I guess I’m going to be that guy.
I regret to inform you that this project is DOA. RIP. You’re never going to get that glass job flat without cutting all the way through the glass and the way you installed those boxes they’re never going to hold because it looks like you’re relying on the resin backfill of an oversized cavity to hold and support it instead of a closely routed foam cavity. If you had posted prior to laying down glass we could have got your through it but now it’s too late. You can continue on - and you probably should in order to better understand where the problems are and how important it is to avoid them the next time around - but I predict that even if you get that that board into the water it’s not going to hold up.
It looks like you’re working with no help and very few resources. That’s okay, it’s still doable but you will have to change your approach to better suit your situation.
The first change to make for next time is to ditch the pink foam. Not because it’s pink but because it’s XPS foam. Extruded Polystyrene. The structure of the foam itself leads to poor bonding with the resin when compared to the EPS or conventional foam blanks we normally use. It’s not novice friendly at all. Save the XPS for after you get at least 50 glass jobs under your belt. If you live anywhere near a blank seller it’s better to spend the additional $30 and buy a real blank. You’ll save yourself a lot of time, effort and electricity. if you don’t live near a blank sellery or that additional $30 just isn’t doable for you then buy EPS foam panels from Home Depot and use that, not XPS.
The next thing is the shape. As McDing says, “shape comes first”. That’s the Prime Directive in building surfboards. Better to spend a week on your shape to get it as clean as you can get it than to move on to the next step thinking you can clean your problems up as you go. It doesn’t work like that. For the most part you will only add problems as you go, not clear up previous problems. Work clean.
Here’s a link to a vid that shows how to shape with 3 inexpensive hand tools . You can do this. And in some ways it may be better to start this way because it’s easier to control a hand tool and stop while you’re ahead than to handle a power tool that is quite capable of working faster than you are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzpVLqeG_RU
Heck, you already have a hand planer and you can cut one of those leftover XPS panels to make a sanding block. You probably have a razor knife at your house somewhere AND you have a saw, so you’re already ahead of the game. For the time being you can put the palm sander aside as far as the shaping goes. The only addition I would suggest is that you buy a 36grit belt sander belt and cut it at the seam; then cut a 24" or 26" length off of one of those 2x2s you have in your rocker pic and glue the sandpaper to the wood to make a long sanding block you can walk up and down the length of your blank to flatten the bottom out from rail to rail.
As for your fins, if you don’t have a router then don’t bother with Future boxes or any other fin system. They all require a precision rout so that the blank and glassing will support the box. All that filling an oversized cavity with resin and filler does is add weight without adding to the support. If you don’t have a router to do the install then just go with glass-on fins. It’ll turn out lighter anyway.
Lastly, if you’re new to glassing then trying to lay a heavily pigmented epoxy over 3 layers of 4oz is a high risk proposition at best. Doing it over XPS is very nearly a guaranteed fail for a novice glasser. Stick to clear for now and get your epoxy mix and basic glassing skills down before moving onto pigments and tints.
So by all means, finish this board for the experience. Better to make your next mistake on this board than on your next board. Try and get it as clean as you can, and when you do burn through your lamination don’t get upset about it - you already know it’s going to happen. Then post back with your results - and any new problems you run into - and we’ll give you suggestions for working through them. Use this board as your test mule and milk it for every lesson you can learn from it. If you take advantage of this project and our input it will be time and effort well spent on your part and will contribute to the better outcome on your next board.
And in the meantime you definitely want to start planning for that next board. And the board after that. We want to see you get where you want to get with these.
