Can anyone please tell me how to get the look of not seeing any eps beads on clear epoxy board glass jobs? I notice as I look into the top brands of eps boards I cant see the beads. The boards looked so uniformally white . Is it a slurry of aerosil i throw into the mix while laminating? or any other kind of micro sphrer additves that cause this effect? thanks epoxy masters…
Spackle is an easy way to go for a clean bead free clear board. Add a bit of water to your spackle bucket and mix with a paint stirrer attachment bit for your drill. You want to keep the consistancy thick enough but easy to spread thin with your squeegee. Maybe twice as runny as toothpaste… Spread thin and then screen it the next day when it’s dry. You want to have the spackle fill the voids between the beads. That’s all. Too thick and you might get a delam. Keep it nice and thin and you will get a bond to the foam and prevent excess resin from filling the voids and drying out your lam. Good luck!
Distilled water.
Or just good finish work and no spackle.
Yep.
No spackle club.
Im not a big beleiver of spackle either. I beleive glassing and direct bond to foam will not be as strong. I like just resin due to the rooting effect. Maybe my answer lies in mixing milled fibers with the resin. or maybe im not using innegra or perhaps “white” fiberglass…cheers
If you use a good EPS foam, you can sand it really smooth like PU. Marko makes really nice EPS blanks. I use the screens you can get at hardware stores for sanding the putty on interior walls. 220 will get you a really smooth finish. Soft EPS will have larger beads and that usually ends up with large pockets that have to be filled. If you sand the spackle down to the foam you should get a pretty good bond, but I’m not sure what a clear glass over that will look like over time.
I guess my real question - Are there any special fiberglass weaves and epoxy resigns to create a nice -white -transluscent uniform appearance?
Jim Phillips posted a while back about using an epoxy baking soda slurry.
I have been using lightweight filler, I think it is called aeralite? , and mixing it half and half with epoxy to make foam stains. They look good until I muck them up by doing something else stupid. I don’t see why white pigment in the slurry wouldn’t work. It won’t be opaque enough to cover any dirt or discolorations, but if the blank is nice and white it will look good. The only other thing to take into consideration if you let the slurry cure completely before glassing it becomes a rough ish aurface. Would work great if you wait for it to gel then lam over it before it gets hard.
I am a backyard hack with a minimal amount of boards under my belt so there is probably a better way 
Well I’m just a backyard hack too. As soon as I read epoxy baking soda slurry I was out the back doing a test. Baking soda is compatable and it leaves a very nice matt finish… AND Very sandable… But then I am laminating 600 micron of timber veneer [hoop pine] over EPS with a substrate of hemp and PU glue. Just wanted to say thanks … The baking soda additive is going to solve a truckload of problems down MY yellow brick road. Cheers!.
There are no “White” fiberglass cloths available as far as I know, they’re clear with a chemical coating to allow resin to stick…
If you’re not a fan of sealing the board with lightweight spackle mixed with distilled water (tap water will yellow the spackle), then you can do a thin smeege coat of Cab-o-sil and epoxy resin.
The Cab-o-sil / epoxy mix provides the best bond from glass to foam if laminated within 24 hours of the smeege coat.
We also do epoxy foam stains with the cab-o-sil / epoxy mix like melikefish. You can get cool effects like the board shown below and laminate clear over it.
Very nice Brian. I should give that a try.
All the best
that one looks GOOD Greenlight!
I didn’t read all of the responses becasue I’m about to head into yet another meeting, but…
I use Fast n Final lightweight spackle thinned with distilled water. I then let that dry completely. I then lightly rub down the board with a nylon scrubbie pad until I get a nice smooth finish. I then airbrush a thinned white paint on top of the foam/spackle. I then lightly rub down the fully dry paint with a nylon scrubbie. That’s how I do it and it works. YMMV.
I like the look of the beads. Unless your trying to compete with the brands, who cares.