I am getting ready to do my first glass job and I am trying to make my schedule. I am using RR and 50 min hardener I was going to do one step each night after work. I have read here that it is best to hot coat within 24 hours of laminating. I would guess that is with fast hardener. If I use slow hardener will that window expand? Or do I need to do the who job in less than 24 hours. I have even read several people roughing up the lam wtih sandpaper before hot coating, is that necessary? Thanks for the blessing of the archives because that has answered all my other questions. Hopefully tucking the fish tail will be as easy as you all make it sound. Thank you guys in advance for any replies
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RYJU7968,
check your pm's, give me a call.
i'm around the corner from you.
i'm new to this glassing thing too but, i've done a few and can maybe talk you through it in person.
Thanks for the tips guys!
Also:
Can I use Cabisol in the finbox resin, instead of the recommended glass powder, in order to keep down exotherm?
What techniques do you use to prep the shaped blank for glassing? Mine is covered in foam dust from sanding, should it be cleaned of all foam dust?
I have a Greg Loer resin guide it says 12-15oz. of resin for bottom, is this number a total of resin and hardener or just resin?
it is possible to hotcoat after the first 24 hours…once the lam is hardened, sand it, then wipe it with denatured alcohol (not too much), then hotcoat…should work great!
There’s 2 different arguments about whether to hotcoat within 24 hrs, or wait longer.
Two that matter to me anyway 
And this is just my experience and personal preference - each to their own!
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There’s claims that the hotcoat will chemically bond to the lam, making for a stronger result.
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The other is that hotcoating straight onto a curing or cured lam without any prep work increases your chances of adhesion difficulties!
I’m a believer in the latter.
Sure, you could get a chemical bond. That would be great.
But an epoxy hotcoat will NOT chip off when done properly. Epoxy is such an amazing adhesive, that just won’t happen.
If someone says their epoxy hotcoat has chipped off, it is because of some form of contamination between the lam and hotcoat. Not a failure because the bond was not chemical, only mechanical.
This contamination can occur from the epoxy absorbing water as its curing, forming a bloom/blush.
Or it could be crap that has got on your board over the last 24hrs.
Waiting til the lam is cured, then prepping the surface, is the sure-fire way, in my experience.
The other thing that dealing with a cured lam affords you is the ability to clean up the laps, rough bits of cloth at the nose and tail, etc. Sanding a semi-cured epoxy lam is a recipe for smudged resin. Epoxy sands great when it’s cured, but if it’s soft it will smear and then not go clear in that spot when you hotcoat.
So I wait 'til it’s fully cured (I post-cure to save time and be certain), then scrub the board down with a green scourer and lots of fresh water.
When its dry, your hotcoat will stick perfectly.
You can very lightly sand the lam if you want, but the green scourer does a much better job of micro-scatching the lam, without weakening it at all like sanding might.
Boat builders regularly use these to prep surfaces for bonding.
As you say, 24hrs depends on the hardener speed you are using, the temperature, the humidity… Too many variables.
Having a cured and prepped lam feels safest to me.
Hope this helps, and doesn’t confuse you totally
I just use Additive F. Never had any problems getting the hot coat to bond more than 24 hours later.
I believe what KKSurf says is correct but I have a totally different method…
I **never **use denatured alcohol or any other solvent when glassing with Resin Research Epoxy Resin.
Location , Brand of resin, Fast / slow hardener , inside temp and outside temp are key…the steps you take after lamination are important too. I live 35 miles north of San Diego, Ca. It never snows here. A super cold morning here would be a morning with some frost on the roof. I do all of my glassing in less than 24 hours with little or no sanding between steps.
If “GuyWhoCan’tSurf” wants more information on my method keep the thread going. My glassing methods do not work in cold locations.
Ray
hi, i try to lam and sand coat all in the same day , i just find it easier for me , once the epoxy has gone hard it needs to be keyed with sand paper or some other coarse material to give the next coat something to grip to ,
one thing i never read too much about epoxy is the absolute need for cleanliness, once you start glassing i never touch the board with my bare hands until the final coat is on , any fingerprint or mark is an invitation for fish eyes to start,
between coats i sand, wash the board with water,dry and light sand ,wipe with a clean rag and recoat ,
if you lam the bottom first and let it fully set off as you would do a poly board you have to sand between the weaves of the cloth to achieve a key for the next coat ,so i either filler coat the bottom as the resin tacks up and when set fully sand the rails and laps and then glass the deck or when the bottom is set to a tacky firmness flip over and lam the deck ,then reflip when the deck is tacy and filler coat the bottom ,then flip to the deck when the bottom filler coat has tacked up ,
the keahana glasing videos are some of the best i have seen stressing the importance of not touching the board without gloves , pete
These answers have been great. A little more baseline info for people the blank is shaped out of HomeBLownus Biofoam. I live in central Florida and we are getting in to the hot/wet season. From what I have read on this thread and others is that blush is caused by moisture absorption. We have a nice batch of moist air sitting on top of us right now. From reading Mr. Loehr’s manual on Resin Research, Additive F should prevent this as well as the need for sanding, right? It would be great to observe an epoxy lay-up but not sure if that is going to be able to happen. I have also read that people let their boards sit for 6 weeks at room temp. I would like to post cure it to speed that process up. I can probably get my garage into the low 100s*, however, I can find no info on temps and times relating to Biofoam.
kksurf - Do you wash the bottom lap areas before you lam the deck, or only wash before hot coat?
Stingray - Our conditons would be fairly similiar. I have slow hardener as well as fast hardener. I planned on using the slow for lamming and maybe stepping up to the fast for the hot coat. Ending with sanded finish.
Peteuk - thanks for the video link, hope to be able to watch it tonight.
Hey man,
I wipe the lap areas with a rag and alcohol before doing the lam on the deck.
In the past I have sponged them down with water as well, keeping the deck dry of course.
Additive F sounds like it’s pretty good, I must try it sometime.
I find epoxy a pleasure to work with anyway, so haven’t been bothered. But if it makes hotcoats as easy to sand as poly, then it would be worth trying!
Well looks like we are going to have some pretty wet weather for few days so I have some time to make the final decision as it appears it works almost anyway you do it as there are many routines posted here. While I was thinking over what I planned on doing, my wife and I painted her board (She likes Mahi). It bled few on the stringer and a few other places. I was going to tape near the stringer and sand the bleed areas off. Do I need to put a light scuffing with 400 or 600 before lamming this? It is a real light coat. Now everyone can see what they are helping me on. Thanks a bunch guys. If anyone has any experience post curing with biofoam that would be awesome.
The paint looks fine…
You can try to fix it and risk making it worse.Or you can leave it alone. I don’t see the flaws. Pinlines are cool…
Hello Swaylock’s Brothers and Sisters,
If you live where it’s cold and wet…If you **are not **using Resin Research Resin…go with PeteUK and KKSurf. These guys know their stuff but it’s not for me…
If you live where it’s warm and dry…If you **are **using Resin Research Epoxy Resin then go with my methods…
Everything I know came from other Swaylock’s members…Today at noon it was 77 degrees F…light breeze…dry…
OK guywhocantsurf…Are you ready to glass !!!
“…I am getting ready to do my first glass job and I am trying to make my schedule. I am using RR and 50 min hardener I was going to do one step each night after work. I have read here that it is best to hot coat within 24 hours of laminating…”
Resin Research CE resin (blue stuff) , 2100F Fast Hardener , Aditive F…Warm weather…
Your glassing schedule starts on Sat afternoon.
Clean the shop ,put all the tools away ,take out the trash, sweep the floor , move all the junk away from the glassing area. Clear off the work bench. Cover the floor. Turn on the compressor,go wash your hands.
New 3M tape on the glassing rack…don’t use cheap tape.Lay out everything you need on the work bench. Resin, squeegees ,mixing cups ect,ect…are your hands still clean?
Put the board on the rack. Blow it off real good with compressed air. People will tell you not to use compressed air…do what’s right for you…Roll out the cloth…we’re going to do the bottom first…cut you overlaps to be about 1" to 1 1/2"…to big means too much work , too small means it won’t overlap…
Wow…glad all thats done…crack a beer or two…stand back and make plan…got all the right tools? Fresh roll of paper towels??? Nice 8 mil gloves…
Sunday morning…Open the additive F…If it’s clear you’re good, if it’s chuncky or white it needs to warm up. Don’t put AddF in the microwave oven…you might die!
It’s best to start around 8 or 9am…It’s warm here in San Diego…Mix your resin… I mix by volume…2:1…add F…about 1/2 capfull for 15 ounces…read the instructions on the can! I have several friends that mix by wieght…
Stir for four min…can you do that…slow and steady…4 min…five is better…Pour out the whole bucket onto the board…nice and slow …move it around…lam the board…after you think you have the laps good take a flashlight and shine it up at the laps…you have to wet out all those dry areas. We want a perfect lap so we don’t have to sand later. Cut off all those nasty strings that want to hang down…Mix more resin if you have to…Walk away…go surfing…play with the dog…
2-3 hours later…Around 11am…touch the board with a clean hand. If it’s tacky wait…If it’s not tacky flip it. You might want to wear gloves. If you did a perfect lap…no sanding…if not, knock down the bad areas with 60 grit and a sanding block.Don’t go too crazy sanding at this stage…everything is still very soft.
Layout your cloth and lam the deck. Hopefully the deck gets lammed before 1 pm…Take your wife out to lunch…in about 2 hours you can hot coat the deck. The deck lam can still be a little tacky when you apply the hot coat…A nice smooth hot coat on the deck…I don’t even mask the rails…nope…I stand there with a brush in my hand and babysit the thing…3 hours later flip the board and hot coat the bottom…warm weather…no solvents…very little sanding…all steps in less than 24 hours
More to come…
Ray
Hey Ray,
Excellent instructions; come on with the rest man. I believe we’re in for some good weather soon here and getting it to this stage in under 24 hours is really appealing to me, and next to no sanding so far. Nice one!
hey there
greg loehr says to hotcoat without sanding the lam –> the additive F helps here.
you might however consider working wet in wet as this achieves the strongest bond between the lamination and the hotcoat… if you use slow, then of course you can put the hotcoat in the next day, when the lam is still tacky or gummy…
Plusoneshaper says that his strongest boards are all done wet in wet, as a fact
wouter
It looks like the shape came out really good for a first board, your patience and attention to detail paid off!
Good idea to wait until this monsoon passes and the atmosphere dries a little before you glass, could save you some headaches on your first one. Use add F if you have it, that also makes things easier. Hand-lam with RR is very simple and you have lots of time, long gel phase, etc. You’ll do just fine.
One thing, though. Don’t tape onto the fade before you scrape bleed off stringer. Tape might pull some color off foam and create more problems. Just carefully scrape with razor blade to clean off.
Hey Ray,
How do you get a nice even, neat hotcoat on the rails if you dont tape? Wouldn’t it be sketchy along the edge?