Bunnings have a couple, the only ones I have seen are the single ended ones.
Here are the laminating ones I use. I made the 3 bottom smaller ones, (as you could probably tell), they are just a bit of all thread rod with just a small drilled hole in each end and the wire from the handles just hook in to the ends. Considering these ones are probably 40 + years old I think I got a good run out of them, and have built boats up to 35ft with them. There are many variations of these rollers and they go up to about 25mm in diameter, some even look like a bunch of large and small metal spacers on a shaft, the larger sizes have wider and deeper grooves usually made from Ally.
The two orange coloured paddle rollers are good for inside large areas that you are laminating, I use those first for flattening large areas and also to throw excess resin all over the place. (If you ever use one of them quickly you will know what I mean), not real good for small things, followed by the ones I made for the last pass for finishing off the laminating, and the thick woolly roller is for spreading the resin onto dry CSM/cloth.
They are nothing fancy but you really do need them to roll out glass. A lot of people that start off laminating just use a brush and a foam roller and think that is it. The laminates are usually crap with air pockets and excess resin not to mention little strength. This isn't rocket science you just need to know the basics.
When I need to use mine I just use a wire brush on them first to clean them up a bit and they are good to go.
Ah i thought Ed was talking about the furry roller i noticed a huge difference from using the bunnings rollers to using a roller bought from the fibreglass shop it was like night and day my laminate came out so much tidier and the laminate just lokked and felt so tight compared to the bunnings mohair rollers and little tellow rollers
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Gazza2006au: The furry roller is mainly used to just dump the resin on to the CSM/Cloth and spread it out a bit and I buy those from anywhere, the real important work comes from the other rollers. Do you not use the other rollers?
I use the metal roller but it makes little difference i find the resin dumping roller rolls out the air bubbles so the metal roller isnt really needed
This roller was stiff on the hand piece but rolled the cloth like magic
https://trojanfibreglass.com.au/prod...er-tray-combo/
I have tried these
https://www.bunnings.com.au/uni-pro-...-pack_p1560239
https://www.bunnings.com.au/uni-pro-...-pack_p1660145
The last two links/rollers dont work anywhere near as good as the first one
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gazza, I think we've been down this path before. Use the fluffy ones for getting the resin in quickly, and the steel/ally to roll t in, usually if done properly y
the last layer of glass you probably won't need any more resin as the rollers will bring it through, saves money and weight and stops the delamination and air pockets you've been experiencing.
If you aren't using those other rollers you are probably using more than 20-40% more polyester resin than you need. Here are some pics of a test sample that I did about 25 years ago, It was laying around in the shed this entire time so the condition and images of it aren't the best, it has 1 layer of gelcoat and 3 x layers of 600GSM CSM, I used different pressures on this sample the thinnest part it is 2.94mm approx. and at the thickest it is 3.5mm approx, that is approx 20% difference in the resin qty as the glass content is the same so for every 100kg of resin I would be wasting 20Kg that I didn't need to, and this is using the metal rollers.
Bear in mind there are differences in the polyester resin viscosity from the stuff I used to what is available now, and also different suppliers brands but it will give you an idea of how much you can save. Not using the metal rollers will waste even more than this sample, probably significantly more. Those rollers are not only to rollout the air but also to flatten out the layers and squeeze out the excess resin, which those paint rollers cannot do. The squeezed out excess resin goes to wet out more glass so you don't use as much resin and the end result is that if you use the metal roller your layers will be thinner, lighter and stronger.
Excess resin actually makes your laminate weaker.
Except for those pink ones, they shed so much roller I often wonder if I have more roller than glass in my little jobs.Originally Posted by EdBerg
Edberg, I think you haven't quite the value out of your rollers yet, you obviously look after your tools.
Not really, but I make sure I give them a good wash in acetone at the end of the job and that is pretty much it, give a quick scrub with a wire brush before next use. Although having said that, the two smallest metal rollers I made are now wearing out the end holes so may need a replacement, but cheap as chips to make though. The ally paddle rollers require more care as the support rod goes up the center and fills up with resin so have to clear that or it will set.
As for the pink rollers I think that you have to get ones that the material is suitable for solvents as I think the others are for water based paint and tend to dissolve the adhesive when dunked into resin and acetone.
Yeah i hear u Ed and i actually seen the excess resin roll out of the cloth but say you're doing 3 layers would'nt that 20% extra just wet into the next layer so really on 3 layers you only have excess on the top finishing layer?
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Without using the metal rollers you will just have 3 excessive thicker layers of glass sitting on top of each other, each containing more resin than required, using the metal rollers it squeezes out the air, excess resin as well as compacting each layer into the others effectively making 1 thick layer of 1800gm/m2 with just enough resin to bind it all together, if that makes sense to you!
That is why they don't make 1800gsm CSM to start with as it won't wet out properly, so you manually and physically have to combine them in to one layer by wetting out each layer and rolling one into the other.
gazza, what Edberg is trying to tell you is what you end up with is resin between your layers of glass, you need to get the glass embedded into each other sheet. To fully understand what he is trying to tell you, next time you have a bit excess resin let it set in a shallow plastic container and once set try and break it and see how brittle it is.
Yer built my onboard boat esky with polystyrene and epoxy you just use 3mil ply over the top of it for better insulation and to stop any bruising from dropping ice and drinks in it, in the old days they would coat it with pva wood glue then use polyester resin over it to stop the resin eating the foam, but when you build your boat with epoxy its just to easy to just build it all out of epoxy.
And for anyone thinking of building a esky into there boat curve the bottom of your esky to the shape of your hull then your fish don't get thrown from side to side they just sit in the middle sort of as your boat rolls.
Chris99, yep, been down that path also but only because I was lazy and didn't understand the benefits of glassing it in properly. especially as has happened a few times where a year or two down the track I've come up with an improvement.
Gazza, I also did forget one thing on my previous post about rollers, the CSM is held together with a glue that is only meant to hold it together before use as it dissolves in resin which is another reason you need to really use those steel/Ally rollers.
I,m pretty sure Al from Seatrek uses the XPS in 20 mm sheets as strengtheners only in the sides of his cats, he uses the polyurethane in the esky builds.
Chris69: Which polystyrene did you use as we may be talking about two different types.
CT was asking about XPS styrofoam not the EPS styrofoam which is a totally different product. Which one did you use for your esky?
Just to clarify, expanded styrofoam is the stuff that the old style cheap eskies used to made from and looks like the stuff that was in bean bags but just made into a sheet, XPS styrofoam is more similar in appearance to Polyurethane , as in the 3rd image picture below.
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