Legality of Fiberglass as a building material?

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by 548swimmer

Little bit heavy, but otherwise awesome!

They make it in different thicknesses, and the 1/8" stuff is strong and light. We've used it too. I hear it also works for arms?

[Team 2811]

Fiberglass is very easy to break and if it does, you will have to take all of the rest of the fiberglass off. Then you will have to replace it. If this happens multiple times, the cost will really add up.

Just my advice. My team tried using fibergalss in 2009 during Lunacy. It was constantly breaking and we needed to replace it often. This really added up in our costs.

Good luck

[MrForbes]

Interesting, we used it for our chassis for 3 years and never had these problems. I guess it depends on how you design your robot....you have to use fiberglass in appropriate places, and design the thing properly, then it works fine. Like any other material, I suppose.

[Gdeaver]

It's all in the design, choice of material and construction techniques. We have made many light weight and durable arms from pultrusions. Never had a failure. I have seen many AL arms eat them selves. I have seen teams use poor construction methods with Pultrusions and watch them fail.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

It's all in the design, choice of material and construction techniques. We have made many light weight and durable arms from pultrusions. Never had a failure. I have seen many AL arms eat them selves. I have seen teams use poor construction methods with Pultrusions and watch them fail.

Same here, we've used it in simple but effective applications on our 2008 arm.

Machining/drilling holes in fiberglass is the only hassle. Masks and gloves along with goggles

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by squirrel

They make it in different thicknesses, and the 1/8" stuff is strong and light. We've used it too. I hear it also works for arms?

Where can one acquire these materials from?

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

Where can one acquire these materials from?

See post #6 in this thread. Generally it's a good idea to read all the posts in a thread, before asking a question about the subject.

[Peggy Painter]

I wondered that myself. Several years ago, I build a 21 ft long, triple seated kayak from plywood & epoxy & fiberglass---very strong and it only weighed 45 pounds.

It was great fun to see the looks on people's faces when we would arrive at the lake and my 7yo dd & I unloaded it from the roof of our minivan by ourselves. Just had be careful on windy days!

[davidthefat]

Originally Posted by squirrel

See post #6 in this thread. Generally it's a good idea to read all the posts in a thread, before asking a question about the subject.

My mistake, I thought you were referring to depleted uranium...

[Gdeaver]

The Bedford material is available from both MSC and McMaster Carr in the volume teams would need. McMaster search raw materials - plastics - Fiberglass and you'll find it.

[falconmaster]

We have been using Fiberglass since 2001 on all our bots. Never had splintering, or any serious breakage for that matter. I wonder if people with these problems are using pultruded fiberglass?

Its 1/3 the weight of aluminum and 1/5 the weight of steel for the same strength.

www.creativepultrusions.com