I posted yesterday, but didnt see the post today so trying again.
I am about to do the fast n final coat on my eps, like Greg suggests. My question is, if fast and final is water soluble, wont it just turn to mush if you get water inside from a ding? My current eps is epoxymicro sealed. I got a ding(crack) in it a few weeks ago and it sucked quite a bit of water. I drilled some holes in it, and it took 4 or 5 days to dry out.
What are you taslking about? Are you talking about a new board, or a dinged board?
If new, just fast n final it and bedone...could 1,000,000 swaylockers be wrong? we have been doing it this way for 5-10 years now. With great results.
If we are talking about a ding..Make sure the board is dry. Fastnfinal mixing with salt water will turn yellow. But any EPS ding, or PU/PE board..make sure it s dry before doing any repair.
And it doesn't turn to mush..well it might if you were to add like 50 lbs of the stuff? all you want to do is fill the voids around the beads.
Your going to use approx 1/2 a beer can for the top and bottom of a 7 ft board. Then you are going to sand a lot of it off.
If you’re going to thin out the DAP used purified bottled water, the minerals in tap water will turn the DAP yellow over time.
Also, it is not neccessary to thin out, strait from the bucket works really well too and fills deeper tear-outs easily.
~Brian
I use it without thinning.
It’s only there to fill in the tiny voids and holes.
After it dries, it is basically microballoons.
When you glass, it slows the absorption of epoxy into the eps blank.
Basically giving you the same result as if you had done a microballoon/epoxy slurry but, much easier.
Oh, and, you will get tons of conflicting opinions about this.
Peel tests beat opinion every time. Period.
Actually the water you want is distilled water. You want everything out of it. Just not purified.
And Chris, the only reason to thin the Fast n Final is to make it spread a little easier. Using it straight out of the can is no problem.
You will find out that if you thin it out, it won’t dry out as fast when you are moving it around on the blank ans subsequently stays on the spreader better…and not falling off onto the floor…then steping in it and tracking it all over the place.
Stuffs pretty expensive.
I don’t recommend using drywall mud for surfboards, but if you do beware, for in the sun, or in the heat they can blow up like a pufferfish. What’s important is the finish of the blank, and the worse the finish, the more chance of failure at some point. I had a long conversation awhile ago with Greg Loehr himself, someone who recommends doing it this way, and someone I completely respect, as a surfer, and everything else; I mean the guy is one of my hero’s and has been for a long time, but guess what? I saw his personal board fail under relatively normal circumstances, stored under a deck for a few months, and almost completely out of the sun. Furthermore I am privy to what the biggest and best paddleboard producer on the West Coast does at every means of production and before when they were mud-finished they had failures, or returns every week, now they’re sealing with resin have’nt seen one; now what does that, if anything mean to you? O it was on my recommedation and urging but do you think they ever have said thanks- no.
Do it however you like. I like to do it once, and never have to worry about it, even on the hottest of days around here, and really it doesn’t even take that much longer.
G-rat,
Was there a noticable weight gain in the epoxy sealed vs the fast n final ? Also are they sealing and mixing in microballons, DE or some other form of filler?
I know to make a nice tinted or colored board in EPS its good to epoxy seal over fast n final.
By volume :50%resin mix, 50% microsphere then add cabosil to make a past easier to spread. Heavier than spackle but use less resin for lam, so all in all same final weight.
Resinhead, weight isn’t the issue, its the durability. As Chrispy suggests, the resin replaces the water to a certain degree to form a composite; however what about if it doesn’t completely, or where a ding occurs water penetrates at the interface at a point where its primarily mud? How they do it is just a resin baste with a squeege, and a touch up sand, for they only take enough advice to take credit for it, which is sufficient but not the best, which is how Lemat suggests; furthermore is done correctly tints and paints look tight pretty much indistinguishable between a pu. Just because I am a production guy doesn’t mean cutting corners where it really matters, and for guys around here they should just heed my advice, because its proven and not bs.
Ghetto…I find that I can finish-sand an EPS blank to a satin finish
on about 80% of the blank. The other 20% (mainly around the ends, on the
sharper curves of the rails and along the stringer) has the little pockmarks
where a bead (or a few beads!) tore out. Not a problem if I’m having the board
finished clear or with an opaque resin color. But if it’s air-sprayed, the
finish has little “freckles” where the paint has settled in the pockmarks and appears
a darker shade. I’ve never attempted to have an EPS blank finished with a resin
tint, but would like to. I did have one blank “sealed” with epoxy &
microballons, but this did not fill all of the pockmarks, i.e. the deeper ones.
Was this because not enough microballons were used? What is the best ratio of
resin to microballoons for sealing?
http://www.swaylocks.com/node/1026999?page=2#comment-1273231
Anybody else willing to post some peel tests?
EDIT: or hammer tests even?
Hey Chrisp, Do it like you want.
I use Fast’n’Final & cut it with Quikcrete Acrylic Concrete Fortifier (an acrylic resin). Quickcrete designed this fortifier to increase bond strength and water resistance on air-trained concrete. Works good too on air-trained foam. Super white and doesn’t brown or yellow on the blank. Sands great. I thin my slurry way thin, but my EPS is fused cell, doesn’t suck water…plus I live in a dry climate. The fortifier is my trick, adds a bit of a harder seal, cleans off dust easily if I have a blank that’s been sititng in the racks for awhile. Pros of cutitng w/fortifier: maybe an increase in bond strength, who knows, who cares, but my shapes are pimp smooth…Drawback of using fortifier: more expensive than water. You could use Evian or fortifier to seal. I use fortifier.
Greg’s right. ghetto’s full of it on this one. I’ve said it before; if it works for Stretch it’ll work for me. Fast’n’Final works great. I’ve posted pics previously of a blue EPS/Epoxy shortboard spackled and painted. if you can tell the diff you are friggin Duke K.
I'm not sure why you needed to start Two threads...........Here's my comments from the "other" thread.
Many will disagree.........
Fast and Final is used to fill all the little voids in the EPS foam so your backyard glass job will come out light. Without F+F your blank will suck up a whole bunch of resin. You only want the F+F to fill the voids. Your glass job needs to bond to the foam. Do not use F+F as some sort of barrier coat. Dings are dings and have nothing to do with your blank sealing....
Talk to JimP or GhettoRat and they can walk you through how to seal an EPS blank with epoxy resin and microballons.....
Surfboard blanks are getting better all the time. With the tighter fused EPS many people build nice boards with no blank sealer.....(microballons or Fast and Final)....................Stingray...............
yep, my foam billets don’t require a sealer. Good idea to thoroughly test your foam before you load up on spakle (or micros if you’re on that team). I’ve tried both, micros are a pain in the ass when you reach a second-sanding stage next to thick stringers, the wood can turn that seal coat dingy…And when you only need to cosmetically add to the stringer line from plane-pullout, might as well fill it in with spakle, or shoot extra resin on your lam to fill in those missing beads.
I’ve peeled off matricies that were straight epoxy & glass on EPS. I do it all the time when I force-rocker a stringerless billet. I’d rather hit on ugly chicks at the bar than look at peel tests.
Seen way too many failures with “Fast and Final” to recommend it. My shapes are tight enough on EPS that I don’t even need to seal them, and my lams come out light enough even when I don’t seal; anyhow too light, and a board doesn’t maintain momentum, so you can’t cruise that much, but always pump. I guess you can call BS my advice; it really doesn’t matter. Still I recommend sealing boards with a resin, microballoon mix, and a quick sand after it dries with a medium screen to knock off the titties. I like the micros because they float up a bit during drying and sand quickly and in my opinion help prevent a blush.
I can only imagine some of the hachett shapes out there with a gallon of slurry piled up like a ghetto frosted wedding cake done by some of you out there claiming to know. I know what I am talking about by experience, and seriously question those who don’t really know. Sometimes ok is good enough, and thats Fast and Final, but best is the way I recommend here, but it takes longer and is more expensive in materials and labor. You do the test yourself, or you can save yourself the hassle, and start from here.
We have had this argument before around here and reiterating it again is fruitless.
Hey Ghettorat, what do you think about sealing with Cab-o & resin? I think it’s lighter, creamier like spackle, easier to sand in my opinion. My micro seals were super hard to sand, didn’t use add F thinking it would react with the foam. I haven’t revisited micros mainly because my foam doesn’t require it, but interested in Cab-O sealing because I believe I can get that spackle aesthetic with the strength of an epoxy seal via fumed silica.
I know the general rule that micros are for voids and cab-o is for vertical cling, but when you mix enough cab-o in the resin, I’d call that one helluva void filler, and pretty damn light to boot.