After a lumpy #1 which, despite lumpyness and gruesome cutlaps works well, work has started on #2. The big difference here is that I have decided to take advice from others (good swaylockians to be sure!!) and NOT use the surform. On #1 planer-angst pushed me to use the surform but lumpyness would haunt me…
So, gathering my courage, I rigged up the planer and … to my surprise… it works.
You can just sorta make out the railband lines looming out of the darkness…
twist your neck the other way for a different view…
Sanding pad, foam and carpet… used some drywall screen to blend the bands and then sanded. no surform…
Slowly but surely, with long passes, the bands combine to nice curves. Something like a fifty/fifty rail til about the last third of the board, then a pinch and more like 60/40 to 70/30… sorta…
Some tape over the stringer… some final sanding…
Attack of the Glass Bubbles!! Ahhhh!!! remember Doug’s words of wisdom about spackle…
I’ll get some more up later…
But sheesh what a weight of my shoulders knowing that you can do it with a planer and sanding gear! Why did I buy a surform…
So here’s me gettin all hot and buttered to glass this puppy eh… then as I am prepping the glass I noticed the stuff they shipped me is only 26 inches wide, as opposed to the 30 I ordered along with the blanks… sent them a mail but they ain’t answering…
Anyway, I was going through the archives on “cloth width” “narrow cutlaps” and the like and found some references to overlapping towo layers so they reach over the sides enough to do a cutlap. So I think I’ll try that. It isn’t much I’m missing about an inch or 2 on either side to make a nice cutlap but heck. This way I’ll have two layers on most of the deck and that should suffice imho.
update: got some pictures from my wonderful experiment with tints and poscas… no straight lines here!!
update they did get back to me on the cloth and offered to replace etc…however I have already sorted it out… nice of them to get back and offer though.
update… leashloop and glassed deck…
really happy you don’t see theoverlap of the glass on the deck.
Never had any problems w/ spackle…I use “Crackshot” from home depot…it’s a premixed wallplaster.
I’ll bet you sanded it down too much and/or didn’t smash it down enough.Also,if it’s damp,to thin or not mixed well,it will cause problems.
As far as shaping… the planer is a very good tool on eps,but try a supersoft pad and a variable speed sander…mucho better.
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Never had any problems w/ spackle…I use “Crackshot” from home depot…it’s a premixed wallplaster.
I’ll bet you sanded it down too much and/or didn’t smash it down enough.Also,if it’s damp,to thin or not mixed well,it will cause problems.
As far as shaping… the planer is a very good tool on eps,but try a supersoft pad and a variable speed sander…mucho better.
Spackle… yeah… perhaps the issues you mentioned… anyway I find the glass-bubbles mixture easier to work with.
As for the sander idea to shape, interesting but I wonder how easy it is to get a good flowing rail band with a sander, the planer strikes me as being easier to keep in a line… but I’ll definatly give it a whirl on my next board.
thx
It takes some good skills and equipment to use a sander,but as far as rails go the qualities are the same and the sander,used properly will not tear foam.Infact it will look almost wire cut if you do your bands like I do…faster too !!!
Attack of the Glass Bubbles!! Ahhhh!!! remember Doug’s words of wisdom about spackle…
Another convert!
Looking good, BTW. Sweet.
Interestin, how do you do the railbands then? Your talking about a non-excentric disc sander?
Thanks;) Doug, hehe! the creeping evil really makes me laugh, but maybe Herb has a point about not using it correctly or maybe the stuff we have here isn’ suited, it’s called “Allabastine” and has a habit of bleeding fluid and running all over the place. Not to mention it doesn’t bond well to the epoxy. Hence, I go for the glass bubbles which is relativly easy to use once you figure out the a good ratio resin/powder. Must use a dust mask though as it readily forms little wispy clouds, I am sure this stuff will really do you damage if inhaled!!
Quite possibly we don’t use it right… Not that I have used it 
I reckon it’s fundamentally unsound as a mechanical bond, as you know.