which is heavier? aluminum or fiberglass body parts?

 

It's soooo comparable that the more common question is, which is more affordable?

 

aluminum is a lil lighter then fiberglass but not enough to make a hude difference

check out this site its for race boats but has a lot of info on aluminum vs fiberglass

http://www.marathonmarine.com/docs/s...materials.html

fiberglass cracks aluminum doesnt aluminum is harder to fix then fiberglass

 

It depends on the part. Some fiberglass will be lighter, some aluminum stuff will be lighter. It depends.

 

I have never laid frp before but I am betting it would be more easy to use aluminum for certain parts.

 

it all dependes on the parts, what kind of glass is used i.e 3 oz 9 oz and so forth. also keep in ming most fiber glass has either a good primer and or a gel coat. i would say its this or that some glass parts are lighter and some aluminum parts are lighter. also fiberglass can some times be more of a pita to fix than aluminum, but its also the oppiste for easy damage. also most carbon parts have fiber glass layers due to the fact that straight crabon fiber products explode under pressure. so carbon might not be the lightest either. i would say its more of a prefrence, what you would prefere to work with or fix.

 

What do you mean by explode in reference to Carbon Fiber? Have you seen the Indy Car Crash test video/s? They run an Indy Car shell into a solid wall at 160mph from memory and the front nose only collapses around 4-6". Once you have clearcoat applied or use clear gelcoat then C/F will hold together farly well. For best strentgh Kevlar reinforcement and sometimes HDF is used. With a good Pre-preg hood it is possible to get weight down to 2-3kg's and still have the part strong enough to stand on without breaking it

 

my fiberglass is lighter by hand guestimating

 

sorry i was refering to the parts we built for air planes, they didnt get coated with any thing and the pressure we put on one, one day caused it to explode and shoot splinters every where.

 

thanks that helped and to the others too