Bubbles in old glass job ruining new hotcoat

General Discussion
1

Hello all.  New member here.

I searched, but couldn’t find the info I needed, and I’m hoping to tap the large knowledge pool here.

The board in question is a clark foam green blank shaped into a 9’3 pintail old school longboard made for larger waves. Glassed by myself, in '97.  First ever glass job, and a whole bunch of bubbles in the double 6oz deck and 6 oz hull.

 I recently rode this board with an 8" fin and was more than impressed with the difference compared to a 9.5.  So I decided I could not let this heavily stress cracked board break in half and have Inlaid some cedar strips top and bottom over the stringer  and glassed over that using Apex Epoxy.

 

I originally added a thick gloss coat, but never bothered polishing it, and with the recent renovations, have pretty much sanded through gloss and hot coats , to cloth in some areas.  There are some areas where the original glass job had a lot of bubbles, and now they just keep blowing holes through every new attempt at a thin Hot coat, using epoxy.

 

I think there are some contaminants( car wax/ marine polish) pushed down into the holes.  Compressed air and a fine wire brush have not helped,  Forcing epoxy into the numerous bubbles with a squeegee has not helped.  Dabbing a needle laden with epoxy in the numerrous holes has not helped. I can still push a sewing needle right into foam despite three attempts to seal the board.  The Cedar and re enforced fin box  and a whole bunch of carbon fiber holding the 2 halves together and bridging the heel dents have brought the weight up, and a thick Polyester Hot coat is pretty much not gonna happen.

 

I have not worked w/ PE resins in years, and am not sure it will cure on top of  or bond to this Apex Epoxy, which I am not really impressed with anyway. 

 

I’m not sure how to proceed.  The board is structurally sound.  I need to ride it and see if the extra weight and reduced flex have killed it’s Magic feel.  I could ride it now, but I want the thing sealed, and while it is in dry dock, no better time to seal it.  If only the bubbles in the original glass job fill in.

 

Any Ideas to help me get this board sealed and back in the ocean?

 

 

 

 

 

2

Well at this point, I am just trying to fill the holes, and forcing thickened epoxy into them with a razor blade is working, for the most part, it is just going to take a while to get them all, even if the holes are only on the hull.

 

I want the additive F for when I feel I got all the holes filled, then I will try for a non fish eyeing hot coat with this brand epoxy.  I was used to System3 and rarely had issues with fisheyes.  This epoxy is another story.

3

Im getting into this late..but you will never get those fisheyes out.

 

It's not the epoxy's fault...you can add stuff to the epoxy all day..and it's not gonna help you

Unless you get all the contamination out of the holes.  You had a crappy glass job to start with. Those holes go all the way to the foam, and they are sucking water too.   So even if you get them clean, they will still gass off water vapor.  So you have one option, and it will be a lot of work.

1) bath it in Acetone and scrub the hell out of it, then do it again and again

2) sand the crap out of it and re-layer glass. sand it all the way down to shead weight, and get rid of that crappy, bubbly, glass job

3) if using epoxy, do it when the temp is falling (getting cooler in theday)  that way the blank will be sucking, and not blowing all that lovely seawater stored in that bubbly glass foam job or yours.

 

There's a reason why ding repair guys make you pay double if you cram wax into the ding. You got 1 million little dings with wax crammed into them.

4

Tanks SDR.  I was just in surf supply the other day complaining about hot coating with epoxy and the guy did not try to sell me any additive F.  As i hadn’t researched here about it first back then, I probably would have scoffed at the notion of a magical epoxy hot coat additive had he tried. 

Letting the epoxy thicken in the mixing cup then applying it in the troubled areas with a razor blade until it is too stiff to work, is working,  It will just take a while to get them all as a few stubborn ones still erupt.

 

5

or you could come down to my shop in ocean beach and i could get you some, ive got enough to spare

6

This is 1/2 hour after I took some warmed epoxy to a warm board and used a squeegee to attempt to fill the holes.

 

 

60 minutes later, as the epoxy gummed up I was using a fresh razorblade and trying to force that into the holes. 

 

This is what those holes look like today.  I could not see this with the naked Eye.  The Sewing needle is pretty much the smallest that come in the sewing repair kits.

Sinkhole:

 

Erupted volcanoes:

 

 

It appears despites my attempts to blow out the holes of debris, the epoxy forced into the holes grabbed some crap as it erupted back out.  Maybee I just have to do this another dozen times.

 

Argggghh

 

 

 

7

you can get additive F over at surf supply up in ocean side

8

if it were my magic board i would sand the whole thing down to expose and get ride of all the contamination, all the way down to the cloth, then reglass with some 2 oz cloth and hot coat

9

I just scrubbed the board down with water and a green scourer and inspected closer.  Over almost each hole is now a mini volcano of  hardened epoxy.   Most i cannot get a needle into, others right to foam.  At least this time it cured.

 

I’m not really sure how to proceed.  I am afraid if I sand the volcanoes flat I’ll be right back where I started, perhaps with smaller holes.  Perhaps I should just take some thickened epoxy  again and attempt to force it into the volcanoes and sinkholes hoping it seals the  contaminated magma chamber below.

 

I’m Afraid if I brush on a thicker hot coat of epoxy it is going to fish eye badly like  nearly every other attempt with this brand.   Wish someone nearby (Encinitas) had some additive F I could try in this epoxy.  Ordering it is another week delay, and I have free time now.

 

Gonna go see if I can get a good photo of a volcano and post it.

10

Well I spent hours digging out the pinholes with a needle and compressed air, and forced both warmed epoxy, and thickened epoxy on a cooling surfboard and got some of the holes to skin over with the thickened epoxy giving better results.

 

But how thick the skin is is probably laughable. No doubt a needle could find foam with little resistance.

 

I really do not want to have to glass over the problem areas.  The bubbles would probably blow through another layer anyway with how things have been going lately.  

 

With the amount of time and effort I have in this board so far, I could have built 5 others, if I had the facilities and wherewithall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11

This may sound “out there”

Assuming there is some residual wax based polish or other substance in the holes, try a really fine bristle toothbrush with acetone.

Once that’s done, use heat and thermal expansion to your advantage.

Give it a little time in the sun to heat the core and skin, then move it somewhere cool to do the work, as it’s cooling and contracting it should inhale through the holes instead of blowing bubbles.

 

Other option is to loosely bag one side and pull vacuum and see if you can get a pressure differential through the board from one side to the other to draw the resin into the holes

 

peace out

12

Thanks.  The heat trick I was going to try next.  I had gotten frustrated enough at it that I had to not look at it for a couple days.

 

I have no vacuum bag supplies.  I guess these lightweight clark blanks of the mid 90’s were prone to blowouts too, so it was not Just the inexperienced glasser.

13

you could get away with a vacuum cleaner, builders plastic and tape to pull vacuum on the opposite side - it may or may not actually draw through to the other side

14

I’d try thickened resin in the pinholes or a layer of glass over the whole mess if there are too many holes… it will add some weight but not as much as leaving holes for water…

15

Thanks for the ideas, I’m gonna make another attempt to clean out the contamination in the pin holes. Then with a warm board, I am gonna wait for some  mixed epoxy to get thick, then try and force it into the holes, then put the board in a cool room.

 

If that doesn’t work, I’ll glass over them using cooling temps to keep it from blowing bubbles through the new cloth.

 

If that doesn’t work, dynamite and a new project.

Thanks again for the input.