ok I see how the cut lap is done on the deck with tape etc, then bring the bottom glass up and around the rail up to the tape,then cut back when not qyute cured... no probs.....whats the next step for glassing the deck?? where does the lap go to from the deck glass??
cheers M
from monty, surf on the surfcoast, torquay mostly
merrett u done many boards?
ive just finished setting up a shaping bay at home in the back shed, blue walls side lights shelves etc, no excuse for mucking up my shaping now!
still using a local board company to fire out the glassing and fins for me, but they charge pretty heavy (around $300) as they say it has to be worthwhile for them!!
u do your own glassing? is that one of your creations in your profile photo?
M
nah only just started, only made 4 boards, got another 5 lined up for some mates. dont have much time lately cause of vce. cant wait to get a bay up and running thoough, just a bit low on cash. yeh glass my own boards and profile pic is my latest, 6,2 diamond tail egg.
merrett, yeh mate gotta do your vce...then you can do what you want!
did u do your own logo on your latest? cant quite see it, did u print it yourself?
u charging them for ya a boards?
If you’re in my shoes, and the epoxy has plenty kicked by the time you get back to it, a dremel tool does a fine job of following line with the right bit, which I’m having trouble finding the link for, but looks like a miniature rotary saw blade.
silly,
thank you for the tips and the vids. big help
brasco
For clears, I’ll sometimes freehand cut the lap with no tape. Just hold my left hand so my palm rides along the rail, with my left thumb hooked into my right hand that holds the razor. Just a simple freehand cutlap to clean up the edge, then pull up the lapped cloth. The resin stays there wets the foam, and helps protect it when I fair out the edge of the cutlap for the deck lam.
But I’m a total hacker…
haha yeh.
umm yeh its just a logo i made up on photoshop and just printed on rice paper.
nah not charging for the boards, there just paying for materials. not to worried about making cash yet, just want to make as many boards as possible!
how about you, whats your boardcount? got any pics handy of your new shaping bay wouldnt mind having a look?
or even some pics of the boards youve shaped, can never get tired of looking at other peoples creations.
There is probably something very basic that im not doing...
Ive just glassed my second board, both clears, so im a complete begginer
The lap lines have been the biggest problem out of everything.
On the first board i glassed the bottom and the lap lines were messy and were about an inch on the deck so i sanded them right back to the rail so there was none on the deck at all. but this left a ridge long the top of the rail.
Should i be sanding them right back to the rail?
I found that i kept shaving big chunks out of the foam as i sanded, as the fiberglass/resin is so hard and the foam next ot it so soft?
On the second board i didnt sand them back to the rail as i didnt want to get that ridge but it left a ridge on the deck and was white, so it is very visable on the deck and looks a real mess.
Any help would be great. ive thought about doing cutlaps in the future, but can't quite work how they are done... i wouldnt mind doing free laps if they were neat.
Thanks.
You don’t sand back the lap. You fair the edge to make it more flush with the foam or lam underneath, but you don’t sand it back. You may also be able to roll or press the cut edge into the foam…depending.
Most people use a jig to draw a faint line on the foam, then tape off and mask the side you’re not lamming. Then flip the board, trim off the excess cloth, lam, tuck, wait… then when it’s “rubbry,” flip the board, cut along the tape edge, and pull off the mask. Viola!
YouTube might have a vid or two to get you started.
TR5,
Cutlaps are not necessary with clear silane glass jobs, and I don't recommend doing them, because when you razor it a silvery line appears. To prevent this, brush with styrene after. Basically, don't cutlap unless colored resin or volan cloth.
Grind the edge flush like NJsurfer said. to prevent foam sand throughs, baste the foam with Lam resin. this will give the foam a hard shell so you don't sand through. dont over do it though, a small amount of resin that is brushed on and off will do the job.
good luck
Howzit astevens, I am interested in the silvery line from the razor cut,I have never seen that one before if my memoriy is right. It has ben years since I did a cut lap but I never ever saw a siver line, wonder what causes it? Aloha,Kokua
I don't really notice it on tinted lams or pigments, but on clears if I dont put styrene over the cut edge I can see a silvery line, and it's especially visible in the sunlight. Silvery is the best word that I can think of to describe it.I think it happens because the glass is cut in the gelled state. I don't know if this hapens to others, but it has happened to me. Maybe its something I'm doing wrong???
Kokua, do you have any insight as to why this happens? And also, I tried actetone wiped on, and it takes away the line, but not for long. I then tried styrene and it works well and does the job when applied right after cut in the gelled state.
what do you do when your pigment is so opaque that you cant see your tape. so far iv’e been tricky about it and made it work, but i was wondering if anybody has a trick to making this easier?
Free laps look easier than cutlaps but they are not, actually, as they need more experience to perform well IMHO. First, you must pay extra-attention to how well you cut the glass because this will determine whether you will get loose strands or not. Those are your enemies as they will spread out into the deck of your board and make it even more difficult to glass. Then, when folding the laps, you should not draw the squeegee too much into the deck and this only comes from watching guys doing it. Experience, experience, experience…
On the other hand, cutlaps need more preliminary work: taping and masking the deck; But once this is done, it’s easier to get a nice job. Even if the blade cut is visible, it will be very regular and will look better than a bad freelap.
If I can't see the tape on a pigment, I cut through the paper and lift the edge of the tape up without lifting the glass off the foam so I can see where the tape ends and then cut it. I think I saw how to do this on this website, so it might be in the archives.
good luck
the “silvery” bit is the cut fibers that are left unbasted or just stay visible.
I have a board that did this…it’s like having a hairline of dry weave, if you will.
I agree with Balsa on the comparison of free laps and cut laps.
Free laps on clears are the norm for experienced glassers using silane finish glass. However, unless you spend the time to avoid loose strands and an uneven lap on the deck without carefully fairing the glass in… you will see waviness once the board is sanded glossed and polished. Or, if the sander uses a palm sander or similar to ‘true’ a rumply lap, there will be thin and thick areas in that rumpled glass overlap, which means stronger & weaker spots.
A properly lammed cut lap doesn’t have that problem, but is initially more work requiring a tape off and proper timing for a good cut. As far as “gaps” at the nose and tail areas, one needs to experiment with a variety of cuts to find what works best for you. This can be done by making a proposed cut at the nose or tail then folding the cloth BEFORE you start glassing so you can see how the overlaps will work. And, you need to know which lap you will do FIRST once you are actually glassing.
On longboards with really curvy blunt noses, you may have to make more than one cut in order to ‘make it around the corner’ so to speak. This is no biggie with clears, but you start to appreciate pro glassers doing tints on boards like this. Also wings demand a certain cut to net a good looking properly reinforced board. Kokua could tell you plenty.
I spent a good portion of time training my glassers what I wanted on both surfboards and sailboards. The sailboards were entirely different animals. We primarily used S glass, but also used K Glass, M2 Carbon, Carbon Mat, Kevlar, E glass, and even some less known exotics like Spectra. Sailboards getting 40 feet of air had high demands on the decks and I developed a two stage laminating process for decks, which had up to 7 layers of glass on them, which we could offer because every board was $650 to $1,000, and that was '80 thru '89…
This is kind of off the subject of just cutting laps, but it does provide insight into how important good glassing is to the board in question. Doing things wrong in the glassing stage can make a board snap easier, flex weird, or fall apart much quicker than planned.
Poor glassing/sanding can affect performance.
whenever I get those dangling glass threads, I try to lay them up along the freelap line where I will be grinding anyways later. Basting the foam with a brush and lam resin makes grinding the laps flush a piece of cake. Cutlaps are super easy once everything is preped like you guys said. I don't do them on clears because of that silvery line, but I'm glad someone explained why it happens.
while we're on the same subject, do you think by grinding the lapline on cutlap clears you could take away the silvery line? I usually brush with styrene and then press into the foam