I’m still puzzled why my xps board hasn’t delammed when so many talk of delams, it’s from a DOW blank foamed here in Sweden should be the same process.
/Erik
There are a few variables: foam variations by region, ambient humidity during glassing, amount of use, or, most likely, average daily temperature during the life of the board.
My parenthetical “(that was wierd to type)” was only meant as a comment on my actually typing something about not having a ‘long Squeegee’ - sounds alot like I’m talking in metaphors - which I ain’t!
The long squeegee idea has me thinking about using that on a swirl lam. pour out the resin and in one push/drag spread the entire flat area. less spreading should mean more defined colors.
Depending on what kind of resin swirl patern you’re after, a smaller squeegee is better for a resin swirl. Why? If your using a smaller squeegee it forces you to use smaller pools of resin. If you use smaller pools of resin you get more defined color and less muddied patches. Apply the color swirl /wetout with a smaller squeegee ( smaller meaning 6-8 in) let saturate, then laminate and pull off excess with the big squeegee (big meaning 10-14 in). 2 passes max on the lamination. Final pass, use the big blade for the final grade and smooth out…then walk away.
this pic is of a tint over wood , then a filler coat spray …
i cheated coz the tint was vacuumed on , its the most even one ive ever done , real see through ones are harder for sure , thats why i was reluctant when this customer asked for it , so he could still see all the grain of the timber through it , i had nothing to lose if it didnt work because all my previous attempts at clear looking tints have failed anyway …
Plus…I would think: With epoxy your pouring the epoxy on and letting it soak in then pulling it off. Poly your forcing the resin into the cloth. Two similar, but different.
I’m looking forward to using epoxy for the first time. My first board should be a freak show! I’ll be certain to post it for laughs.
that’s the point…the people who can’t get it right seem to be blaming the resin…it’s the foam that’s causing the difficulty.
although, i have been brainstorming on how to get a nice tint or swirl over eps. i was thinking maybe i could seal, and do a clear lam, then spread on a cheater coat. wet out another layer tinted on a flat table, and transfer it over to the blank while the cheater coat is thickening, but still workable. whatdoya think?..doable??
Doable, but transferring wet cloth leads to a few wrinkles which have to be pulled out. In the pulling, I bet your resin would go uneven again.
You’d be better off doing a seal, clear lam, light fill coat. Let it cure 18-20 hours or so & then do a tinted lam the same way you do with poly. That would end up even & tight. It adds a couple steps, for sure, but you’d get a very even color, and if you’re doing more than one layer of glass anyway, why not?
I tried it that way, but made the dumb mistake of sanding the lam a bit to get little defects out. And of course, you don’t want to sand the fill coat or scratch or sureform the lam in anyway. And no pinholes or any other irregularities.
It’s not the foam. It’s the resin. It was not inconsistencies in the seal or scratches. I had a few of those and they showed up like on a poly board- nothing serious. It was squeegeeing the excess resin off. No matter how I tried there was residue which left a different shade of color. Being epoxy and kind of gooey you can’t squeeze all the resin off.
Next time I might heat the resin to get a more liquid consistency. It’s been about 55 degrees F around here lately. the epoxy was denser than the board I did this summer (75+ degrees). Also, I will use a more flexible squeegee. I used a stiff one as per instructions but maybe mine were too stiff.
here is my first attempt at a tint on a woody… did it under vac… a few problem areas that came about from slight differences in wood thickness and from when i had to pull the skin off the wet glass to get everything lined up… i am really stoked how it looks from a few feet away, and i will do it again with some extra hands and better preped wood… (this board is waiting to be sanded and finished)
ps… a few years ago i did an orange tint on a clark blank with fiberglass hawaii clear epoxy and the tint change colors for a few months ending up in a strange purpleish color… i should have stopped when i added the tint and the epoxy started to bubble and smoke ;). the crew at the store assured me that it didn’t happen and tinting epoxy is no problem.
I haven’t tried this yet but I’m sure I will. I was taught to seal the board with epoxy and Qcell. Then lightly sand before laminating. Could you not simply add color (The same color you want to tint your board) to the sealing proces? Would that aid in getting more depth to the tints? Guess I should try it myself before I go running off at the mouth but I thought I would voice the thought anyways…
Was it dark blue or light blue? I did a dark green tint that came out nice, but this light blue one was troublesome. Maybe it is just more noticeable? I think I’ll stick to swirls and clear lams from now on.
Mine is a light blue. It came out kind of streaky, plus I forgot to tape the bottom before I laminated the deck. Realized this as I was pouring on the resin. I have never gotten professional looking results doing tints.(or, paint either to tell the truth) It’s an art in itself so I just consider the whole thing a learning process. Yellow usually comes out pretty good for me. My worst ever was a green tint. Board rode great though. It’s all fun. mike
