My extremely limited experience of glassing has been limited to cutlap technique. I’m making my first eps board soon, and just glassed a little test piece just to get an idea of what the RR epoxy would feel like and see how the pigments and tints flowed in it. So because it’s epoxy I am planning on working with freelaps, since it seems it would be much harder to cutlap with epoxy due to not having that perfect cutting window that’s there with polyester.
So when freelapping with a tint, is there a particular way I should avoid getting tinted/pigmented resin out onto the deck as I pin up the lap? I stuck an image on here of my test piece (chunk of a blank that got cut off) just to clarify exactly what I mean. I’m planning on pigmented bottom/rails with either a different tint on the deck or else just clear. I don’t know how I’m going to get a freelap anywhere near even or clean, but that’s another story! More careful with the scissors I guess when it’s for the actual board.
Thanks for any epoxy tips! (Anything that springs to mind about epoxy I would love to hear; I’ve done some considerable archive searching but there’s always something missed. I certainly don’t mind hearing things I already knew either.)
do a cut lap. epoxy cutlaps well but you need to use high temperature masking tape and make sure its well stuck down ( i even do seal coat on wood boards). ovenight cure is good for RR or kinetics. bigger window then poly… and if you pinlining over the cut you can cut downward instead of across. although crossway is the correct way to cutlap. i have a link on surfermag on the “stuff” thread that shows me cutting a lap crossways
Ok, so you just let the epoxy cure all the way before cutting? I just thought it would be hard to hit that point where the resin was still soft enough to trim easily but hard enough to not pull up the glass while cutting. Seems like epoxy stay flexible for so weirdly long… I’ll have to get some better tape, I used a blue painter’s tape last time but it still bled under somewhat and actually sort of leaked through a bit, if that makes sense.
Cutlapping with epoxy is easy. I use RR epoxy and usually lam and then wait about 2 hours before cutting the laps. With pinlines you can just cut straight down and it makes your life so much easier. I usually test the glass a little bit. Wearing gloves, just kind of touch the glass along the lap that’s past the tape line. If it’s sticky and picking up with your finger, leave it be. If it’s tacky and not coming up, then go ahead and cut. Greg Loehr recommends using an exacto knife instead of a razor blade. I use a razor blade without ill effects though.
Awesome, thanks Rachel, I was wondering if you’d chirp in as I remember coming across a nice looking epoxy tinted board you had done somewhere. Haven’t been able to find it since and I was looking for something else at the time so I didn’t examine that thread closely. Cutlaps it is! … I think I have a better chance at not totally mucking up the aesthetics without doing freelaps.
I like a bit more Additive F in the resin if I'm doing a cut lap. Trims a bit easier because the blade slides through with less resin build up. At first epoxy seems like a tougher trim but after a few it's about the same. Like silly bsaid, use high temp tape. You can also pin line with automotive pin stripe tape. That's pretty easy.
Good to know to use a bit more Add. F. I unfortunately don’t have any X55, which seems like it would be a good thing to have handy when doing any kind of tints and/or pinlines. I should have picked some up from FiberglassSupply when I was down there but somehow I forgot that it existed. Picked up some 3M Scotch Painters Blue masking tape today, I think its a notch better than what I used before. It doesn’t say anything about being high temp… I picked it up from a local fiberglass / resin / marine retailer and they said it was the recommended tape for use with their epoxy resins (they carry System Three and West). Think that’ll do that trick?
Oh and btw Greg, the little test piece I did turned out quite nicely as far as the quality of the lam went. It came out much cleaner and more even throughout the material than the ones I did before with polyester resin, I’m really stoked to see how it goes on an actual board.
X-55 seems to quicken overall cure time,but the resin gels the same IMO.It also thins out the resin a good bit causing run out on the rails,I’ve found it better for laminateing than anything else,it just helps reduce flip time(alot).I would leave it out of the fill coats,it makes the add-F clump up.
I’m working on glass laminations that are vac bagged on at 25" , and are then pulled out of the bag after approx 3 hrs, then cut laps…
Working on the timing of this one, but I’ll nail it someday soon…")
Kiterider…
P.S. Yeah, I vac bag everything, rails,skins, laminate. I couldn’t go back to non vac’d laminate…
You guys/gals deserve much “props” for getting those complex curves to stick in a non-bagged atmosphere…
Although I use less epoxy to glass per side by weight, which is compressed, resulting in more of an “areospace laminate” at least by structural definition…
