Here’s a few pics attached of my “round two”. She’s a Stretch Quad inspired Florida Board. 6’0" x 11 3/4" x 19 3/8" x 15 5/16" x 2 1/2". Stringerless XPS all-Tex vacuum. This was my first attempt with the vacuum. I did the bottom and lapped the Tex. Got some wrinkles, anyone out there have advice on that one? I used peel-ply with non-porous over, then breather cloth. 13" Hg overnight. I was amazed with the results on the first attempt, just need to have a better plan for the seam, and get rid of the wrinkles. I’ll try bubble wrap instead of all the expensive stuff next time. It’s 2.2 oz tex from FH, with 4oz. warp over. I’m going to experiment on the fins, placement: rears 6" 1 1/2" in from rail 1/8" tow/ fronts 10 1/2" 1 1/8" in, 1/8" tow. Did the “thumb channels”, think I’ll put 'em on all the stringerless. Also has my “4 Pack of Tall Boys” my super soft and shallow secret weapon Florida channels. Check her out:
My helper, Stewart, all stoked he’s staying late to help with MY board.
any close ups of the deck or bottom after the glass?
I’ll take some for you later, I’m tired and my wife must have just turned on that giant magnet directed at this ring on my finger, feeling the pull…
Really beautiful, great work.
Is that the blue homedepot foam?
Wow that looks killer, gotta try that myself
Thanks! Nah, not from the Home Depot, but if you need some blanks just hollar!!!
Nice…
The silver is definitely easier to work with than the blue where the weave is thicker and it’s even hard to roll up…
Reminds me of the shade cloth we use in place of bubble wrap.
Don’t use bubble wrap as you’ll get mini indentations all over the lam
You sure you used peel ply or perf release over the glass cause it’s so smooth and shiny it doesn’t look like you used a bleeder to pull out the excess resin from the lam under vacuum.
Blue foam too?
I used the silver up to the rail lap of the blue on the deck with 4oz S cloth over that lapping the bottom. I painted the rails silver to hide the blue deck lap. I didn’t realize the Fiberglass Hawaii Silver was only 2.2oz. The folks at the counter said very few choose to use the stuff cause it’s hard to work with unless you bag it and we found out for ourselves.
For the blue we laid the resin on the glass and it didn’t staurate so we flipped it and saturated from the other side expecting the vacuum and perf cloth to suck out the resin into the blotter which it did but the pooling from the flip cause heat induced cavitation ridges on the bottom which we have to fill. the silver went on like normal glass.
The aluminized blue got so hot in the sun when I was sanding the laps I was scared to use it on the deck.
I was trying to sandwich the aluminized texalium between layers of glass in place of wood as a much thinner core material. I guess you could use the Aeromat from ACP and the Tex to get a honeycomb like metal effect. Need to try that on my next one…
As far as hints I was going to use a cotton or paper blotter to soak up the resin but we couldn’t see so we just let the resin leak into the poly wrap over the perf release. You can see and try to smooth out the wrinkles but it’s still hard to do to get a clean surface like you can hand laminating. There must be a easier way to get a perfect lam in bag
Another idea is a space insert on the other side of the board like a rounded slab of foam or what ever so that the bag pulls past the edges of the rails on onto the deck/bottom to pull the laps tight over the rail and onto the opposite side. I’m gonna try that next time I bag the tex. For the deck since we did not lap the silver tex we just hand lammed it.
Nice shape and smooth glass job with that stuff
Your design is much better/normal that this crazy contraption I’m looking forward to riding:
Thanks big time for all that! Yeah, I think the pic you’re seeing is after hotcoat. The peel ply I got did a great job of soaking up the extras. It weighed just over 5 and has a gloss coat, that’s even with tail pad and all goobered up with wax. It’s frikkin light. could loose the glossy. Sander said it was the lightest board he’s ever done. Not bragging, just was spoiled on weight when I used to do this blue foam, never got used to heavy ass poly, and stoked to be on the path to lightness…Oh well, we’ll see. Need to get her wet.
dt - cool boards, and very nice work! I’m interested in texalium and have talked to Mr. Yater about his work w/ it. He only uses it on the deck, as he thinks it’s to stiff and won’t flex right for bottoms and rails. Check it out as you compare your new ride. I’d be interested in your thoughts after test driving.
Regarding bubble wrap: If you are talking about the common type used for packing/shipping fragile goods, there are other variants. FarmTek/Tek Supply sells several kinds intended for insulation that are faced with foil and/or poly with one or two bubble layers between (there also a kraft-faced variety that would likely not be useful in this application). One of those kinds might be less likely to “translate” the bubble texture through the cloth. Here are the web sites, although they have problems and are frequently unavailable:
Might be easier to call their toll-free and request a catalog:
800.835.7877
Site is up now. In case you should be so lucky when you try to browse, here is a link directly into the TekFoil brochure (pdf format):
http://www.farmtek.com/…l%20Brochure_8pg.pdf
-Samiam