List of Fiberglass Cloth that comes heat cleaned or carmelized - Fiberglass Cloth Supply and Education

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List of Fiberglass Cloth that comes heat cleaned or carmelized

Heat Cleaned
We have quite a bit of fiberglass cloth that is heat cleaned and/or carmelized.  Carmelized fabric is where the cloth is heated to a couple hundred degrees just enough to convert the oily starch material used in the weaving process to incinerated particles.  This cloth has a brownish tint.  Heat cleaned is where the cloth has been heated to the carmelization point and this charred residue removed.  One might ask why would cloth be left at the point of carmelization and not always just continued through the washing process as well?  The information I've seen from the weavers for the compatibility of the carmelized finishes is they are done that way to be more compatible with melamine laminates.  On the other hand, the baked and washed finishes, which come out clear and can be mistaken for silane finishes, are intended for silicone laminates.  A further note to this would be, though, that the silicone rubber coaters that we've sold to prefer to fiberglass cloth being in the "greige" where the PVA film is still on the glass.  But for the composite people none of these states of finishing are suitable for thermosetting resins such as epoxy, polyester or vinyl ester.  The heated and washed finishing process produces a cloth that looks and feels no different than one that's been finished with silanes or volan compatible with resins.  And the the clear, clean heat cleaned cloth will wet out with resin and seem okay but will not form a bond.  Being the expert I am on finishes will not let cloth that's not finished for resins to be sold to laminators.  We have both types and just want it to be understand that we keep the different types of cloth with different finishes for different end uses separate.   

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