Fiberglass Work

The repair work has gone quite well.  Carl and I watched several videos on YouTube to get ideas about how to proceed.  We assembled all the necessary supplies and tools:

West System epoxy resin and hardener
Woven fiberglass fabric
Chopped strand mesh
Beer cups and popsicle sticks for mixing
Disposable gloves
Cheap paint brushes
Paper towel
Grinder
Random orbital sander
Drill, and bits
Wood screws and finishing washers
Plywood strips
Adhesive tape
And then, down to business!

This is a view of the front side fracture zone.  The weakened fiberglass around the fracture has been ground out, and the hole is fairly large.  The fiberglass edges have been tapered on the inside and the outside.

This is the fracture at the rear window corner.  You can see the tapered edges.  The duct tape is there to keep the new glass and resin from pushing too far to the outside when they are applied.  The pieces of plywood are screwed from the inside, and they keep the two sides in alignment.  Once the new fiberglass on the inside has set, they will be removed.

Here, Carl is applying new glass and resin to the inside surface of the rear window fracture.  You can see the 2x2 and 1x3 that we used to jack up the roof on the damaged side of the trailer.  This was done so that the fiberglass would set with the correct alignment.

A close-up of the chopped strand mesh going on.

And this is what that repair site looked like once the resin had set.

The fracture at the back of the upper cupboard required several pieces of plywood to get the sides aligned properly.  We used red Tyvek-type tape here because we thought it might peel off better than the duct tape once the resin had set.  I don't think it made much difference.

Here is what it looked like from the inside, before applying the new glass and resin.

And this is what it looked like after the interior layers of glass were set, and the plywood bracing was removed.

We're really pleased with how things have gone so far.  We used two kinds of glass -- woven fabric for the first layer, and chopped strand mesh for building up the required thickness.  The epoxy resin was easy to mix and easy to work with, although it did get pretty viscose after only about 4 or 5 minutes.  We went through a lot of paint brushes, plastic cups, popsicle sticks, and disposable gloves.

Next job -- applying glass and resin to the exterior.