Garolite as a building material
laguna949
| Posted in Green Products and Materials on
I’m always on the hunt for new materials to use with building applications.
I came across Garolite on McMaster-Carr, and it seems to be a fiberglass-reinforced epoxy sheet with amazing properties: low thermal expansion, high tensile strength, machinability, moisture imperability, electrically insulating. Not UV resistant thought. I think this could be used for some creative interior applications… shower walls, countertops? Thoughts?
https://www.mcmaster.com/garolite
https://engineering.tamu.edu/media/4247821/ds-garolite-properties.pdf
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“Garolite” is a brand name. Another is Glastic. Both of these are phenolic materials. The main difference between G10 and FR4 is that FR4 is fire retardant. These materials are used to make printed circuit boards, with FR4 being BY FAR the most common PC board substrate material. Pretty much every circuit board in every electronic gizmo you have has FR4 in it.
Note that there are various types of the stuff. Some kinds are epoxy with a canvas or paper reinforcement, which have other designations (XX, etc). G10 and FR4 are epoxy and glass cloth. There are some variants that are not as strong that have a randomly oriented pressed glass fiber reinforcement (think tyvek sheet with epoxy) instead of glass cloth. The random stuff is cheaper, but not nearly as strong.
This stuff has one big disadvantage: it’s NOT cheap. I’ve used this material to build insulators when I need something easily machinable that is also a good high temperature insulator. My electrical fabricator that builds big electrical switchgear for me uses this for all of the insulating structure inside their equipment. I’ve never seen this stuff used as a regular building material, but no reason you couldn’t use it — if you want to spend the $$. There are probably cheaper materials for you to choose from.
I’ve attached some pics showing how this material is usually used. The first two are some of my electrical switchgear designs from projects at work, the red material is red glastic (the random glass fiber kind). The last pic is a matching network I designed. The red back plate is red glastic. The light yellow/green supports for the two copper coils are G10. I built those two coils, and made all the metal work.
Bill
How fascinating. I ordered some small area samples to play around with. I was mainly thinking as a replacement for expensive surfaces like countertops, or shower wall enclosures. Obviously depends on the aesthetics. Just brainstorming.
G10 is popular with knife makers as a handle material, so there are other uses for the stuff outside of electrical components. It doesn’t mind getting wet, and it can handle pretty high temperatures.
You can can machine the stuff with regular drills and carbide router bits, but you’ll find they dull quicker than you’d expect. BE SURE to bevel the edges by sanding. The material will hold an edge that can cut you. Use fine tooth saws (or a big sheet metal shear) to cut the stuff. Be careful with the dust, since it contains glass particles. Use the same caution you’d use working with fiber cement siding.
Edges clean up well with light sanding with a mid level grit. I use a stationary belt/disc sander for most edge finishing, and a sanding block for the rest.
I’ll say it again too: be careful with the dust.
Bill
It would not be my first material to choose for most things in building. In electronics, it is used because it maintains structural integrity when heated.
This is a fiber reinforced plastic. One piece shower surrounds are also fiber reinforced plastic with topcoats specially designed for the application.
The reinforcement is often visible and leaves a texture on the surface.
FRP corrugated roofing panels are a similar material used in buildings: https://www.eplastics.com/sheets/fiberglass/corrugated