Silane Finish on Fiberglass Cloth
EDUCATION > Fiberglass Finishes
As described on previous pages, as fiberglass cloth is woven the yarn has a coating of PVA (Polyvinyl Alcohol) on it to make it slippery so that during the weaving process there is less breakage of the glass fibers. After weaving the cloth goes through a process to heat it to camelize the pva and wash it off with water. Silanes are added in aqueous/methanol solution with a concentration of the Silicone based molecule, with the pH adjusted, and the cloth goes through a complex wetting system to bond the Silane to the clean glass yarn. Below is a list of different weavers numbers for silanes and their descriptions. We were asked by one to not put their company name in the list so we didn't.