I am sure this has been covered before but I cannot find it.
My self and a friend are shaping our first boards. eps. Last night was our first attempt at glassing. We did not mix enough resin and had to do an emergency mix but got all the cloth wet in the end. One problem we have is there is tiny bubbles in the lam coat which i beleive is caused by mixing too vigorously and working too hard. What is the best solution for this? Can we sand the lam coat smooth before hot coat?
I have not seen the board since but my freind tells me it doesnt seem very strong (double 6 ounce) Could this be because there was not enough resin?
looks to me like you left a little too much epoxy on the board when pulling off. Don’t sand it now. Its too easy to damage the cloth with most of it exposed.
Do a hot coat and then sand. Sand it as smooth as you can without going into the cloth. If you hit the cloth, stop!
You will have little pin holes everywhere. With clean air and a stiff brush, no water or anything, clean the board, and try to get the dust out of the little holes. Water will make your problems worse! If the dust stays in the holes, you end up with little white dots.
Then do a second hot coat to cover and fill the little pin holes. Finish as normal.
The board will end up a touch heavy, because you most likely, the cloth floated on the resin. If you don’t fill the little pin holes, the board will leak, and wou end up with an even heavier board, filled with water, and brown spots.
just enough resin to make the glass go clear with no white spots. In the first picture you posted, which is sideways on my screen, the part above the stringer or on the right looks not too bad but still slightly too much resin. The part below the stringer or on the left has obviously too much resin (probably more bubbles too).
For a first attempt it looks not too bad, much better than my first try.
Glassing the board when the temperature is falling will also help reduce or eliminate bubbles - so will keeping an eye on the curing epoxy and very gently brushing any bubbles out with the just the very tip of a dry brush.
I am getting a better image of how the board should look. All the youtube videos of people glassing go to shit when you dump that first bucket of resin on!
I like the dry brush tip too. Will have this to hand in future.