Fixing battons to fibreglass

[Spacebar]

Hello does anyone know how I can fix battons to the ceiling on a dawncraft please?

Do I glue them up direct to the fiberglass?

Thanks.

[twbm]

Sounds like a job for No More Nails or similar. If they are going to be hidden you could put a couple of layers of glass mat and resin over them to be sure they stay put.

[Graham Bowers]

If the ceiling has timber glassed in to the layup then its possible to screw directly in to that, but use screws short enough so they don't poke through to the outside. Also, it depends what you want to hang off the battens. I have a GRP cruiser and when I replace the head lining that's what I'm going to do.

 

If you need to attach them to the GRP ceiling I'd glass them in using an epoxy resin rather than polyester as it has better adhesion. Maybe polyester would be OK but I'd rather overdo it than risk it. I've just glassed in some new bulkheads using epoxy.

 

Some battens fell off my boat and whilst I've no idea what the product was it was one of the "squeeze out of a tube" products. They'll be going back on with epoxy.

 

Hope this helps

 

Graham

[Phoenix_V]

If the ceiling has timber glassed in to the layup then its possible to screw directly in to that, but use screws short enough so they don't poke through to the outside. Also, it depends what you want to hang off the battens. I have a GRP cruiser and when I replace the head lining that's what I'm going to do.

 

If you need to attach them to the GRP ceiling I'd glass them in using an epoxy resin rather than polyester as it has better adhesion. Maybe polyester would be OK but I'd rather overdo it than risk it. I've just glassed in some new bulkheads using epoxy.

 

Some battens fell off my boat and whilst I've no idea what the product was it was one of the "squeeze out of a tube" products. They'll be going back on with epoxy.

 

Hope this helps

 

Graham

 

I've used polyurethane wood glue no problems so far

[Spacebar]

Thanks for the replies.

A friend who works on caravans has also mention sikaflex.

How much should I budget for epoxy as this seems like expensive stuff?

 

Forgot to say I plan to fix faced ply to the batons to line the boat out with.

[Graham Bowers]

Marineflex is a more affordable alternate to sikaflex and seems to be well thought of in here. I'm going to use it to stick Celotex insulation to the GRP.

 

How much you should budget depends on how much you need so its a hard question to answer. I bought about 1.25 Kg and have used about a quarter of it to wet out approx 3.5 metres of 50mm glass tape.

 

I can't remember where it came from and its on my boat so I can't look at the label, but here are some random websites. The first sells in quite small quantities.

 

http://www.easycomposites.co.uk/

http://www.mbfg.co.uk/epoxy-resins.html

 

Graham

[JonL]

Remove and old paint first and make sure you glue straight onto the fibreglass for best results.

[Robin2]

Thanks for the replies.

A friend who works on caravans has also mention sikaflex.

How much should I budget for epoxy as this seems like expensive stuff?

 

Forgot to say I plan to fix faced ply to the batons to line the boat out with.

 

I can't think of any reason to use glass fibre and epoxy (which is very troublesome and messy on a ceiling) unless the purpose is to improve the strength of the boat's structure.

 

I have been using Evo Stik "Nail and Seal", "Serious Stuff" and "Sticks like Sh*T" (I believe they are all the same) for a number of years. I found it much better than "No More Nails". It does not go hard and brittle and it seems to bond to more surfaces. In fact it seems to be very like Sikaflex (which is also excellent) but is much cheaper. A problem I found with Sikaflex is that the whole tube goes off within a week or two of opening it no matter how I tried to re-seal it. The Evo Stik stuff only goes off in the nozzle (which, of course, probably proves that it is chemically different).

 

Be warned, however, it has an uncanny ability to find your clothes and stick to them

[Spacebar]

Thanks everyone thats put my mind at rest.

I will go with the Evo Stik kind of stuff and see how that goes.