Fibreglass

Glass fibre set in resin, a cheap and tough composite used for moulded bodies and for reinforcement.

Glass-reinforced plastic is made by laying glass fibre cloth in polyester or epoxy resin, which gives a stiff, water-resistant shell that can be moulded into shapes wood cannot easily take. Its musical use goes back to the mid twentieth century experiments with moulded plastic bodies, and it survives as a material for budget travel guitars, for body shells and for reinforcement inside wooden instruments. It is commonly described as sounding hard and slightly hollow, with a bright attack and a short decay, because a moulded shell does not move the way a solid slab of timber does. It is heavy, difficult to repair invisibly and unpleasant to work without protection.

Example: A moulded fibreglass body is impervious to humidity and feels nearly indestructible, but it sounds harder and more compressed than a wooden body of the same shape.

typical use: Moulded solid bodies, travel instruments and reinforcement work.

Fibreglass

See also