GDaddy—Yes and we have side tracked and hijacked a bit; but I appreciate your comments and explanation. I have always figured it could work that way and remember others doing likewise. Mahalo, Lowel
For rawbagging I was using the cheap stuff. Use once or twice then toss it. I’m not using peel ply or breather on the wet side and I’m not running my vacuum on the wet side, so it’s literally just the bag.
I was afraid to even attempt bagging a wetlam until I ran across a Q&A thread with Greg Loerh where he was talking about having tried every combination of bag+release+breather and so on, and they eventually decided that raw bagging it just worked as well for surfboards as any of the other vacuum bag techniques and was quicker and simpler to set up to boot. So I figured I’d experiment with it 'cause I’ve got more time than common sense. And as it turns out it worked.
I started off using a more elaborate vacuum rig, but I later caught am “Instructables” vid on Youtube about converting an aquarium pump to swallow instead of spit so I tried that out, and it worked. You don’t want to run a high pressure vacuum on a wetlam anyway. Use the plastic lid off a 1$ condiment squeeze bottle (clip that cap, trim the nipple, grind the bottom down a little so it lays flatter at the base, insert through the bag from the inside) and seal with some sticky tapeon both sides of the bag.
I used this rig to vacuum veneers onto blanks so it’ll pull a steady 10# all day long and you won’t even be able to hear it unless you’re within 5ft or so. Which if you’ve ever run a real vacuum rig you’d know that “nearly silent” is really saying something.
Strictly ghetto, my friends. What’s fine for a garage hack like me would be a complete waste of time for a shop doing any volume. But as far as cheap and simple goes I don’t see how you could beat this setup. Unless you stick with a good hand lam, which with normal layups is hard to beat in any case.
Good guess on my part. I’ll stick with RR though. Super Sap will eventually go belly up. Their customer service sucks. Gave me the run around for no reason. If I need “Green”; RR’s “Bio” will do fine. Better price and can be bought easily at outlets like FoamEZ. Lowel
Hi everyone, it’s been a while.
Here’s three fabrics from Glasser Mills. The left two work with epoxy. One was Nylon 6,6, one was recycled soda bottles. Ask about colors, and weights. They will sell cut yardage if they have it. If you want a specific color, your going to buy an entire roll. That’s expensive.
The right sample had a finish on it that made it like peel ply. Glasser mills in New York is a great resource.
Nylon 6,6 bonds with epoxy. Nylon doesn’t, so you have to be careful of the chemistry of the fabric. Most sources will sell you a clothing fabric that has water repellant. Those don’t work at all. Same with flag fabrics.
Elongation thoughts. Elongation is good. That’s why they dent and don’t ding. Control your stiffness and elasticity with a second layer of fiberglass, carbon, twaron, Kevlar, stringers, deck channels or whatever.
The fabrics are usually a tight weave, so they can be hard to wet out and drape. Don’t wrap the rails much with Nylon, just split it mid rail, and use fiberglass tape or a second layer of fiberglass over for a hand lam. You really want to saturate the Nylon 6,6 on a wet out table.
I’ve done about half a dozen build threads here in the past 10 years, where I went into tons of details
Yes
Everysurfer
i was hoping you would chime in on this topic, I’ve spent a lot of time seeking out your posts in the archive and your findings. Thanks for doing the experiments and sharing your wisdom
It’s all about fun
PET (soda bottle) is used for longtime in some composits that need toughness for cheap. Called xylon or diolen or… It can be found in open plain wave specific for composits use, easier to wet. Inegra which is PP fiber, is the plastic fiber of this family (poor man Kevlar) that’s in the light for composits actually.
I just ordered 30 yards of 60" wide white (optical brightener) nylon 6,6. In 420 denier. Enough for a dozen or so boards. Let me know if anybody wants to share some.
I’m interested! Where did you get it from and how expensive is the stuff? Been resistant to ordering nylon as result of not finding the 6,6 variant
Glaser Mills. Factory direct. It’s about $6 a yard.
You’re the man. Glad you jumped in on this. I don’t think there is anyone around this sight or even in the “Industry” who knows more about these fabrics and their application to surfboards than you. Lowel
Nylon was trademark of polyamide 6.6 by dupont de Nemours around 1935… Now free Mark used for PA6.6. Often coated because don’t like water so much.
Those plastic fibers have poor adhesion with glues by themselves when they are coated even more that’s sell as peel ply in composits world…
Need no coated and “open wave” to be use in composits, you want fiber to be embedded in resin…
From talking with the guy at Glaser, the recycled soda bottle fabric used to be finished with a starch based finish, that bonded really well with epoxy. They changed that to a different finish, that won’t bond. If you go with that fabric from them, only use the unfinished. For small purchases, it’s a lot of luck, since you’re getting the remnant from a larger production run.
The OP started not wanting to get into vacuum bagging. I don’t think most of the plastics are going to work without vacuum bagging. Some probably won’t even work without a wet-out table.
Everysurfer,
gonna reach out soon about maybe grabbing some of that fabric from you
wanted to ask about muslin cloth, I often see it at fabric stores with a nice loose weave and it’s cheap, any experiences? Soak up too much resin or not strong enough?
I’ve used hemp for inlays, deck patches and tail patches. Hemp is supposedly as strong as wood for its weight. But I’ve always covered it with a layer of fiberglass.
https://www.hemptraders.com/CT-L5-p/ct-l5.htm
Heres a few eco materials we have worked on to get them right for Surfboard laminations
https://www.sanded.com.au/products/basalt-flax-hybrid-3oz-woven-cloth
With our hemp product we are just about to launch a 100% hemp cloth (about a month away) - we work with the hemp farmers in the Hunter valley nsw Australia to get the raw material - once the hemp seeds are harvested the plant is taken out and we use these plants to make our hemp yarn then woven into a 4oz cloth
All these cloths are fine for hand lam and all have been tested well and truely
Hi OP, I struggle to believe that you are properly allergic to glass fibre other than normal itchiness. Glass fibre is pretty much the same stuff you get in bottles and drinking glass so I reckon you would have noticed previously. If you were getting a reaction on handling glass fibre prior to any lamination it could be possible that it is the sizing that is applied to glass fibres that you could be allergic to. This is a chemical that stops the tows falling apart during manufacture and weaving. Old fashioned Levi’s used to make me itch like mad till I’d washed them. If you know the brand of fibre an email to their tech support could be well worthwhile. The other potential issue this raises is that other fibres, such as carbon or hemp, may also be sized with same chemical so probably worth investigating.
Did a doctor tell you about your allergy? Are you using epoxy? Epoxy does cause a reaction in some people who get too much on themselves.