Amber Fiberglass Effect

[Ferrino]

Does anyone have any insight into how the various amber fiberglass reproductions of fan shrouds and engine tinware are made, please? Is this done with a specially tinted fiberglass resin or can you modify a generic resin with some sort of tinting agent? There is a natural yellow tint to the polyester resin I've used in the past, so maybe some of them are just virgin resin?

[Quicksilver]

There are plenty of different ways to color resin. For some of them it depends on if you are using polyester or epoxy resin. A simple google search shows a bunch of choices.

Here is a real interesting article by West Marine about various pigments used with epoxy: WEST SYSTEM - Projects - Adding pigments to epoxy
Interesting bit is it appears you can use almost anything with epoxy and not seriously effect its strength. (They even list using Rit dye at a 20% concentration!)

[Charles Freeborn]

TransTint Liquid Dyes - Homestead Finishing Products

Beware, it's really potent. A few drops goes a very long way.
-C

[James Brown]

i would like a clear one

[Ferrino]

Thanks. What about the fiberglass material used - some (like the one pictured) you can see it uses cloth, while others I've seen appear to use chopped strand mat.

[SilberUrS6]

Add to that that they use Kevlar as the cloth - Kevlar has sort of a light yellow/amber color to the fibers.

[85911]

I have recently used West System's epoxy on a project that specifically is formulated to be used with fiberglass cloth and is clear. The fiberglass cloth is white, but it "disappears" when it is saturated with the resin. The finished product is very durable and strong.

Hi Ferrino,

The amber colour is natural resin over glass cloth, with no gel coat. I'm assuming they did this to save weight. Back in the day, I'm assuming there were no tinters in the resin, whereas nowadays you may struggle to find a raw resin without a colour added. I would call a few suppliers and ask if they can recommend something.

I would avoid Epoxies with hand laid up parts in an engine bay, as they tend to soften with heat (unless they have advanced significantly since I used them 10 years ago). I would go for polyester, or better still, vinylester resin.