I glassed my twoboards today, i used SunCure resin system, and 6oz E glass fiberglass. I think it went ok, but i had some questions,probably have been asked, but i do not want too hunt around looking at conflicted information. So when i was glassing, i was wasting quite a bit of resin, i mean A LOT of resin, Way more then i should be. Also i was wondering, how do i know how much resin is seeped through the glass and into the foam, and how much is enough? When i was done glassing, it had a rough almost sandpaper like texture after lamination. It looked glossy, and seemed like a good lam to me, but i am not sure. Also do i need to sand out these bumps? or do i just use sanding resin over the whole thing for the hot coat then sand? Hopefully resinhead and all of the glassing guys will help answer these questions.
Also a shoutout to Mister Probox-Larry for the amazing fin systems i ordered in the mail today! So excited to get them in the blank and go surfing!
On my first glass job, I put the resin on too thick, and the glass "floated", meaning in the thick puddles, the glass lifted up a bit. The glass did not "cling" to the surface in those areas. When I sanded the whole surface smooth, I hit the weave, and had to sand into the fiberglass to flatten the surface back out.
So now, when doing the laminating coat, I do not like the resin thick or puddling. I like to see the weave of the glass. Just enough resin to wet it out. The next coat will fill in the weave. You can sand a bit if needed, once the resin cures hard enough.
If you are doing your own boards don’t worry about too much resin… I always use a few ounces more than I need just to make sure that I am not short. The thing is to pull the excess resin off before it cures. For fill coats, try to get it coser and let it drip off the tape.
Sounds like you did a good job, is it poly resin? A sandpapery feeling seems to me like you’re feeling the weave of the cloth which is good, not too dry not too saturated. A bit of gloss on top of the cloth is too much but that’s OK. You’ll fill the weave in with the hot coat and eventually sand out all those lumps. No matter what you are going to waste resin waterfalling it over your laps to wet them out. I usually mix up just around a quart (if poly) to do the deck with two layers of cloth on a shortboard.
Since you are using UV cure you can take your time. Pour out a nice line of resin and begin to squeegee it out so it starts to saturate your cloth. Work your squeegee back and fourth forcing it into the weave with a little pressure but not too much. You’ll see what’s dry and needs more, glossy areas have too much and can be squeegeed off. Just do nice long even pressured strokes, nose to tail and back and you’ll eventually work that extra resin out and end up with a tighter stronger lam. You want 50/50 glass to resin so the cloth should look clear (no dry spots or bubbles) and have an almost dry appearance to it. Not much resin acutually seeps into a poly blank, it mostly fills in the tiny bubbles and sanding scratches to create more of a mechanical bond.
So i picked up a drill chuck mounted pad sander and went too town on the rails bumps high spots anything un-uniform. It came out pretty nice if i do say so myself. I dont have one of those big facy dancy variable speed sanders, but i plan to get one, just a cheap nock off from AutoZone. But on another note. I was excited and went straight to the sanding coat. I am using SunCure sanding resin, i let the was rise for like 15min and set it off in the sun. I took it back in the shed and i realised, i forgott the deck patch! i totally forgott it, and i dont know what to do! i thought i could just sand away and do the patch then out down a new coat of sanding resin, but i am not sure.
It doesn't have to, no. Somewhat depends on what glass you use and how much resin you use. Go with 4 oz. s-cloth if you're worried about weight, and don't puddle the resin but just enough to wet it out when you lam. "Significant weight" is a subjective term.
A good reference point for how much resin is enough/too much is
a. you should still see weave. If you dont see weave, its way too much. BUT you dont want to see the white of the cloth, just the patter. if you see white, its not enough. Also, it sounds like your plan was to do the deck patch after the lam coat but before the hotcoat? Deck patches work better under the main lam coat, just be careful with the angle and pressure you apply with the squeegee because if the 2 layers start moving around separate from each other you can be in trouble. usually this can be avoided by a light touch with the squeegee at first until you feel it has saturated both layers to the foam.
b. listen for a zipper sound when passing the squeegee over the cloth. if it doesnt make that sound and your still pulling resin, keep pulling until you hear it.
I know you’re past this now, but it may help on future projects.
yeah thanks for all the inpot everybody, one last thing. I am buying a cheapo sander from harbour frieght and a few sanding pads. I dont know what too get, i amshort on cash (like i have 100$ to my name) so i only want to buy 1 or two pads. One of them should be for sanding the whole surfboard after sanding coat and for gloss coats, and the other for shaping foam. I was thinking a supersoft for foam, and a medium to hard for fiberglass
you’ll want supersoft for glass too, all your finishing will be done with SS. You need a hard or maybe a medium to do finboxes (especially fcs) and to knock out uneaven spots along the rails etc. But once the finboxes are flush and you have no big drip areas, its SS with 80, 120, 220, and 320 for a matte finish, higher grits if you want a nicer finish or do a gloss coat (gloss starts around 400). I have the HF sander too, it works good but you should take it apart and replace the grease in the rotating assembly. the crappy chinese grease is why those things break all the time, its really easy to replace it.
Edit: Also, while a sander is obviously faster, you don’t NEED one necessarily. I sanded my first board with a DeWalt handheld power sander, not even a real orbital. It took a while, but I didn’t sand through at all. With a real sander, its pretty likely that you will get at least one sand through… not that its a big deal, its better to learn. But if you really have to save money, you can definitely make it work without one.
The harbor freight sander is fine, go get it and save some cash. The beauty of the bigger sanding disk is you can flatten out wobbles in your lamination…bonus!
As for glassing the lamination, there are four phases in glassing.
One. The flood…or wet out. This is when you get all the resin out on the board and get the glass really wet.
Two. The saturation. This where you get it soak in with epoxy, or with poly you force it in to the cloth
Three. The lamination. This is where you force the cloth down to the foam
Four. The pull off . This is where you get rid of access material, pooling etc.
As mentioned above the sound of a good lamination sounds like a zipper when the squeegee is pulled across the board. Hucks picture of his lamination on the wood board is spot on.
Resin that’s an awesome breakdown. I never really separated saturation and lamination in my head, but thats a much more accurate description. Also good to note is that you shouldnt start wrapping rails until all four steps are done. I made the mistake in the past of trying to wrap the rails before working the resin and pulling off, and it left micro dry spots that took a ton of work to fix which could easily have been avoided.
The flexpads can be less than user friendly, the ones on surf source (I believe) are much better. I have the flexpads and I use my shapers’ pads instead because I never get sand throughs. A pad with a plastic back gives much more feedback, which is important for a novice sander. Pros can use the flexpads no problem, and it really only matters for the hard pad. But I would really consider a pad that’s not foam backed.