EPS / Epoxy... Finbox install meltdown

General Discussion
41

hey ray ,

mike and darkerside have given excellent advice from many years of experience

build boards that dont need repairing finboxes

use inserts and extra glass patchs and its unlikely youll never have to fix another box/plug again

eps is shit and has no strentgh is why the boxes and plugs fail

andit shit because the slightest heat melts it

basically its shit

so you need to make the area strong and isolated from water

i cant believe the claims some companies make about how superior there eps/epoxy boards are

when the fin boxes fck out easily, they absorb water first sign of a ding, and go yellow in a few months

eps is a great core for certain construcitons as it is superlight and flexible

but it needs at least 18 oz of glass to be decent

or a sandwich skin

and it needs inserts in the fin areas

its basically useless otherwize

just use epoxy/polyurethane

now that may sound strange from a die hard compsander

but ive been doing sandwhich boards for a few years now

and i can tell you they are “actually superior” then a poly in strength

but a lightly glassed eps board is pretty crappy in comparison to sandwich or coil

id either go for coil like construction with eps

compsand constructon with eps

or pu foam with epoxy and or polyester resin

i have never had a plug failure to date(all polycarbonate one that are supoosed to weak plugs, the new nylon ones seem bullet proof to me)

nor exotherm

with fcs

never

all my cores are 1 pound eps

my boards are surfed in shallow reef and shingle and are always hitting the bottom

it is because the High density inserts and extra glass

it takes about 20minutes to make a router jig and 8 minutes to install them

you buy a 20 to 25 mm sheet of material and cut strips with a saw and fence and just round off the corners

in he worse case scenario and you bust a plug its a five minute route

and you still have the insert in place for the new plug

this is the most superior fin install in eps board

it is the easiest to repair

and it is the cheapest

42

Hey Pat, try using Sumo Glue by locktight instaed of GG. it doesn’t foam as much and cures white, much less noticable than that ugly brown that most PU glues cure to.

pat

43

Thanks Pat,

I’ll try to remember that when my current bottle runs out.

Pat

44

I take anything with me to the Salton Sea/ Mecca Area and it’s dry in and out in about 3 hours…no joke…On my ranch(or is that ronch ?) I left a 5 gallon bucket of water out one day, to see what would happen.In non-direct sun it took about 3 hours to go bone dry.In temps of 120 and humidity of less than 10.

The power of mother earth at work.

Herb

45

Sometimes you just have to go to “The School of Hard Knocks”. Board is fixed , many lessons learned. Lot’s of great information here on Swaylock’s.com

46

I never had meltdown problems and I filled bigger holes with epoxy!

I believe you guys are using laminating resin!

For box installs I always use pouring epoxy resin it never heats up!

I once left one inch (in height) of lam resin in my cup, my cup melted. When I leave 2 inch of pouring resin in the same cup it doesn’t melt, it doesn’t even heats up noticeably!

And my pouring resin is good for lamming too but the lam resin is better ofcourse. So my pouring resin is ideal for repairs.

47

Hans, you mean casting resin right? (Giethars)

Is it strong enough?

Haven’t had much in the way of exotherm troubles using glass bubbles/micropspheres as filler. Haven’t had any breakage or leaks either but then I haven’t really whacked anything very hard although my centerbox on my longboard took a good grounding the other day shooting the shorebreak…

48

Nice repair! Looks great!

Just to be safe, I use RR slow for my finboxes. Never had a problem yet with exotherm when using RR Slow.

49

Glad your journey has ended, what a hassle. I was lucky that a laminator gave me the best tip ever for installing boxes in eps when I started to glass my own boards. Never had any melting issues with futures box installs or leash plugs. I’ve never done an fcs but it should work.

Fiberglass Hawaii makes a super fast 2-1 epoxy. It goes to a razor cutable gel in less than 3 minutes and then supposedly will cure to regular hardness at a normal rate. It is so fast I can only do 1 maybe 2 boxes at a time and only use the tiny dixie cups. The resin never has time to build-up enough heat to do any damage. They sell it in very small quantities and is used with their fast hardener for the 2-1 Aluzine. If you have spillage outside of the box onto the foam its easy to roll it off the foam with a gloved hand when it hits that booger gel phase.

I can install all the fin boxes immediately flip the board do the leash plug and start laminating all within 15 minutes.

The only problem I ever had was before I got a scale it was hard to mix such small amounts (I use grams for the fins) so I had a few that never hardened.

50
Quote:

1/4 Chunky peanut butter , 1/4 blue cheese dressing, and 1/2 Polyglycerine. Mix the three together and you’ll have a water tight strong install that you can munch.

Since this thread’s back up (and with a happy ending! glad the repair came out good), I should reply to resinhead’s ''recipe".

That’s getting awfully close to the formula for Additive F there, GL may start to worry. Only three people know the ingredients

and they never fly on the same airplane.

51
Quote:

Hans, you mean casting resin right? (Giethars)

Is it strong enough?

Jep, Giet en lamineerhars

My shop has 5 sorts of epoxy resin:

Lamming (epovoss LN)

Casting+Lamming (epovoss BK)

Casting (epovoss BN)

Speedcoat

Glosscoat

I use the LN for lamming, the BK for box installs + repairs and speedcoat for finishing. You can also finish with the BK but not with LN because LN stays a bit sticky to get a better bond with next layers. And for lamming, LN impregnates better than BK.

I’ll use PU (UV absorbing) resin for finishing in the future. Only disadvantage: it all gets a bit pricy when using 3 different resins. But I’m here to make better boards, not cheaper boards.

Yes its a strong resin! I can’t compare to lamming resins because I don’t do box installs with lam resins.

So guys try to get some Casting+Lamming resin for the box installs, you won’t have any meltdowns anymore!

52

I’ll throw this out for fun -

I “set” my RedX boxes w/pu glue. Then I scarf out about 3/8" top and bottom, and @ 1/8" under the 12 oz. of glass, then fill w/RR w/Q-cell (lite) and cabo-cil (strong), then feather, then cap, then feather - pre final coat, then open w/“dremal” type too, then insert fins, then go.

So far so good.

53

Bump......

temps past 90F at my house today......too hot for fin box installs.......