First Lamination-Problems

General Discussion
1

Long time reader first time poster.

Tried to do my first lamination today 2x6oz with resin research epoxy, and there seems to be almost wave like lines in the glass. In some spots you can see the weave and and others you can’t. Is this caused by not letting the resin soak in to the cloth for a long enough time; dragging too much resin out of the cloth or something else. I was thinking of just putting more resin on top almost like a gloss coat. Will that take care of the problem or just cause more? Thanks for any help.

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Quote:

Long time reader first time poster.

That’s a good one Teeter…hehehe

Welcome, can you post some pics, I can’t quite understand what you are trying to describe…

3

my bad, heres a pic of the deck.

4

Looks dry in spots, maybe it has soaked into the blank

Is the cloth smooth to the touch or is it bumpy??

5

well its stilll tacky, but i would say more smooth than bumpy. Its crappy 1# home depot eps foam so you could be right about it soaking in.

6

Did you seal the blank before you laminated it…?

7

Hey teeter,

like Hicksy says it really needs to be sealed if it is HD foam. Laminating w/o the seal

will allow the lam to drain out. The fringe pattern you’ve got is due to the lam being

too dry no doubt, I know this because it is something we try to do on another type

of glass job. (Moire Fringe Pattern) http://www.mathematik.com/Moire/

Wait for your epoxy to go to B-stage (gets kinda gelled) then mix up another batch

and fill in the weave. (I hope it is warm where you are glassing, set up time should

be about 30 minutes). Adding more epoxy before B-stage is a waste. If you do it

too late after B-stage, then you may encounter other issues.

If your lamination is still in a liquid state, you can try to soak up some of the epoxy

from the eps foam and glass with a white paper towel. Epoxy soaked into the blank

does not make it stronger, just heavier.

Good Luck,

George

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yeah… i lightly spackeld the board and then sanded with 100 grit probably down to the foam in places. i gotta go to work in the morning, gonna take the heater out of the garage should get down to about 50 hopefully have a chance at that stage B thing. thanks for the help

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If it is sealed then, things are different. You can usually wait until the present batch kicks off, and then

apply another “cheater coat” with a spreader. There will be enough “tooth” to avoid a debond issue.

Hard to tell if you have voids throughout the weave of the fabric, or just a surface texture.

Personally, I am not a big fan of lowering the temp around the board at any time during the build as the

strength is definitely decreased. Strength will seem pretty fair however, but not at the upper end of what

is possible. This is just what a few builders and I have found…

Best,

George

10

IMO that Moire thingie shows what happened pretty clearly. I’ve had it happen with two layers over Clark Foam using polyester when I squeegeed too hard and got air between the layers. Where the high spots of the weave contact, it creates gaps between the layers. If the lam is too dry, the gaps will have air in them.

In any case, you may more easily see air bubbles between the weave of the two layers when you apply a fill coat. A possible solution would be to heat the resin so it thins out a bit. Brush it on but have a spreader/squeegee handy to really push it into the cloth. If you have an older stiff brush, you might try jabbing the ends of the bristles into the area after the resin is spead around.

With some luck, the resin will penetrate and fill those air holes. Follow with another fill coat brushed on as usual. Worst case, you’ll have some visible air and possible small leaks after sanding. Leaks might be remedied with a final gloss coat.

A way to test for leaks is to put the board in the sun and spread some soapy water on it. As it heats up, it will outgas and create bubbles in the soap film.