cut laps and resin tints....

hola,

i have just finished sanding two boards that i have resin tinted (#'s 2&3 for my attempts at tinting) and i can see the edge of the cutlap. i know this sounds stupid, but let me clarify. i tinted the deck and the rails and left the bottom clear. i did the deck first and then the bottom, so i can see the cut edge of the clear cut lap over the tinted deck. how could i have prevented or fixed this? or is the way its done? should i have done the bottom clear lap first and then the deck? i know that this can hidden by doing a pin line, but i wanted to keep the deck solid and just do a single pin line on the bottom.

also if anyone would like to take a stab at this… when doing the resin work, how do you prevent the resin from collecting on the bottom edge of the rail after its been wrapped? i tried to wipe it with the squeegee, but it had already begun to kick and i was concerned about pulling the glass from the foam

brasco

You could have layed your tape right on the edge of the colored cutlap and up around the rail so that only the foam on the bottom was exposed after your initial deck lap. Then lam your bottom as normal, except instead of lapping the bottom lam up to the top, just razor it at the colored lap line and then do your bottom pinline where the color and clear kiss.

Did that make sense?

perfect sense… and i thought about that, but wont the board lose some of its strength from not having the bottom cloth wrap the rails?

brasco

Color top and rail, clear bottom is why pinstripes were invented.

Glassing bottom first with lap insure butt ugly color on the rail as the tint can’t get to the foam, so it’s lighter in color on the rails.

Go for a nice double pinstripe with accents just like retro…

Or spray the blank, then glass.

Because you wanted your color change to be on the bottom , you did a reverse lap

as DD stated do your cuts at the color line, buttttttt,

an extra layer of glass over the clear side wraped around will get yout rail strength back

example…

this is my proceedure… ( I do clear decks and colored bottoms thats why I call yours reversed)

tape off deck or bottom

flip board

do color work and wrap rails to tape line, let gell good

flip and trim

tape off color line

Lam one layer of glass let gell good and trim

sand the lap line smooth and

lam one more layer over the clear side wraping around the rails

proceed to ot coat

pinline if the cut line looks like shit ( mine usualy do but dont tell Vader)

got it?

Hi Brasco,

Let me see if I get the question right, when you cut the SECOND layer (deck, in your reverse lap case) which

is clear, you get a silvery cut line that shows on top of the tint (FIRST layer)

Is there a reason you are cutting the second layer as a cut lap? We normally do a “free lap” on the second

(deck) layer in your scenario. This leaves NO cut line showing on the tint. I can set up several suggestions

but need more info.

Another technique if you ABSOLUTELY need to do a cut lap on the second (deck) layer, is to dab styrene on

the cut line right as you are hotcoating. This gets about 80% of the scars out of the cutline.

George

plusone

I just reread brasco’s post and you nailed it

thats what he’s saying ,“the silver cut line in the last layer”

I have gotten those also

I get a smoother bottom when I cutlap the last layer, nice clean lap

I tried using super thinned resin with some success (acetone)

no styrene at my house

I got the same with epoxy

i may resort to going back to freelaping and more sanding

dont cut the lap short when you do a side, the lap gives the rail and the rest of the board its strength- i wouldnt recommend it.

if the cut line is showing you could try and paint it with some styrene before you hotcoat- or just do it “free” and feather it in, like mentioned above

hi george,

i had considered doing a free lap (for the clear bottom laminate) but was concerned that the edges of the free lap would be visible as well, and just figured i would do the cut lap so that it would be a uniform distance from the rail on the deck all the way around. is there any special technique to finishing the free lap? or was my fear of it being visible over the tint unfounded?

if i may be so bold as to ask an additional question… why does the edge of the cloth show up when you do a cut lap and not show up when doing a free lap?

thanks,

brasco

las olas,

thanks for the advice. you confirmed my suspicion about weakening the rails.

when using the styrene, do i understand you correctly and i just paint a layer over the lap line and then hot coat as normal? sorry if the above is a stupid question, but i havent used styrene before.

brasco

Hi Brasco,

By doing the “free lap” technique the lap should be invisible. If it isn’t, then something is

wrong in the process.

Some things I can think of at the moment are squeegeeing the free lap down but not squeezing

out the resin so it is dry, or not squeezing on the lap after the resin has gelled.

If you are doing a gloss coat, then you can do the free lap, and hotcoat the board WITHOUT

knocking down the free lap or burrs. If you get scarring of the free lap line upon glossing the board,

then the process is not correct somehow.

Another trick to get the free lap “silver-free” is to carefully/safely wipe the areas that show “weave”

with styrene after you’ve sanded the board. I should say wipe the styrene right before hotcoating,

literally, with both brushes in hand.

Cutlaps will show a line due to scarring. With that said you can cut a lap and make it invisible by doing

the cut right as the resin is hard, but not fully cured. Kind of the conistency of an eraser (rubber).

A fresh blade should cut very nicely, too wet and you will snag, too hard and you get scars (silvers).

Also, another trick is to scribe the cut line with a fresh razor all the way around, then go for the actual

“pull up and cut”. This puts less stress on the cut area, thus less scarring.

Perhaps you could show some pictures of the free laps and I could give more detail on what to look for?

HTH,

George

george,

once again, thank you for your help. i truly appreciate the advice. although, i am unclear about your request for photos of the free lap. on these 2 boards i did a cut lap both top and bottom, are they what you are referring to? if so i will be happy to oblige, but it will take a couple of days to get them posted. if not, please let me know what you would like photo’s of, and i will get them.

brasco

I believe this is what Brasco’s talking about

under the nose and across the blue patch

tail corner in the dark patch

I tried the acetone dilluted resin it helped a little

ken,

thanks for posting the pic, thats exactly what i got on my board (although my tint job is no where near as nice as that one)

did you just leave it as is, or did you do something to fix/hide it? i have already hot-coated the board and i dont think there is anything i can do about it now… except pin line and that wasnt what i had envisioned at the start.

brasco

Okay, I see what’s going on now. Ken, be careful with using acetone for that procedure

as I’ve seen many a board turn yellow in the affected areas (always happened on white/clear

boards, so most likely not a worry for you there…)

The “Free Lap” I was referring to is a technique that uses NO tape and NO cutting after the

lamination. A free lap in this case would be ideal.

The key to getting the free lap nice and neat is the scissor cut that you do on your dry cloth.

After you’ve done a few cut laps, you can figure out how long/short a free lap would need

to be. The scissor cut should be really nice, spend extra time cutting it, trying to make it

have NO jagged “lightning bolts” or frays. The bad habit is to make a free lap too small at

the nose and tail…

Laminating the Free Lap is the same as doing a Cutter. IF you get any strings NEVER pull

them out, instead try to fold them back into the lap, laying/sticking them along the lap line

(line that you cut with the scissors) (they’ll get sanded-away later)

Once the Free Lap has kicked, just hotcoat it as normal. NOTE: Normally we knock down the

free lap line a bit before hotcoating, but this is only for Sanded Hotcoat finished boards, so

they don’t show any weave once they are sanded. With a Glossed board you’ve got it made,

just buzz the Lap Line with your grinder after the hotcoats are ready.

If you did a neat job of lapping, the board will sand out pretty quick. If you didn’t, then you’ve

got something to strive for… ha ha.

Other questions, just let me know…

HTH,

George

Dunno if this helps, but I find when cutting glass at a tape line i.e. on a ding repair the top fibres of the cloth turn white leaving a silvery line after hot coats sanding etc. What I have started doing is after cutting the tape line, with the same blade I cut along the edge at a very low angle removing all the white fibres on the top of the cut line. This leaves a see through border slightly lower than the rest of the patch. Works for me in clear cloth but I wouldn’t like to say how well it works with tinted resin. Hope this helps.