I think i screwed up my lamination. I took too long trying to spread the epoxy evenly without frothing and it started to turn sticky and tacky. now i have what look like a few dry spots and some bubbles. am i screwed? or is there hope?
Hey
Good thing about epoxy is even with half laminated, half dry, you can always relam and get full saturation. Part of epoxy lamination is the spackle coat, after you laminate, it’s similar to a hotcoat except you sqeegee a mix of epoxy and Q cell and use the squeegee to push the stuff INTO any pin bubbles, insurfing full saturation.
Okay but some of the bubbles appear to be covered with resin. do i sand it down and the try that?
Just sand as you would normally, after hotcoating.
THEN apply the spackle/sealing coat, to seal the pinbubbles and get full saturation.
If it’s sealed, I guess it shouldn’t leak.
not too worried about it leaking. Really worried its gonna look horrible.
Sounds like you are in for the old nail and a hammer trick. Hope you don’t have more than 100 sealed pinbubbles to pop.
Try light sanding first, hope ing it takes the “cap” off the pinbubbles.
Ah…not fun but it must be done…
JT:
Do not use any filler or spackle at this stage. The spackle or Q-cell with epoxy (my preference) is used after finished shaping to fill any voids or tears in the foam. It gives you and even and faired base to start your lamination on.
As to your problem with dry spots and bubbles you should approach it as you would any lamination with the same problems. you can try to relam areas that are simply dry but you are going to be sanding out the bubbles and re-glassing. Before your next lamination test a 3 oz batch in a small paper cup and see how long your pot life will be. On the next lam try to get most of the mixed epoxy out of your pot ASAP, pour it out on the board, and let it start saturating the cloth. Don’t let it run all over the floor, you just want to spread the mass of epoxy out to minimize the heat build up of having it in a confined space. Now just spread it light around on the unwetted cloth, you can pull some back into your pot to save it for laps etc. Good luck.
Tom S.
tomas, you mentioned in a previous post about using color with epoxy. Can you tell us more? Pigments? Clear? Were do you get your color? Any advice on when or what part to mix with? thx
Greg:
Use any pigment that you would use with polyester, as always, you would be advised to test a small batch with your epoxy prior to doing an entire lam. I buy from SurfSource and Fiberglass Hawaii. I pour my resin, preheat in microwave then add my pigment and mix a bit. Add the hardener and additive F and go for the thorough mixing routine. I’ve done various tints, swirls, splashes and solid opaque lams. The opaques do a nice job of covering up any pits or tears in the EPS beaded foam, also good UV protection against yellowing. Most of the color effects are done with single layer inlays on bottom or deck, cutlaps etc. then covered with 2nd lamination of clear. Follow the same advice you might find in the archives regarding tints, light colors=easier, darks=harder (just finished an emerald green tint=b*tch) Good luck!
Tom S.
The problem i was having was frothing. If i move the epoxy too far or too fast it froths. just pulling the resin from center to the rail made it really froth. now im not sure how much of an issue that is but from what i understand froth is bad in epoxy. So im not sure how fast i can move the stuff and how much bubble/frothing epoxy will tolerate. I think the other issue i had was temperature. my room was pretty warm maybe in the mid to high 80F. At the 15 min mark it started to get thick.