I’m a garage board builder with ~50 boards under my belt and well known in my small surf community. Myself and the only local ding repair guy are teaming up to build out a proper contract glass shop. We’ve spoken to the main surf shop owner to gauge demand and he is behind us as well as the many local shapers that lack a local glassing option. The closest lam rooms are a 4 hour drive minimum.
I’ve been in some pro operations before but want to make sure I talk to some factory owners/workers to avoid any common pitfalls or mistakes that have hit others in this industry when starting out. We both have other income sources and expect to glass ~6 boards a month in the first year - so its not some huge factory. I’m more concerned/curious about glass room setup, venting, working with/finding suppliers, what to charge for certain things, etc… I’d love to start without making any major obvious mistakes.
If anyone has general advice, or is willing to talk to us for a few minutes on the phone that’d be super helpful. Love this community!
If you PM me with a phone #, it would be easier for me to voice a few ideas. As long as you are within the U.S…. If you go for the “above ground” approach you will be subject to legalities. Fire safety etc. For six boards a month you don’t need anything more than 2 stands, a wall rack, sanding room (ventilated with an extraction fan) and a paint room(also with a fan). If you use UV you can set your stands up with a catchment system. Recycle the resin for ding repair and keep the floor cleaner. The floor should be covered with 30# felt minimum. Some municipalities require a layer of mineral roofing over that. Buy a cheap metal parts washer from Harbor freight for clean up of brushes and squeegees. Keep lids on everything. If you do Epoxy; you can do it in the same room, but it is better to have a stand for epoxy in another room. Just some general ideas. I can give you a few more in a private conversation.
Biggest pitfall is burning your building to the ground. Never forget that acetone and other glassing chemicals make gasoline look like child’s play.
If you’re on the East Coast the suppliers for wholesale resin and glass would be North American Composites or Composites One. I’ve gotten resin from one of the surfboard specific suppliers and they literally just slap their own sticker over top of the NA Composites label on gallons of Silmar 249.
The easiest way for a glass shop to go up in flames is dust and fumes igniting. Dust, fumes or acetone reaches an ignition source and up she goes. Many things can become ignition sources from careless smoking, to arking brushes on an electric motor to somebody mixing a resin batch too hot and throwing the leftover cup in the trash can.
Metal containers with lids for acetone and other solvents. Resin these days comes in plastic pails, so not much you can do about that. A metal flammable cabinet to store your resin and acetone is great. The problem is they are too exspensive. You should use UV resin whenever possible. The size shop you are talking about doesn’t require a drum of resin. Just buy fives until and IF you ever get to the point of high volume. You can MEK UV resin. Don’t use a heater with a pilot light. This is the reason I recommended the cheap parts washer from Harbor Freight. Try to keep your metal can five of acetone away from your glassing area and stands. As mako indicated; dust and fumes = fire. You have to manage the risk. I worked out of a single car garage with two stands for two or three years. But I did my sanding outside or in another nearby shop where I have my shaping bay. Catalyzed Poly fumes are heavier than air and accumulate along the floor, so some kind of a fan at floor level is a good idea. I like a fan that sucks air in at one end of the room and another that blows it out the other. And there isn’t any reason that there should be any dust in a laminating room. The only thing I ever do in the lam room is grind a lap.
Very helpful thanks man… We are probably going to upgrade to 2-4 racks at some point in the next year. We are in a large shared warehouse that is segmented off so venting properly & safety is of the utmost concern for me. We have designed a floor plan with a sanding room, shaping/fin set room, paint room all separated and hopefully vented individually.
33 years garage shaping around 250 boards always all in one small room last one is 4m long, 3m wide with an oven. Bigger board was a windsurf hybrid raceboard. More important for me is ventilation. I suck through a filter near floor one side and push air in from roof opposit. Photo from the door, board is 290x72cm
Interesting read. The first few pages and the history of Pro-Glass held my attention. BB and Parmenter. If either one of them talked as much as they type they’d never get anything done.
