going to do a purple resin swril on both sides, do I need to do a cutlap? Thanks in advance. ed
ed-if it will be an opaque smear, you don’t need to tape off. If it is more of a tint style, we generally tape off for the bottom lam, then do an smear inlay taped off on the deck with one layer. Than do a clear free lap over that later. Just depends on the effect you are going for. If you wanted the darker on the rails look, you do cut laps on top and bottom. Cut laps would make it look “neat and tidy”.Hope this helps.Ted
Ed: About 20 min. ago I did an opaque yellow/magenta epoxy swirl job. I pondered the same question when planning this layup. I’d do a cut lap, you are going to have slight differences in color between batches and the density of the color at the rail laps might just cause you some grief if free lapped. Just my thoughts, maybe someone else can help here. Tom S.
Ted: Do you have any tips for finding the tape line when cutting laps on opaque jobs? (we’ve talked about multi-layered tape, dark color tape and strong backlight from below in the archives) Thanks for your input and any additions to these. Tom S.
Tom- Our laminator(Rascoe)just cuts off excess paper and uses a regular old razorblade. He lifts the tape and paper until he sees where the glass is bonded to the blankk and zips from there. He will probably see this post and be able to shed more light on his technique.Ted
Got it, thanks! TS
TS: Ted was right, I did see this & will give my 2 cents.The trickiest part of doing cutlaps can be at the 2 ends where the 2 sides usually overlap:the cloth is twice as thick and twice as opaque.This is the only 2 areas on a board where seeing the tape would matter,cause once you get going down the rail line the blade should be laying sort of flat on the rail.Lift the excess lap & tape up with your other hand & zip along,slow and careful not to gouge the foam.Only a small corner of the blade should be going thru,and you’re actually sliding the blade on it’s side while bending the semi-hard cloth up;it needs to be hard enough to not let go of the foam,but not too hard to cut easily. Also, I like to slice little cuts in the excess overlap as I pull and lift it up beforehand;this helps especially in the rail curve in the outline. Again, the ends of the board are the tricky part.Sometimes I eyeball where to cut thru from above,just guessing where that tape line is.It’s usually real close to where you think it is,and a nice pinline hides any unsightly gouges or sloppy looking areas(usually!)Some taped-off glass jobs come out better than others,tints & swirls are usually easy;it’s the opaques that give me a headache every now & then.Keeping the white deck foam clean as you cut and have this messy,sticky,excess lap covered in pigment falling along the rail can be a bitch sometimes,even though its kicked plenty hard it can leave smudges of color where you don’t want it.It must have been hell being a glasser in the old days,when every board got taped off on both sides,all the waiting around to cut & stuff… hope this helps.
Rascoe: This helps, thanks for the details. Something I forgot to add earlier was a tip for this process that I believe Jim Phillips passed on some years ago. He mentioned taking the single edged razor blade and bending an angle into it. Keeps your hand away from the line you are trying to see or trace and it limits the depth of the cut. I’m doing epoxy opaques right now and they have proven to be a lot more messy than poly cutlaps…thats what pins are for right? Thanks! Tom S.
Thanks for the input. Looks like a cutlap on both sides just to keep things looking even. If it turns out good, I might have my first one worthy of a pic post. Thanks again. ed
when doing a tinted lam, top and bottom…do you tint both layers of the top cloth, or tint one then do a clear layer with a free lap??
i typically tint both with cutlaps. it makes a smoother lookign tint job.
hey austin,how are the OBX making out??
I checked it out a few weeks ago it was still pretty bad. The worst was a 10 miles strip at kitty hawk. Houses drifted across the street.
Don’t stop coming down because of the mess.Our economy needs the business to make up for the down time during the storm. And there has been plenty of good surf lately.We’ll be looking for you.Thanks TedK.