Can you buy fiberglass that comes in small tufts or flakes?

Question

which eliminate the need for cutting and the particles generated thereby? i saw a my space demonstration where a guy was building a fiberglass hood scoop by adding pinches of glass to the mold without cutting anything.

Answer 1

You can. In England they're called 'chopped strands'. However ...

Chopped strands are generally used either as part of a spray layup process (the glass and resin are fed through a sort of spray gun) or to make a sort of 'modge; which can be used for bedding things, filling gaps and all sort of other kluges. They are not really suitable for any normal lamination technique.

It is possible that what you were looking at was epoxy resin plus colloidal silica. This essentually uses microscopic glass strands in a matrix of epoxy resin and can be cast, painted or whatever. The result is reasonably strong.

The other thing is that chopped strands are much messier (and itchier) than normal mat or cloth. I'd stick with the conventional techniques