn't fit the truck. I liked playing with fiberglass but the itching was unbareable at times.

 

Thank you Anthony for the information about Glasspar. I just guessed that the car in "Johnny Dark" was Woodill Wildfire.

 

My earlier comment was directed at these Glasspars.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gla...UXt54KHYpdAnYQ_AUoAnoECA0QAg&biw=1280&bih=752

 

When was the last fibreglass Corvette?
What is SMC?

 

I would be interested to know who made the fiberglass body on my car...

The guy I got it from didn't know who built it, and had no knowledge of its history. Standard body style with no identifying characteristics...

 

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums/paint-body/1738831-when-did-smc-start.html

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forum...iberglass-guys-lars-or-others-srp-vs-frp.html

https://romeorim.com/smc/

 

In my teen years I worked a summer job at a place called Calafia that made fairings, trunks and saddle bags for motorcycles. My job was to roll out the wet fiberglass/resin after it has been sprayed via chopper gun into the molds, to remove all air bubbles. 1 summer was enough of that shit...

 

Spent a year building fiberglass boats and smaller items that way. Perhaps not the healthiest jobs out there.

 

There's an easier way to produce fibreglass bodies these days, take a look at how a local business produces them via vacuum infusion, no manual laying up or inconsistent chopper gun. Far superior to other manufactured bodies these days and strong!


On another issue here's PlazaGlas it did the Thunderbolt and similar Mercury hoods from my understanding as well as later OT 66 427 Fairlane hoods.

 

Jim, Kellison was a client and not only did he design and build a lot of sports car bodies that are still in demand now, but he made big bucks on fiberglass water slides and outhouses. His big advantage was the fact that Lincoln CA was the home of Formica and FG materials were shipped via rail in very large quantities.

 

Learned fiberglassing (word?) when I "built" my '56 Corvette (lots of donor cars involved). Put it to use when I had to completely reconstruct my '53 Woodill.

 

I still want a steel Corvette.

I cannot give you any real history on fiberglass but I know that there was a guy in California making a glass model A for sale to the public in the '50s. My dad always said that glass was race car stuff and he was racing in the '50s into the mid '60s.

I have never really had a problem with it. For me metal is easier to work with but I think that once you got passed the learning curve it would be pretty cool stuff to work with.

 

I itched the first few times I tried it back in 1983 . After about 3 times it has never bothered me since. I love the working with the stuff .

 

Anyway I guess I failed to say something. I am interested in learning anything about it that anyone wants to tell me.

 

Owen's Corning Fiberglass was a big employer here in Anderson, South Carolina when I was a kid, My Aunt & uncle both worked there along with Brenda's dad,

As a kid I always had a lot of dark green & clear fiberglass marbles, they melted them down to create & spin glass fibers. HRP

 

A side note. The Corvette fiberglass bodies were judged for amount of distortion and waviness. The better ones were painted the dark colors and the lesser ones light colors.

 

I've only used fiberglass cloth to repair holes in a floor and stuff like that. Basically, you can get a kit that has the cloth, resin, and hardener. Mix the resin (1oz. resin to 10 drops of hardener) and spread it around the repair area. Lay a piece of cloth, saturate with resin, repeat as many times as necessary. Two or three layers is as hard as steel. I've bought cloth that is really flexible and some that is stiffer. I made these pieces and glassed them into my (car not specified. I don't want to take a time-out) . The car didn't have the lower panel and I couldn't find one that wasn't broken. I made a form out of cardboard and covered it with masking tape. Fiberglass won't stick to masking tape. The mesh is Home Depot gutter guard.