Hi Guys,
Thank you all for being so open with information. This is the second board I’ve made from start to finish. I really enjoy the glassing part of board building, which is weird because I’m terrible at it. Anyway, I’ve run into an issue with the deck lamination. I decided to do the lam with UV cure poly so I could be to sure to fully wet out the laps. I read that I would need to apply my graphic with MEKP as the UV wouldn’t cure through the black ink. I did that, but I guess I didn’t get it down flat enough. When I came back to do the lamination after it cured, portions of the graphic were raised, but it didn’t look like any air was under it. So, I laid my two layers of cloth and lammed over it, but couldn’t get the fiberglass to lay down. Here are some pictures of the board and the problem areas:
Should I cut holes in the bubbles and press some more resin into them, or cut the whole thing out and put a patch in before the hot coat? There’s also a picture of the tail where the deck laps onto the bottom. I hadn’t noticed when I took it into the sun that that part hadn’t laid down flat. I think I’ll cut that section out and patch it.
hey, im not the most experienced with glassing blanks but i have glassed alot of rails for repairs. but with your logo have you tried sticking the logo a the same time as doing the lam. that way you can wet out the logo enough not to get bubbles. just mix the batch, wet the blank where the logo is going, wet out the logo, then laminate. and it looks like you pulled to much resin out when lapping the rails, or the lap was too short of a cut. but when lapping you want enough cloth to lap or it will sag, and also when squeegeeing the lap you want to mess with it as little as possible. the more you squeegee the rails the more resin gets pulled out making the lam dry. you have to stick it and leave it. easier said than done. but to fix the rails i would grind it out and patch it. and for the logo bubbles. make an enter and exit hole and push the resin through with your finger to fill it. also laminating with just polyester would be better. just get the ratios down. but you can make your lap a little bigger, and dont over squeegee, and it should help.
ken
I’m guessing you were fighting the cloth the whole way to get those results. Did you have rough edges on your laps preventing you from getting a tight lam? Next time sand your laps first. Wrinkles in the bottom layer you were fighting with? You also might want to consider doing a single layer of cloth at a time on the deck until you work out your technique. Do your logo as a separate step under a patch of 4oz. I’d just consider it a learning experience and move on to the next build. Ride it and enjoy it.
My first thought is an EPS blank that blew, but you were using solar activated poly, too dry a lamination, didn’t work it long enough to pull out her air, but the air in the underside of the laps ? super dry, looks like poly going off too soon, but again solar.
As soon as I have the flats anchored down with resin and have sufficient resin still in the pot, I float enough resin along the rail edges to cascade it down to the lap edge. I keep my old Marie Callendar microwavable tubs, they are about 8 x 10" x 1- /34" deep, big enough to hold enough resin for a lam, but flat enough to keep from exotherming with catalyst. You can slip them under the bottom of the lap and with a 1" brush wet the bottom of the hanging lap before cascading from the top. First it needs to be wet enough, then later dry enough