I just finished shaping and glassing my first board…5’8" retro fish (modeled after the Lis fish). The shaping went really well, aside from a few minor little issues…my foam was extremely soft and sensitive…lots of unfortunate little dings I had to fill in with spackle. Not sure if that’s normal and I just need to be more careful or what, but it’s fine. My fin boxes (fusions) are mostly level with the board, the fin insert and screw holes are just ever so slightly higher than the glass, not enough for me to care about. The rails are pretty haggard on my glass job, but they’ll work. Still need to figure out how to blend the rails effectively, and make it so you can’t see the laps after laminating and hot coating. I did one layer of 6oz on the bottom, and 4+6oz on the top. It’s fairly heavy so I must have used quite a bit of resin. At least the board is bomb proof now!
So, all that aside, I’m pretty happy with how everything turned out, but I do have one question regarding the filler/hot coat. I did deck first (meant to do the bottom first, but oh well) and when I went to flip it and do the bottom, I had a hard time seeing my tape line. As a result, I have a few skinny slivers on the rails where hot coat did not get applied. I can clearly see the glossy look of the hoat coat, and then the laminated weave where that coat missed (don’t ask me how I didn’t see that when taping). Maybe 2-3 inches long, and about 1-2 centimeters wide. I have at least 12oz of glass on the rails, potentially 16oz in some spots (my scissors were crap when cutting the cloth and ended up not being super precise…) so the question is, should I go back and do some touch up on those spots that got missed? Or is it completely sealed from the laminating coat and would I be better off just sanding and surfing?
Thanks for any help…I’ve done a ton of reading on here throughout the entire process and found answers to everything I had trouble with, except for this. So please be kind to the rookie! I can take some pictures if you think it would help, but I can’t guarantee I’ll get a shot that does a good enough job showing what I mean.
Touch up those spots with sanding resin and you will be ready to go. Sand the hot coat and seal with a clear Acrylic Sealer. Don’t skip steps thinking “ah, that’s good enough”. It isn’t. Next time pay more attention to your brushing technique.
I was sanding the rest of the hot coat today (since another layer of sanding resin wouldn’t have stuck anyways) and upon closer inspection, the hot coat may have covered the areas in question. I could see the weave pattern and feel it, but felt like the sanding resin had covered it, but just barely. I wonder if not a lot of resin got to the area. Either way, I’ll touch up those areas just to be safe. I also noticed a couple of fisheye spots (I believe that’s the term used) and was wondering if those are problematic as well or if they are just surface blemishes.
I thought I read somewhere on here that you could surf the board right after the laminating coat (in theory) if you wanted to. Does the lam coat waterproof the board or is it more of a structural thing?
Now, regarding an acrylic sealer…is this required to make the board watertight, or is it more of a precaution?
Sorry for all the rookie questions…I have a long way to go. I may just stick to shaping the boards, and paying a professional to do the glass job. It is certainly money well spent.
I wouldn’t recommend surfing after lam coat. You should hot coat too. Gloss coat optional.
I struggled with my first few glass jobs, and it’s still a challenge. But I’m so glad I put the effort into learning. And it does get easier and go smoother the more you do it.
Sorry, didn’t see Tom’s reply…I definitely wasn’t wearing gloves and did touch the lam coat with my bare hands. Sounds like I’m lucky I got any decent hot coat at all, to be honest, as I’m not sure where all I had my hands on the board.
All in all, even though the glass job is butt ugly, I’d still call it a success. Only a few little bubbles, and some weirdness on the hot coat.
The reason I ask about surfing after the lam coat is because I’m trying to figure out if my board has actually been made water tight or not. If the fixes to the hot coat are cosmetic and don’t seal the board, I’m not overly concerned. I’d like to make it right, but I fear in trying to make it perfect, I’ll do more damage and have to fix even more.
So, if the lam coat has sealed the board, and the hot coat has just made the board look a little nicer, I’d love to get out on the water with it. But if it’s going to start taking on water at the spots where the hot coat didn’t play nicely with the oils from my hands, I want to remedy that for sure.
I have seen boards that were over sanded on the hot coat get brown spots all over them. (Not mine, some other expert guru). Water penetrated the lam. If you could laminate a board and just leave it; I’m sure every Sway’s Expert" on this site would be doing it that way. No it is NOT 100% water proof with a cloth lam only.
Interesting. I was thinking the hot coat was to give the board a non-tacky surface, but it seals the board as well. Good to know. I’ll go back over the board tomorrow and do some touch up.
I did the original hot coat with UV resin, with MEKP added to let the wax rise. For such small touch up areas, do you think it would be OK to just use the UV resin (with surfacing agent) without MEKP? Just flash the areas for 10 seconds and put the board back in the garage so the wax rises? (I’m running a little low on UV resin and would rather save as much as I can, if possible)
