well i am truly very excited that my glassing materials are on their way to me, and hopefully i will be able to glass my EPS home depot board next weekend.... i will be using epoxy and i have pretty much all the basic knowledge of what i need to do to glass my board. (i actually observed my friend glass his board last weekend) but i was wondering if there are any quick tips of advice any of you might be able to give ie. things that a first time glasser would not normally think of or know he should do.... anything i should know before i start the final stages of my project? or should i just go for it and see what happens?......
thanks for any help.
actually i also have a question about the spackle on the surface of my board. it’s sanded smooth and looks like a good seal, but there is a lot of fine dust on the surface. will this affect the glassing process at all? should i remove as much as possible with an air compressor? or use something that would completely get rid of it all before i start to glass? or will it not matter at all?
Here’s a few tips. Laminate your board as the temperature is dropping, but not below 70 degrees. Measure and mix the epoxy and hardener thoroughly. Brush off the board. I’m told compressors can spray oil residue onto your board and compromising the bond. Spackle it with watered down spackle(consistency of mayonaise). Don’t let the epoxy sit in the pot. The stuff gets hot and will melt through the bottom. Pour most of it onto the board. Pooling resin equals melting foam. Best tip is to read Greg Loehr’s epoxy primer before starting. Mike
I use 2 mixing cups. One for measuring and then stir for about a minute. Then I transfer to a disposable “paper” cup, try to get all of it out of cup A, then continue to mix. Never had a problem with non mixed resin…
Try giving the blank a good denatured alc. wipe down (I abbreviated Alcohol because I was sure I would misspell it and look foolish… crap) that should get rid of a bit of dust.
Use the slow hardener unless your good and fast. Use the small hot dog paint roller for the laps. Make sure that you don’t contaminate the resin with any kind of silicone or oil. Most importantly never use Acetone for anything around epoxy.
Epoxy doesn’t " go off " and become unworkable like polyester, it just keeps getting thicker and thicker, so if you’re using slower hardener you don’t have to get in a panic just because the resin is starting to get a little thicker. Remember that as you squeegie off the excess resin at the end of the job you’re also dragging a little bit of cloth with your squeegie so run that excess cloth all the way off the lap edge all the way around the board.
I finally got my RR . . . been waiting for that niya for decades j/k. Anycase there was a d00d who had this simple, yet elegant technique for RR . . . I’m going to use it.
Right now though So Cal is back in winter . . . and some raining soo . . .
I found it during a search for epoxy . . . I think I used 'RR epoxy ’ or just epoxy
He uses one cup and a mixing tray / cup / whatever. He draws a line on the inside of that cup.
Fill up to the line with resin, dump into mixing tray. Fill up to the line, dump into mixing tray.
Fill up to the line with hardener, dump into mixing tray.
Add Additive - F (I guess you have to calculate how many oz you used and then calculate the additive F you need depending on type of coat you are going for.
Mix thoroughly.
Mix thoroughly.
Mix thoroughly.
Tactically you’d need to figure out how much resin to use per job but it is on Greg L’s primer.
Anycase he he’s done some boards no issues.
No lab measuring scales, no draw sticks, no beakers, no calculators or conversion charts.
He uses one cup and a mixing tray / cup / whatever. He draws a line on the inside of that cup.
Fill up to the line with resin, dump into mixing tray. Fill up to the line, dump into mixing tray.
Fill up to the line with hardener, dump into mixing tray.
Add Additive - F (I guess you have to calculate how many oz you used and then calculate the additive F you need depending on type of coat you are going for.
Mix thoroughly.
Mix thoroughly.
Mix thoroughly.
I think its 2 parts resin to one part hardener. Maybe use 2 measuring pots and one to mix in? Also, Additive F use, according to my notes, 1 cc of “F” to 1 oz of hardener for lams and 2 cc/ounce hardener for hotcoat/gloss so:
6 oz resin would take 3 oz hardener and 3cc or 6cc of “F”
DO remove all the dust from your blank before glassing. Vac it off if possible. Brush it off if you have to. Blow it off as a last resort. (Unless you get a really windy day and just take it outside. It really works. Honest.) Be sure to do all this with gloves on! Once the blank is sealed I never touch it with bare hands. Sand, lam, fair, and hotcoat with gloves only.
You guys are driving me crazy with the mixing thing. Go to an automotive paint store, get a 2to1 mixing cup. .50 cents. Use the graduated measurment. mix in a cap full of additive F and be done with it. Just make sure it’s warm. Warm epoxy, warm day, warm whatever. Bullet proof.
thanks for all the tips. regarding the measuring process: the resin i ordered comes with handy measuring pumps. so the pumps are already in the 2:1 ratio to one another. one pump from each is the correct measurement. pretty useful i think.
I did the graduated cup technique for years. For small amounts I also did the draw the line thing in small cups and I also have the auto paint mixing cups that have all the ratios on the outside. It all works.
If you go on Ebay you can buy a good digital scale with grams, ounces, and pounds all in one for cheap. Wish I would have done it years ago. I can use one tub for everything. Even as it starts to fill with hardened resin. Just zero it out everytime and pour everything into one pot. Instead of buying cups over and over, making a mess, and having to scrape resin out of one cup to get the mix right in the mixing pot it is so much cleaner and easier. For the additive f I use a pet cheap pet shop plastic syringe. They are graduated in cc’s.
I’ve always used graduated cups and have never had a problem… except for human error. I get poly graduated beakers from a science supply store and measure in mLs. Works for me.
you might want to check the specific weights of the epoxy and the hardener. For my resin(not resin research) they are quite a bit different. If you don’t measure by weight in a large amount of resin you could be significantly off and have trouble with the epoxy hardening correctly.