First post here on swaylocks, so any help is greatly
appreciated.
I made my first board a few weeks ago, EPS core, bamboo stringer,
FCS fusion fin boxes, and RR epoxy. It turned out awesome (for a first board).
Now, I'm looking to build another board. However, like most surfers, I'm tight
on cash. So I've been debating whether to try the PU/PE route. I know the
finished product may not be as durable or light, but I'm not hucking aerials or
blowing out my tail either so that's no concern. I know resin would be
significantly cheaper; the blank is around the same cost.
So my questions are:
-Would the conversion from Epoxy resin to PE resin be too
difficult for a novice board builder?
(Using RR was like putting icing on a cake, no smell, really easy
to work with, amazing stuff really)
-Would using a PU blank give me a much cleaner looking finished
board?
(the spackle I used to seal the EPS is slightly off-white, normal
looking to the untrained-eye, looks -yellowish to anyone else)
-All things considered would it just be worth it to spend the
extra 100$ to use epoxy again?
-The RR mixing ratio is 2:1 resin to hardener, what's the ratio of
resin to catalyst for Silmar 249B PE resin? (and is the surfacing agent similar
to additive-F ?
Any expertise on PE resin would be helpful, looking to save some
money and make a sweet looking and surfing board!
Epoxy almost pays for itself over resin depending on how you use it. With a wet out table, less time rush, no waterfalling of resin etc. I laminate with about 2/3 to half of the amount that I would use if I was using resin. And then you consider the epoxy board will last twice as long, my mind was made up.
The down side with epoxy is that it is much harder to get a clean final result. Polyester Resin hot coats, and especially gloss/ finish coats much easier.
And just my personal take. Many more experienced than me would disagree, but I would rather use a U S Blanks Orange at a slightly heavier weight than a EPS blank. Especially important if you are going to travel. Do you really want to miss surfing or have a waterlogged board, because you dinged it on the way?
I can get about 1.5 gallons of RR epoxy for about $120 or a gallon of PE for about $50, granted I havn’t looked too hard so that may be a consumer price. So what I’m hearing is maybe a PU core and epoxy resin? Will that give a more tradition feel board that is less prone to dings and more durable? I’ll throw some more pictures up tomorrow this is the board before glassing and when it was just finished it’s since been painted and such:
My vote is stay with what worked the first time. When you're new to shaping / glassing, there are just so many learning curves to fight, so many opportunities to screw up, why add more to the mix? Epoxy shouldn't cost $100 more than poly, maybe you could find a few local guys to split the cost with, and save by buying a bigger quantity?
Are you gonna post some pics of your first board? Mandatory after bragging on it =)
I was only half kidding about the pics, but you know, we are addicted to surfboard pictures here!
Board looks good.
As for your question - I mostly build wood boards. But I have built a couple foam boards, and they were polyurethane blanks glassed with epoxy. I am very happy with the result, so I think that's a good way to go. Hope to try an EPS blank sometime soon, but I really should use up the poly blanks I have laying around first.
-"All things considered would it just be worth it to spend the extra 100$ to use epoxy again?"
Hello Cold Dude....my biggest cost is fins and fin systems......resin is cheap......epoxy or poly cost about the same......at the end of the day....after all the hype. About $50 for resin to glass a surfboard....many can do it for less.....How cold is it where you live?
Ray is right. With poly resin you’ll wind up using more than with epoxy, so the cost balances out. There is also an experience issue, look back at your laminating time on the previous epoxy and consider that you’ll only have about 15 mins with poly resin (unless using UV).
I surf Cape Cod to Southern Maine area, warmest we get is usually around 65 in the summer. But the best waves are Nor’ Easter season, in December to March, and the water is usually around 35 degrees fahrenheit. If you have facial hair you get some nice salty icicles. Thanks for everyones advice aswell! I didn’t realize how much more PE resin would need to be used, it sounds like the better route for me is epoxy. Thanks a lot for your help everyone, be careful in the water, we’ve had quite a few great white sightings on the cape this year, fun stuff!
I started with poly then went to Epoxy and now I do almost everything with UV cure poly. Especially for the novice UV cure is the way to go. Less costly and almost no pitfalls. Much easier to work with and easy to sand. You can glass a board start to finish in a single day. Doubt I’ll ever go back to epoxy.
Heh- couple of things strike me. First off, as a geezer, it’s a kick to realise that epoxy has come so far that there are those who didn’t start with polyester resin. And that there’s somebody else from my neck of the woods.
In any event - with polyurethane foam you don’t need spackle. Thankfully, it’s ugly stuff.
Catalyst to resin ratios are not precise, temperature and humidity need to be factored in. I like to go light on the catalyst, it goes off slower and you have more working time. Basic ratios are in published data/info/product blurbs.
Surfacing agent- okay, polyester resin doesn’t harden completely if it’s exposed to air. So, surfacing agent is a styrene wax solution that makes something like a soap or oil film on top of the hardening resin and lets it harden enough to sand it, etc, you add it to hotcooat and gloss but not to resin you are using to laminate. You need to sand hotcoat and gloss but you don’t really want to sand your laminations.
Typically, I’d use as much surfacing agent as catalyst in a batch of resin.
my thought is play with some polyester resin, do some dings for friends for instance, to get a feel for it. Then make your call
As a garage hack I’ve got more time than money. I like epoxy for the improvements in strength and adhesion, the BIG reduction in VOCs, and the elimination of acetone or its equivalents from the process. Speaking of which, that’s another hidden cost in the use of PE and VE resins that furthers the cost comparison. A gallon of acetone is something like 3-4x the cost of the 1.3 gallon container of vinegar I bought from the local Smart & Final grocery outlet and I know some guys go with hot water and soap instead of that. I’ve got my wastage of epoxy down to prolly less than 4-5 oz per board and that includes those small batches for fin boxes and leash plugs and minor fills at the corners and such. I could possibly learn to do better than that. AND I can spread the epoxy fill coats thin enough that I’m not sanding much of it off during the finish. If I was better and glassing and sanding I’m sure the cosmetics would come out better.
As for the cosmetics of spackling an EPS blank I saw one board a couple months back where they colored the spackle and spread it real thin so as to get a textured colorway under the glass. The glass job was done by one of the local glassign factories. The look obviously isn’t for everyone but I kinda like the idea of embracing the cosmetic imperfections instead of fighting them. The perfect-looking finishes of the surftech construction is one of the big turn-offs for me.
