Completed first start-to-finish board: touch-up questions?

General Discussion
1

Hi friends – after a shitload of work and correcting numerous mistakes, i have created my first start-to-finish board:

used: PU blank, RR CE epoxy, 1 layer 4oz on bottom, 2 layers 4 oz on deck. did two hotcoats. FCSII boxes. used fast hardener + addF for lams/hotcoat, slow hardener for finbox + leash cup. 

the board is pretty much ready to go, but i have a few questions about spots that need fixing, or problems i’d like to avoid next time around. 

  1. just to the side of one finbox i have a tiny area where the weave is showing – i rub it with my fingernail and i can feel some texture. i plan to dab it with resin, then sand with the 400 and call it done:

  1. however, i have a similar spot on the rail – i can SEE the weave, but when i run my fingernail over the surface i can clearly feel smooth hardened epoxy. anyone have any suggestions? hit it with epoxy anyway, or do you sometimes just see spots like this where weave shows even though it’s encased?

  1. i’ve got a chip at the edge of the finbox – i’m guessing it was an air bubble that i hit. i will fill with epoxy and sand with 400:

  1. finally – any advice here? – if you look on parallax at the glass job, i see all these little dots/air bubbles. i’m guessing these were caused by dust under the lam. BUT – i totally used compressed air to blow off the blank. advice for how to get all dust out of there before lam?

thanks for sharing your expertise!

2

Your burn thrus look like quite a few otr boards I see. Shoot with some acrylic sealer or skim with epoxy. Should be good. 

Fill your fin box bubbles. I’ve seen worse. I’ve done worse haha. 

Your bubbles are most likely from not fully wetting out your glass. - when doing clear boards it can be hard to see in the lam stage if you don’t look in the right light. 

Board looks good

3

actually i did read a lot about the need to wet the glass when using RR epoxy – i guess with poly resin you push into the glass but with RR you’re supposed to let it soak in. next time i’ll try and give it extra time to wet through. 

thanks for the advice!

4

I reckon you have made a good board. It’s considerably better than my first effort at any rate. 

5

Next time you lam try to set shop lights running parallel to the board but on the side at about eye level. That seems to help me see the dry spots

6

thanks everyone – i appreciate the encouragement. i’ll get these sorted out and try to avoid them next time!