Fiberglass Fabric

What Glass Fiber Fabric Is

Glass fiber is one of the fibers with the highest tensile strength: its weight is far lighter than steel wire of the same diameter, but its tensile strength is greater. The fiber is made by drawing molten glass through fine bushings into filaments, gathering the filaments into strands and twisting or texturising them into yarns that can be woven on looms much like any other yarn - with the difference that glass does not stretch, does not burn and does not rot. Woven, it becomes fiberglass fabric: a cloth manufactured in various kinds of thickness, weight and width by fabrication method, from tissue-light veils used as composite surfacing to heavy woven rovings and textured cloths a centimetre thick in effect. Plain weave is the workhorse construction; satin weaves drape better over moulds, and leno and mesh constructions serve reinforcement and filtration.

Because glass fiber fabrics are made of inorganic materials, they are inflammable - meaning incombustible - and they are applied in high-temperature working conditions and especially at dangerous places of fire. Continuous-filament glass cloth keeps useful strength at temperatures that destroy organic fibers, and with coatings it becomes a family of working materials: silicone-coated cloth for flexible high-temperature seals and curtains, PTFE-coated cloth for release sheets and conveyor belts, vermiculite and graphite coatings that raise the temperature ceiling further, and aluminised cloth that reflects radiant heat back at its source for protective clothing and shields. Uncoated cloth is the reinforcement inside fiberglass composites - boats, panels, pipes, printed-circuit laminates - where resin supplies the stiffness and the glass supplies the strength.

Specifying and Handling Glass Cloth

A fiberglass fabric specification names the yarn, the weave, the weight per square metre or yard, the thickness and the finish or coating. Weight and weave together set the strength and the drape; finish decides what the cloth will bond to or resist - a composite cloth is treated for resin compatibility, a welding blanket for spatter and abrasion, an insulation cloth for the temperature it will meet. Buyers should also state the working temperature honestly: glass fiber itself tolerates heat that destroys most coatings, so the coating, not the cloth, is usually the limit. Handling asks respect rather than ceremony - glass filaments are brittle in sharp folds and the dust from cutting irritates skin and lungs, so cloth is cut with shears or rotary blades, stored rolled rather than creased, and handled with gloves in the cutting room, standard practice wherever the material is worked daily.

Around this directory, glass cloth belongs to the technical end of the fabric section, near the Basalt Fabric page - basalt is glass's volcanic cousin, drawn from melted rock - and the Flame Retardant Fabric directory, where incombustible cloth is one answer among several. The wider section is indexed from the Fabric Directory hub, with the Wool Fiber Directory at the opposite, natural pole of the fiber world. This directory lists one mill: You Chang Company of China, linked to its own profile in the Fabric Mills by Name section. When you enquire, state the weight, weave, width and coating you need and the temperature the cloth must withstand; glass cloth is quoted against those five facts. Thank you for using the Apparel Search Fabric Mill Directory.

Fiberglass Fabric Mill Listed in This Directory