Hi all. Finally my first build after a lot of keyboard jockeying. Used some strange techniques as a trial more than anything else. Lots of questions and comments that some might find useful…
Wood laminate:
I thought I would use wood laminate because fibreglass was taking a long time to arrive… but it needs a vacuum really. I found since any bump shows up a lot more. I’m now trying to sand it off but it’s very very difficult! Is sanding always this slow? Any quicker way? bigger grit I suppose
Thicker epoxy surprise:
New pot of epoxy is much thicker stuff. Will warm it next time because on the rail it just runs off and doesn’t soak in… had to massage it into the fibre. It’s the consistency of between peanut butter and maple syrup. Don’t really want to wait for xylene to arrive.
Clingfilm:
I used clingfilm to smooth the rail bands down. But even cling film is being very difficult to sand off. Moved onto shrink-wrap wrapping film now which I hope won’t be much harder. I guess best to use a ziplock bag under the shrink wrap and veggie oil / vaseline the release side to make a smoother finish?
Vacuum:
Getting materials for a vacuum bag system is slow…. the pump can only run at full pressure for 3 mins… I believe the seal after that point won’t be good enough no matter what we do…? It’s a strong pump that will do the max possible… it just doesn’t run for long apparently. Can I use it? If so I’ll search for plastic sheeting from a bedding company.
Rail bands:
The epoxy is more like a putty and I on the rails I needed to massage into the kevlar. Here’s a tip - massage with the weave. The kevlar weave is quite thick. I wasn’t able to get it to wrap about the nose and tail as I was hoping. Bit of drama there… how can it be done? Need a lighter fibre and cut move lines I suppose…? If I was to do the rails in sections would that be weaken gin the board? Tip - can shrink them in stages.
XPS:
Needs to be punctured and then saturated before fibre. I didn’t saturate well enough I think.
Also used nylon mesh which seems strong idea.
Overall…
Perhaps better to start again… is it a lost cause…? I’m worried that even if I can correct all this… I’ll make more mistakes on the final coats since I haven’t had a practice yet. My plan was to use varnish on the wood laminate as final layer but that seems too difficult now. Perhaps I will still finish with standard varnish as so much easier to get a shiny finish than a hot coat. Could use Viynalester UV in the coats between now it’s sealed; didn’t like poly resin in tests as it cracked easy.
Thanks for posting. Your questions were getting lost at the end of Leecallen’s thread. There are lots of thoughts in this thread too.
Could you include some pictures to go with your questions? Those might others help you to decide whether to fix or start over.
I think that you may have made too many substitutions in your material list (type of epoxy, wood instead of fiberglass, cling film instead of bagging perf ply or peel ply) to get a good result.
Also, could you show us or better explain your vacuum system?
Yeah Yeah I guess I should explain that I set put to make as many mistakes and experiments as I can in this learning board
This should be more efficient than doing great it across many boards… But also more hard work and frustrating.
The main thing I wanted to address was the accessibility of making boards. I haven’t been able to make one in some places because I couldn’t get the blanks or the epoxy.
I now see that building foam is usable but needs careful extra prep work. Epoxy likewise can be from a different source but again, it needs more care. Shrink wrap can work also so this is a 3rd thing I learnt.
I also learnt that laminate is actually harder to use than fibreglass, which I didn’t expect. I also learnt that rail bands aren’t the easy replacement for extra strength in the rail I was expecting and that it’s better to laminate them flat before the ends of the board.
All of this stuff I read about but by doing it I’ve learnt a lot more.
I’m pretty sure given better materials I can do a much better job now but there’s still more to learn…
I think I’ll just try again to practice… Seems just the quickest way even if it costs some materials
So I managed to rescue it but a wacking 5kg! Oh well. A learning experience. The main thing now… only thing now I have tofigure out is how to cover up the awful deck as I have ran out of scrap basalt fibre covering the underside disaster, lol!
This might prompt some questions (probably 'what were you thinking?!). But the main thing now for me is trying to cover up the deck some way with some material that I can get on the highstreet without having to wait for the post since I fly out of here soon. I don’t want to wrap the upper layer under the rails as this is the last layer (oops!).
Learnt so much from this board so in a sense it wasn’t a total loss.
I have some offcuts of basalt I can cover a bit here and there with but not enough to full cover. Should I try adding black or blue food dye to resin to make the resin as black as possible and give a final lam with fibre? I don’t care so much anymore… just want to finish the board so I can get on with a better one next time…
not that this thing will ever break… lol! hope this entertained!
If anything I would do the deck side with white pigment added to the resin + fiberglass cloth so the board can sit in the sun deckside up without having a melt-down.
I applaud your efforts. It’s always a big step taking on a project of this magnitude - both in effort but also in materials ($$$.)
It is always a good recommendation to stick with tried and proven materials - in this case, surfboard specific. It is hard to picture how thick your epoxy is but it sounds like it might be better suited to some sort of task other than laminating. Does it thin out after you heat it? It has to be thin enough to saturate (or at least penetrate) your woven material… I realize that certain fabrics don’t actually ‘saturate.’
I also see some fairly substantial distortions in your rail line - specifically in the tail end. I can’t tell if those are in the shape or due to lamination irregularities(?) I’d be tempted to give those areas a good ‘thumb test’ to make sure they are actually adhered to the blank. If not, grind them open and do some sort of repair. All of the rough spots in the rails and overlap areas need to be smoothed out before the deck lamination. A mix of epoxy and cabosil (or baby powder or even pancake flour) can be used to make a bog/bondo filler.
If the bottom turned out OK, you can get away with some serious grinding and bog refilling along the rails and overlap. Once your shape is evened out a bit I would say go with either a heavily pigmented epoxy or carbon fiber lamination on the deck and try to get a clean cut lap on the bottom side. I.E. mask it off at a specific distance all the way around to avoid the overlap issues you currently have on the deck - I.E. wide in some spots, narrow in others. A decent cutlap will be something like 2" from the edge all the way around.
Sooo… you have some grinding and filling to do but if you do a clean job on the deck lamination, it should be alright in the end. I think the idea of white pigment sounds OK but you will have to use quite a bit to cover all the different light/dark areas on the deck. If you can get it quickly, you might try some 6 oz carbon fiber and use some white pigmented epoxy in the lam and fill for an ‘acid washed’ look.
It sucks to be in a hurry and run in to problems… “food dye”??? - NO. Use some resin specific pigment.
PS - On future projects, it is always a good idea to practice on a smaller prototype using scrap material.
Sorry about that; one account on the computer but phone still logged in. So much for keeping the jago username anon (it’s other forums really discussing gay stuff really I was intending to protect… anyway…
hmm… I think no time to get into repairs as you suggest. You’re right that there is a bump near the rail at the tail. This was a drama where I tried to run the rail band all the way to the tail but I found it too difficult to wrap around and then the epoxy started drying. I had to clean up post cure the best I could with a dremel but it wasn’t easy what with it being… kevlar! A waste of good materials you might think but part of the problem was that this kevlar is tight weave and that, combined with the thick epoxy increased the weight tons. I don’t really want to get into repairs… I don’t think I have time at this stage unless I wait another 6 months for somewhere to work on it… hmm
The underside I’m actually satisfied with. In fact, I’m pretty happy with it!
If I can get a good clean line between the underside layer and whatever I put on top then I’ll actually have a half decent looking board!
But to get a clean line on the lap seems very difficult. It looks like it would be at risk of bleeding through under any masking tape. I guess I will do some tests…
But I won’t be able to get proper pigment in time…
Andy, what about doing a sand coat along the lap and sanding it smooth for the clean line you’re wanting. It would fill in the weave so tape would have a solid base to stick to keeping resin from bleeding. Just cover the area where the tape would go, then sand it smooth. This is similar to the cheater coat used for the bottom lam lap just before laminating the deck.
