Re: Chroming fiberglass, advise please...
I know what you are talking about.
"Volan Finish is also known as Chrome Finish due to presence of chromium applied to glass fibers. The Volan solution finish is applied unto fiberglass fabric during the manufacturing process to give good bonding to epoxy, vinyl ester and polyester resins. If used with clear resins, volan cloth will appear to have a slight greenish tint; Volan laminates tend to dent rather than crack making it an ideal fabric for high impact applications."
Actually, this is a quite common coating for fibers. I have some 8 oz general use cloth with volan, for example. Almost all the fiberglass we use (we being the denizens of this board) has some type of coating applied to permit epoxy to wet it out... otherwise it would wet out like some types of glass in water do, with a silver bubble of air forming around the glass to keep it from getting resin on it. Not so good for fiberglass.
I believe two of the more common fiber coatings are volan and silane, but maybe ondarvr knows more.
The fact that the coating has chrome in it or not is old school knowledge.. most people nowadays don't care what the coating is, only that it's there and compatible with their resin. If you need impact resistance you don't pick a different coating, you move up to more exotic fibers, which will provide much more damage resistance than just a different coating would.
You can on the other hand chrome just about anything now... there are low temperature powder coats that work for this. I've even seen pictures of them applied to a wax carving as a test. You basically hook up an electrode to the object, a high voltage low current gun sprays powder to the desired depth, and you bake it in a convection oven to harden it. They're very durable.
I think it's only a matter of time before someone here powder coats an entire boat in chrome. With almost 200,000 users, I'm sure someone is that nuts.....
Erik
