This weekend I laminated my first board. 10’6"erish using RR slow epoxy. Good thing too because it still started to go off on me. Don’t know the temp
but it was warm. Did 2 6oz deck, 6oz bottom with pigment bottom and cut
lap. For the most part all went well.
Question: While working it around and turning the laps I noticed that there
were a number of spots that looked dry (white not clear) but I know I had
wet out that area. Does this mean I have some bubble spots?
If bubble spots, what do I do about them?
I lammed the bottom Mon eve, and the deck Tue am. Plan to gloss coat
tonight (trying to work inside the 24hr epoxy window:).
I’ll get the whole catalog of pics up on my web site shortly, but for now
all free time goes to finishing this baby. Here is a teaser photo from this
morning.
thanks
What you probably have there are dry spots. I had the same problem, my first lamination using RR epoxy with fast hardener and 90F+ tropical Hawaiian heat and it started going off faster than i had anticipated. Not much i could do about it other than some creative artwork.
On the deck side my technique improved to where i has plenty of time to laminate.
The same paint stick that I used to mix the epoxy I used it as a spreader like lightly spreading icing on a cake. The stick is long enough so you can spread the epoxy quickly over the whole board. Once you have saturated the flats then take your plastic spreader and pull the resin out from the cloth from the stringer to the rail and use it to saturate your laps…this should take out all the bubbles also.
That sure looks like dry spots. All my epoxy experience is with foam core sandwich boat building though.
I used to make all my own surfboards and windsurf boards up till about 13 years ago and am thinking of starting again for my surfboards, but only using epoxy and s-glass. And I’d just like to say there is great info shared on this forum. But I don’t understand why all boards are not made with epoxy and s-glass. I do know that the modulus of elasticity is like twice less than that of polyester for starters and can be even better than that depending on the HDT of the epoxy and how it has been post cured. Couples that with S-glass which has nearly twice the elongation percentage of standard e-glass and you’ve got a twice better glass job I’d imagine.
I’m curious, anyone want to say what epoxy and s-glass for a typical board would cost, not labor?
Does RR recommend any sort of post cure? Post cure could only strengthen the epoxy. Something like 130 degrees for 12hrs or so. I know that most polyurethane foam can handle up to about 180 degrees. Anyone doing any sort of post cure?
I’m curious, anyone want to say what epoxy and s-glass for a typical board would cost, not labor?
Does RR recommend any sort of post cure? Post cure could only strengthen the epoxy. Something like 130 degrees for 12hrs or so. I know that most polyurethane foam can handle up to about 180 degrees. Anyone doing any sort of post cure?
The price of RR epoxy vs Poly is negligable
The biggest difference is in the cost of the S-glass. Greg L. has posted that using S-glass on surfboards roughly translates into a 10% strength gain but since epoxy is lighter you could use more glass and end up with the same weight and a stronger board.
You dont have to post cure but as i understand it you could if you wanted to.
If it’s on the deck only and you can live with it, hot coat it anyway. I assume you are going to put wax on it for grip. If you put it on thick you won’t be able to see it…wax hides a lot of sins/mistakes. I put a spotlight too close to the board and scorched the wood underneath. Wax will cover that stupidity…
If upon very close inspection you find that you do indeed have some very dry spots in the lamination. You can, with delicate care, cut the unwetted cloth with a single edged razor blade at an angle close to parallel to the foam and lift the offending piece of dry cloth out. Hopefully you still have some precolored resin left. If you prewet the area with resin and drop a couple pieces of cloth on it you can make it look reasonably good and certainly as strong as it needs to be by using a small acid brush and squeegee.
I just did a yellow resin tint. It was about 82 degrees where I was working so I made sure to get the resin out of the pot as fast as I could. I used a brush for the laps and go them wet out reasonably well. I went back over the flat surfaces on the entire board very carefully to see if I had any holidays and just wet them out with the brush and squeegeed them to get a nice even lamination. I then revisited the laps until they were wet out nicely with the brush and then squeegeed them.
Some colors are much easier than others but one thing that you have to do is make sure the color is nice and even by looking at the project from many angles with a jaundiced eye.
I shot a hot coat on the bottom today using additive “F”. My Board is 7’5"x16"x21.5"x15"x3.0" – Ir took 7.5oz of material to hot coat the bottom of the board.
Yesterday and today I’ve been glassing my first epoxy board too. Must be some sort of cosmic 1st time epoxy convergence going on. I’m a chicken and went with clear. I also found a small white patch that I hadn’t saturated properly. Having used styrene to saturate snackles when doing ding repair, I wondered about using
Additive-F ??? I dabbed some on to the white patch prior to fill coat and it
worked(!) It didn’t seem to affect the fill coat cure where I applied the additive and I can no longer find the white patch.
OK so I tried John’s suggestion of dabbing additive F on the dry/bubble spots, but I guess I did too much. When I hotcoated the deck all looked good. .5-1hr later I walked by and looked at the board and where I had dabbed (rubbed several times with a Q-tip) the hotcoat had spread from thoses areas. Similar to gas drops in water.
What it looks like is there is no hot coat in those areas. After it dries more I’ll get a better look.
So do I just come back and touch up the hot coat in those area?
First thing is, when laminating, as soon as you finish mixing, pour out all the resin on the blank. This will significantly increase your work time. Leaving it in the bucket allows heat to build and the resin will thicken more quickly. Wetting laps can sometimes be a hassle so if I see that I have any dry spots I’ll always keep a 1" chip brush available to wet small dry patches. This can be done even after the resin kicks although It’s better to get it when it’s still wet. The brush works better than a sqeegee because it holds some resin when your working upside down. Also, sometimes when its dried and you see a little air just a bit of sanding will open up the bubbles so brushing resin in is easier. I also have a tall rack for cleaning the rails. I’m too old to bend over like that anymore so the high rack allows be to see and fix my laps much better. Mine is about 6’ tall. Puts the lap right at eye level.
