epoxy flip time, is epoxy practical for production shaper

General Discussion
1

Just got off the phone with a friend of mine who is a board builder in Costa Mesa. I was trying to get him to go to the forum at Cerritos College Seminar on Saturday. His concern with epoxy is lamination and hot coat time. He does about 25 boards a week, uses UV resin. Given his shop size, he just doesn’t think he could make the switch without extending labor hours. He just doesnt have the room in his shop for boards to be sitting on the rack and he does not have room to expand.

What is the fastest flip time using Greg’s fastest hardener. He is on board with all the other benifits of eps/epoxy. Just doesn’t think is practical for him.

He still has 100 blanks coming from Clark (long-time customers are getting whats left according to him) and is negotiating with an overseas supplier for other blanks. He said it is either 300 blanks or 800 blanks depending on the container size, big commitment either way.

2

Build a hotbox, flip time about 2 hours. Lam or hotcoat one side, stick in 105F hotbox. Resin preheated to 70-75F. Bigger production work build a hotroom. Like a cold room, but add a space heater. Or just seal up a small room well and add a space heater. What UV does for PU resin, heat can do for epoxy. Half the curing time with each 10 degrees F change, and a 90-110 degree cure will be stronger and stiffer than a 70 degree cure.

HTH.

3

so if i were to chill a epoxy board it could be nice and flexy?

4

I second the hotbox idea. It would give you a lot more control (plus you could get away with a slower resin if needed)

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Quote:

Just got off the phone with a friend of mine who is a board builder in Costa Mesa. I was trying to get him to go to the forum at Cerritos College Seminar on Saturday. His concern with epoxy is lamination and hot coat time. He does about 25 boards a week, uses UV resin. Given his shop size, he just doesn’t think he could make the switch without extending labor hours. He just doesnt have the room in his shop for boards to be sitting on the rack and he does not have room to expand.

What is the fastest flip time using Greg’s fastest hardener. He is on board with all the other benifits of eps/epoxy. Just doesn’t think is practical for him.

He still has 100 blanks coming from Clark (long-time customers are getting whats left according to him) and is negotiating with an overseas supplier for other blanks. He said it is either 300 blanks or 800 blanks depending on the container size, big commitment either way.

Definitely go to the seminar.

As long as he can keep his room at least in the 70 degree range a flip time of 2-3 hours is about right with the fast hardener. Also Greg has a hotcoat accelerator to speed up pruduction times.

6

you dont have to go about it in this way

as you can put the filler coat on while the lam is curing

after the filler coat is cured then you can flip and repeat

then its done

sand and spray gloss with 2 pac polyureathane

finished…

with epoxy, a chemical bond is far more desirable

and there is no sanding untill the end

7

Too bad no one told Piccasso, da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarotti, et al that paint, due to the required dry-time, was a very inefficient and time-consuming method to create their masterpieces… wax crayons would have been much faster.

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How many boards does his rack hold?

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I think he has 6 or 8 for laminating, and then there are a bunch on the walls. Its been awhile since I have been then, but it is cramed in pretty tight.

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How many UV curing “ovens” does he have? They take up space too.

Also ceiling height is important. How high are his ceilings?

Greg uses two laminating stands and one tall vertical curing rack that holds ten or twenty boards.

He has 16’ ceilings. I think about ten boards on each side of the rack. I may be wrong.

It’s been a year. His whole glassing area takes up maybe 150 sq. ft? of floor space.

Can probably have 20-22 boards in laminate production at a time. In the same space he could expand for more production by going higher, like Home Depot. Just adding more capacity to his vertical curing rack and adding a Little Giant ladder to reach the top.

Your friend may be able to take advantage of vertical curing racks and reduce the number of laminating stands.

Remember, you are not pouring a half gallon on and letting it drip off.

They can go on the vertical curing rack right after laminating.

Just glass a side and move it to the curing rack.

It’s a very tight process.

I may have a picture. In the archives I’ve already posted his floor which after two years only had a few drips on it.

That is really telling the story.

The whole epoxy process, done the same way Greg teaches it, is cost effective, reasonably safe, and orderly.

I’ve never seen better floor plan layout or production area plan than Greg’s. It’s a model for the industry.

Tailoring a business for epoxy production makes sense for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which is the environmental

issue on every front. Including rent.

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I am still trying to get him to go on Saturday, I am sure Greg and some of the other people who will be in attendance will have some ideas. I will relay the information I get online and at the seminar on saturday. As a backyard guy myself, I am planning to make the switch to eps/epoxy.

I personally think that the production guys who weather this storm and stay on poly are just putting off the inevitable if they are in LA or Orange county.

12

I think you are right too. The smart money is listening to Mr Clark’s warning and following his advice.

"This letter gives a wealth of advice on isocyanate based foam manufacture and some other manufacturing issues particular to Orange County or California."Page 6.

“Clark Foam’s customers have several well-known and well-publicized options for making their surfboards.” p.6

Gordon Clark’s Letter to Customers, December 5, 2005.

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Thanks Mark. Our laminating area was patterned after Con Surfboards factory circa the 1970’s. I found through the years that this was the most efficient way. We can do 20 boards at a time in that space. Since we do less than that a week in FL we can just use the rack space at our discression and we never have boards out of that space unless their in the sanding room or in the retail area. At 25 a week I would just run 10 to 15 at a time through the laminating/hot coat area twice a week. Two batches of resin per board a day would finish the boards ready for hot coating in two days easy. Like Mark said probably 150 sq. feet. The area is about 15 X 12. Oops, that’s 180 sq. feet. Jeff Rashe is running his entire production in 500 sq. feet. Includes a shaping machine and he even makes his own blanks there. 20 to 30 a week. Haven’t seen it but he must be the master at utilizing space.

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Quote:
Jeff Rashe is running his entire production in 500 sq. feet. Includes a shaping machine and he even makes his own blanks there. 20 to 30 a week. Haven't seen it but he must be the master at utilizing space.

Of course, he has George. He uses a full day cure time per lam and no hotbox, but he is gonna do it his way and don’t try to change him, the end result is super good. You can pick up one of his lam jobs and try to see the spackle or imperfections or even anything other than weight that would ID the board as EPS/epoxy instead of polyester/PU.

George was good at polyester too, he taught a friend of mine how to do resin swirls…this was the board George taught him on…

406×600 129 KB

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George taught me how to glass. He is the man.

He had racks in his old glass shop for 7 or 8 boards, horizontal. He’d lam the epoxies first, then do some polys with UV if it was sunny. If it was cloudy, he’d do some polys first, nice & hot, so as epoxies started getting done, the polys were ready to come off the racks. He’s also where I learned to keep my resin in a locked but not plugged-in old fridge.

Blakestah, that looks like John. Now that George isn’t working for Bob anymore, who’s glassing John’s boards?

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Quote:
Blakestah, that looks like John. Now that George isn't working for Bob anymore, who's glassing John's boards?

Yep, that is John. You name it, he uses it. Stretch. The guys in Pacifica. His own shop. The high end color and gloss stuff is only done in his own shop.

Back in the ASD days, John did a lot of his own boards too, although he left the tougher stuff for George (or for the two of them to do together so John would pick up the finer points).

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Glad to see a move away from the Beach didn’t necessitate a move away from Sways, Blakestah.