I have had a good search but havnt quite found the info I was after. I’m planing on doing a full deck inlay with some 100% cotton I have printed onto. I want to do it so it finishes around were a cut lap would be. It is going on a epoxy eps build, I’m thinking lam the bottom with a free a free lap so I have some thing hard to cut the glass on but not sure how to lay the deck so I samdwich the glass but can also trim the inlay without cuting the lap bellow? Any suggestions? Cheers charlie
There are a few ways that you can approach this. You can lam the bottom, but use a cut lap. After the resin has cured, do the fabric inlay slightly covering the cut lap. Then cut the fabric to the cut lap before the resin kicks. I would tape the glass side of the cut lap to keep things neat while laming the fabric.
Another method would be to tape off the rails and lam the fabric first. When the resin starts to kick use the tape to do a cut lap on the fabric. Then you can free lap the bottom, then free lap the top. Use a pin line to finish the joint between the fabric and the free lap.
Your method of doing the free lap first may cause some distortion in the pattern of the fabric. “Cleanlines” has this in his video if you can get your hands on one.
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There are a few ways that you can approach this. You can lam the bottom, but use a cut lap. After the resin has cured, do the fabric inlay slightly covering the cut lap. Then cut the fabric to the cut lap before the resin kicks. I would tape the glass side of the cut lap to keep things neat while laming the fabric.
Another method would be to tape off the rails and lam the fabric first. When the resin starts to kick use the tape to do a cut lap on the fabric. Then you can free lap the bottom, then free lap the top. Use a pin line to finish the joint between the fabric and the free lap.
Your method of doing the free lap first may cause some distortion in the pattern of the fabric. "Cleanlines" has this in his video if you can get your hands on one.
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Perfect response. Both methods produce professional results. I like to let the resin kick to what I call ''leather hard'' as it will cut to a clean smooth edge.
many thanks for that thats a great help, i read in anouther thread it was best to lam the inlay between two layes of glass? soulds like that would be hard to do with the above process without cuting the glass and loosing one of the laps?
thanks charlie
Tape off the deck do your inlay on the foam. Freelap both sides. You can do it on the foam we have been doing that way for over 50 years. The only thing I would layer between cloth is carbon.
This sounds the best…If the fabric is cotton based…
Pastic materials seem to do better ( impact wise) when put between glass layers . The new plastic cancer patches, innegra and other plastic mesh type of fillers do well between layers of light glass…Carbon would work fine this way too, but it’s not a structural requirement as it’s more like a stiff/light fiberglass in nature…
I think charlieukusa got the wrong impression of why some materials are sandwiched between glass layers… The fabric inlay is cosmetics first, the trapped plastic binder materials are impact and spider crack reducers… Different purposes ,different applications…
The nylons or plasic materials act like the plastic film sandwiched between glass in bulletproof glass…
Now you could use a colorful innegra like plastic between glass layers but edge trimming is more difficult…
Pre cured epoxy impregnated top sheet inlays work well to solve the clean cut edge problem of adding insert fabric between glass… I’ve done carbon foot patches this way with great results… You simply cut a perfect outline of your inlay with scissors when it’s still “leathery” (as Bill mentioned above) and lay it on top of the bottom layer of glass… I use a vacuum bagged laminate stack though… And more steps too…But clean sharp inlay edges for sure…
cheers guys much apresiate the advice
i was figuring that any sort of sandwich with the stronger materials on the out side was going to be stroger but if its not going to make a huge differance then no worries.
im planing to do the top with the inlay and do sprayed tempra on the sealed eps, im thinking its going to be better to lam the inlay on to the hole deck first trim it all up and then spray the bottom incasae any masking pulls any of the eps beads out that way it should be a easy repare with spackle rather that trying to repair spakle and paint?
many thanks again hopfuly it should turn out prity radtaculer 
just wanted to say a quick thanks againg, its all gone to plan from the above advice from you guys and should hopfuly have the board finished up in the next few days super stoaked with it.
cheers charlie
sory just a quick one is it advisable to do the same lam on the deck as normal or reduce it a little to compansate for the full cotton cloth inlay? im after this one being farly light if i can
many thanks charlie
Cotton won’t add much if any strength. Go with a standard glassing schedule, shortboard 4 oz. bottom double 4 oz. on deck, longboard 6 oz. bottom double 6 oz on deck.
[quote="$1"] im after this one being farly light if i can [/quote]
Go for lightwight SILK, and check for color fastness.
Sorry I didn’t see this earlier.
I just did a full inlay on a board. I did this on the bottom. It came out nice and it was a lot less work then trying to do it the cut lap way.
I put a little spray glue along the center of the blank to hold the fabric securely, then used an edge marking tool to draw a line about an inch in. I carefully cut the fabric along the line then layed a layer of glass over the fabric and laminated the 2 layers together. A pin line will cover up the edge of the fabric if I want to bother, but it’s pretty clean. I laminated the top with clear but I haven’t done anthing since doing the fill coat.
If I do more fbaric inlays, I will do it this way again, it’s much easier to do all the layers at one time. If the fabric is thicker, I’ll run the laps over that edge and then it should fill in any bump. My fabric was thin. I can post images later if you want.
no worries i did wonder about doing it that way but couldnt find any records of people doing it that way,i was alittle worried about geting a neat line and it moveing when it came time to lam it and sqwegee it out maybe ill give it a go next time .any way its all layed up now top and bottom, i went double 6 on the deck plus the fabrick and it seams supper solid however i think i screwed up a bit and sqwegeed to much resin out as i think ive ended up with some pin holes and worse some buble like things in the glass which must have come in as it dried. i sanded them out the best i could and have given it a fill coat and its covered most voids,it still seams solid over the patches that sanded out although i think its just the fabrick inlay and no glass.so not quite sure if i should give it quite a hevy sand and then put almost a full deck patch on to cover over the messed up areas or just sand and gloss coat it. its only my second board so sill learning alot. im not super woried i will probably be doing anouther similar if i like it but do want to have to start doing major repairs at a later date becase of the problems ? any sugestions
i was going to save the pictures till it was done but the thread will probably make more sence with one so here it is so far just give the deck a bit of a sand after the fill coat still undeside if i need to add anuther layer of glass to the deck, the problem areas were the glass bubbled up were mainly in the middle of the front half and the middle of the back half. i only have 6oz cloth which seams a bit much to put on top but maybe i should im wondering if the cotton fabric may end up cracking were there is no glass on it allthough its prity tuff. maybe i could just patch the larger ones and leave the small ones?
looks like you did a good job
cool tie dye
Here’s a shot of my board. The fabric is on the bottom.
Did you trim the edge of the fabric with a razorblade?
The fabric was in a box of remnants my wife had. I didn’t wash it, iron it or anything else. I just layed it down cut it and laminated it. It was a thin cotton blend, or 100% cotton. I suggest using a thin material to avoid absorbing resin. Now I just do inlays as a cut lap.
Just go to a fabric store. The local Walmart here sells fabrics. I only buy them if they are less than the cost of fiberglass, or if they are really cool. I recently got some very cheap solid blue cloth at Walmart. I’m hoping it comes out better than doing colored resin.
I bought some fabric remnants from a kimono maker during a visit to japan. I also got some at the dollar stores there.
