Adzel...real world benefits? Drawbacks?

Terryallan wrote:


Honestly, on mine. It looks like the fiberglass is chopped, and sprayed directly on to the AZDEL, (Think chopper gun) along with the fiberglass resin. I can see the chopped glass pattern thru the Gel Coat, if I get the right angle. As a former boat builder. I recognize the pattern of chopped glass. A person who has never seen a chopper gun in action, might not recognize it.

As long as the surface you are glassing to is roughed up a little. The resin, and glass will stick / bond / adhere / to it with no need of glue.

It could also be, and this is more likely, that the glass is chopped on to the gel coat, in a mold, and while it is wet, the AZDEL is pressed, and vacuumed into it. Would look the same. As long as the fiberglass resin is wet when the AZDEL is applied. No glue would be necessary. All you need do it remove the air from between the two surfaces. Vacuum pressing would do it. We however used rollers specially designed to get the air out. But that is old technology. One person would spray, and chop, and as soon as he was done. The rest would jump in there with the rollers.

Could the glass fibres you see be part of the Azdel itself? Perhaps the Azdel factory can put a Gel coat directly onto one side of an Azdel panel. Then all the RV company does is glue (or heat shrink or whatever) the whole panel to the Foam/Al shell.

What makes me think of that is Outdoors RV Mfg. They don't use filon/fibreglass with luan as backing in their products. The outer surface of their walls looks like 1/4" hardboard with a glossy hard surface (epoxy gel coat? with glass fibres?). Sort of like the stuff I used along the counter back panel in the kitchen, but better and thicker. My guess is they get those 1/4" panels with the glossy surface pre-made and just glue/laminate them to the foam wall interior. The interior surface of the laminated wall is luan however.