Reinforcements
Basically there are three forms of reinforcement.
1. Chopped Strand Mat (CSM) - matting or even called random strand mat. These are usually short fibres (40 to 70mm) held together with a binder to hold them into a mat form. After the mat is saturated with resin the binder dissolves allowing the strands to be coaxed into the correct shape.
2. Chopped Glass Fibres - Usually 5-8mm in length (listed as a tiller)
3. Woven Fabrics - these are actually woven on basically the same machines that manufacture the clothes we wear. Because these fabrics are woven with strands going in two directions at 90 degrees to each other, they are called Bi Directional Fabrics.
Commonly both mat and fabric are measured by the grams per square meter and come by the roll. These rolls vary in width but the common width is 1 metre. We can supply cut lengths or full rolls. Sometimes you will see mats and fabrics measured in ounces. This is old terminology but still used in the USA. But BEWARE! mats are usually in ounces per square foot and fabric is ounces per square yard. A trap for young players, grams per square metre is much easier.
Shown are a few of the different weave styles. Common stock items are listed showing style, grams per square metre (gsm) roll width and length. We sell both mat and woven fabric in metres or parts thereof off the roll. Obviously, the more you buy the cheaper the rate.
How much resin is required to wet out these fabrics? As a rule of thumb, if you are using mat - take the total weight of the reinforcement and multiply it by 2.5, if you are using woven fabric multiply it by 1.5.
