First Post, First project, epoxy resin swirl big fish

General Discussion
1

Well, I have been lurking here for over a year gleaning information and building up the desire to shape a board for myself.

I have to say this is one of the greatest resources out there! If you use the search function, you probably never have to post a question, because I think you guys have addressed just about everything (and some things more than once…)

I have owned/surfed 6 different boards so far and currently I have just 2 (+1 I am shaping) a 9-6 noserider, and a 7-6 G&S magic fish

both of those boards I love and ride often.

I should also say that I am a freshwater surfer (Great Lakes - Michigan in particular)

I started down the shaping path before I had the 7-6 G&S, so I had aquired a blank from a fellow shaper in the 8-10 range in hopes of building an 8’ fish.

So I could use the board on the same days as I would normally use the longboard in weak summer waves on the lakes, but hopefully have a bit more carve-ability. (the 7-6 does that, but I already had the 8-10 blank, so we proceed with the megafish- I a 6’, 210# and more with a 6/5/4 and icecicles)

I have been chronologically tracking my progress on http://www.thirdcoastsurfshop.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4248 but I’ll throw a small version on here so you don’t have to migrate over there to check it out.

The Plan:

8’ x 24" x 3" Fish style board

8’ 10" Excell Blank

Epoxy Resin

6 oz bottom E-cloth

4/6oz deck E-cloth

Red/Black Marble Resin swirl bottom

Cut laps

White and Black pinline on the cut lap

Clear deck

FCS fins (2+1)

Started with the 8-10 blank, planed off the crust, leveled the blank, added the initial nose and tail rockers, laid out the template and cut the outline

Then I used the planer and added the rail bands.

Figured out the swallow-tailcuts, and worked in the rail bands by hand

I kinda liked the look of the bevelled edge for awhile, but then my original plan called for cut laps,

[b]so I blended them in with another band so as not to have conflicting lines, etc…

[/b]

I cleaned up the bottom rails, blended in the transition from 60/40 rail to hard in the last 18"

I have a local shaper a few blocks from my house, and he has been answering all my questions.

I also took plenty of breaks so I didn’t rush things.

He came over at this point and eyeballed things, touched it a few times with some 120grit and proclaimed it ready to glass,

as long as I was happy with the shape. I was.

So at this point we began taping off the deck for the cut laps and subsequent bottom lamination.

Taped and ready for glassing

Marty (local shaper) came over and helped me with the glassing. He had never done a resin swirl before and

was a bit nervous about screwing up my board.

I told him not to sweat it, and that I was totally resigned to it being a watertight brown nasty mess.

I guess we could always tint the hotcoat if it’s that much of an eyesore.

Besides, I have a pretty good artistic side and a mechanical mind to visualize how this will work out, so we proceeded.

Did the math, mixed up the resin, pigment to taste…

42 oz, divvied into 36oz red & 6 oz. black, however we only used 3 oz of black in the pour.

Process went as follows:

36oz of red pigmented resin, pour in about 1.5 oz black, stir 3 rotations, pour near the rails, nose and tail, add more black to red bucket, stir 2x, continued pour down center and then squeege it in and off to the rails.

Voila!

I am so stoked how this came out, I couldn’t have asked for better!

I let things set up and then flipped it and cut the laps

Messed around with photoshop, and I am thinking of putting this logo on the deck (4-5" in size)

More to follow, as things progress…

~Mike

2

That’s GREAT! Stoked for ya

Keep it comin’

I like the way your swirl turned out too.

Greg

3

Nice work! I’d like to see some pics of you riding that in cold Lake Michigan.

4

revmike: your board looks sweet. great pics too.

5

Thanks for the compliments!

It has been a good experience so far.

Planning on lamming the deck on Thursday

Will post some more pics then,

Later,

Mike

6
Quote:

I am so stoked how this came out, I couldn’t have asked for better!

~Mike

Bro, if thats your first shot at an epoxy swirl, amazing job!!! Im still nervous to do any kind of swirl, but you have given me a new hope!!! Great job Mike.

7

Thats one of the best first attempt I’ve seen. looking foward to seeing it finished.

8

Sweet board there man!!! You have to post and outline pic when you get it done. How you going to set the fins up?

Nice work…

9

Finished the lam coat on the deck tonight!

Now it’s starting to look like something!

We put on mine and Marty’s logos, signed the stringer with dimensions and my name… gotta admit, that was pretty cool.

Here are a few pics of the current progress.

The black pinline will go on with acrylic paint, and should easily cover the little wavering in the cutlap.

Then all that’s left is the hotcoat and finplugs (FCS)

_________________
10

wow i love the board good job

11

Well we finally got to doing the hotcoat on this board, and we had some concerns about the free lap from the deck.

As we were finishing the last laps from the deck, there were ghosty lines from where the resin first hit the cloth. Lemme re-phrase that, where the resin first ran down the edges of the cloth, it saturated clean and clear, but when we went back to squeeze in the remaining areas of the rail/laps the resin looked milkier …

anyway, after sanding, and hotcoating the milkiness or ghostiness is still there. Now I know it is going to be there regardless now, (and I don’t think it looks that bad) but does anyone have any insight into how to avoid this?

I include some pics of the worst areas near the tail. The rest looks great.

We are thinking to do one more thin coat on the bottom to help smooth things out (you can see a little relief near the lap in places) I realize this is beyond a fix as far as the ghosting is concerned now, but we are still looking for possible causes, or fixes for the future.

We are going to hotcoat the deck today, and I don’t see any real issues there as the color of the cutlap looks fine.

The pictures were taken last night after the pour, but this morning it doesn’t look quite as bad, still noticeable, but not as bad, especially in the nose

The guy who is helping me will probably jump in on this thread as well because he said that he has had this similar problem on 4 other boards he has done.

This is RR epoxy.

Any help? Thanks!

Mike (& Marty)

12
Quote:

when we went back to squeeze in the remaining areas of the rail/laps the resin looked milkier …

You’ve answered your own question. Squegee and epoxy is not a great combo, you get foam, yep the milkyness is air bubbles squezeed out of the cloth. When you see it happening, you could apply a touch of heat and hope the resin will become more fluid in time for the bubbles to escape but the best solution is not use a squegee, use a roller and roll the air out of the cloth.

http://www.maribrush.nl/minirollen.html

As for being a first project, wow, impressed, that board looks like fun! Michigan eh? Wow, I thought we had cold water… brrrr…

13

I use a squeegee with epoxy and I don’t have this problem with my laps. I suspect the problem is the “squeeze” part. I’m not sure exactly what you meant by that, but Greg Loehr says never force epoxy through the cloth. Just wet it and let it soak in in its own time. If you use his technique to wet the rail laps, this won’t happen. I’m sure you can find the technique described in the archives, but he basically holds the lap in a gloved hand and pulls a little resin over the lap, then moves up the rail and repeats.

Very nice board by the way. One of the better resin swirls I’ve seen done with epoxy.

14

Looks good Mike.

I have had the same problem on the laps with a swirl I did and a couple of solid tints. Like the other guys have said, it is the epoxy getting frothy.

I am now just lightly pushing the epoxy around the board and letting soak in, then I pull the excess out with the squeegee from the stringer to the rails, and hold the laps with one hand while pulling the resin down onto the lap. It does work better this way, but I still do get a bit of milkyness in some spots.

I am thinking that for a good job on a swirl or color job that the answer might be to pour an extra ‘line’ of epoxy along the top of the rail, and then pull this down onto the laps. With less, or no, distance of cloth to pull excess resin out of it shouldn’t get frothy.

That is my hope anyway. I just did a fish with a swirl on the bottom (didn’t turn out the greatest), and didn’t get much of the milkyness, but will be doing a fish for a friend with a dark green tint, and I’ll try my best to get is a good as I can, using this technique.

I was just reading an article on the TWS business site about Thridcoast surfshop. Looks like things are doing well out there.

Keep up the good work. Enjoy those cold waves!

15

Well Done!!

Thanks for the details as well.

I would like to know if you could explain the resin formula for me.

How much pigment did you add to the resin for both the red and black.

Is it correct that you mixed 32 oz of rr epoxy and then added pigment and then another 6 of resin in separate container and then black resin into that. Then combine the two and pour?

16

dave,

could you go into more detail as to how you use the roller?

Mike, incredible job. I am almost having trouble believing this is your first shape/glass/anything. Looks great, you must have done some research before starting…

JSS

17

Thanks for all the compliments, I have had a great time learning on this one.

I have made this board in my head at least 100 times, before I ever touched a piece of foam.

I owe lots of helps and research to this forum. The rest goes to Marty for his inspiration, and help.

To start answering the questions,

  1. I mistyped when I said “SQUEEZE” I meant Squeege, and pulling the laps around to the bottom side.

  2. We used 36 oz of RED pigmented resin, in one container.

Then mixed 6 oz of black in another container (although we only used a portion of that in the pour, maybe 2 oz.)

We then poured about 2oz of black into the red, and proceeded to stir the stir stick 3 times around the container,

then we began pouring lengthwise down the board, about half way thru the pour I added a bit more black and ONE

stir of the container (basically poured three main stripes and then used the squeege to spread it around.)

  1. As far as pigmenting the resin, we added just enough to color the resin, and not have it be translucent (we tested a scrap of cloth and foam to insure

I didn’t end up with a pink board…

This really is my first board, Marty has given me pointers along the way, and helped with the glassing.

I painted the pinline this morning and cut in the FCS plug holes, hoping to set them tomorrow.

Marty came by and we hotcoated the deck, all went well except I wiped the board down with denatured alchohol to insure cleanliness, let it flash off for about 10 minutes, and began the hotcoat, toward the end of the hotcoat, we noticed the resin pulling away from the pinline in a few places.

Apparantly the pinline acrylic paint absorbed some alcohol and was not done evaporating or something. It’s ok, but yet another learning step (I am pretty sure I read it somewhere before as well too!) We will be doing some sanding in the next few days and then a final “gloss coat” I really like how shiny the resin is after it sets. From what I am reading though, getting a true gloss will be hard, so I am planning on a sanded finish (600 or 800) and then some kind of polishing

Thanks again for all your kind words!

Mike

18
Quote:

dave,

could you go into more detail as to how you use the roller?

They are like smaller versions of regular paint rollers, I can find them in hardware stores and boat shops. You can get different roller kits ranging from spongy ones to relativly hard bristles, even metal rollers. I use a medium hard bristle so it doesn’t soak too much resin and doesn’t distort the cloth if I happen to apply a tad too much pressure. Basically I fold my laps up, pour out the resin all over the board and then quickly roll around making sure the resin gets all over the laps and then I flop the laps over the sides and proceed to slowly roll out the resin like I was painting with a roller, long strokes over the length of the board, searching for dry spots and pools, the roller makes short work of both. Then I roll from the stringer to the rails, starting in the middle of the board and flap my laps up against the sides in one sweeping roll (at least thats what I try…) The roller will always contain a bit of resin and this helps if your laps have some dry spots. You can also apply a bit of pressure to help wrapping the cloth around difficult points on the rail. Since I doo this I never get milky foamy bits and I have less dry spots on my rails. I am using EPS and epoxy.

19

Thanks! I just finished a bottom lamination this morning. Currently I am using the roller (nap roller, haven’t seen the bristle type yet) only to finish my laps, the way Bud describes (it works great!):

“Want to thank the person who mentioned using a 3” disposable paint roller for laps. I tried this today and although still used the spreader to pull it tight; I avoided pulling all the way out to the edge of the cloth (I was always pulling strands into the flats). Went back over (under) the laps with the tiny roller and it pressed resin into any dry spots (a plus is having the drip tray to keep the roller with resin) as well as made a nice flush edge. no grinding this time - just a few easy passes with the sanding block

Btw, Max I used the 3" roller with the short nap, not the foam one. I used it on the rails at an angle, same way using the spreader, mid to nose, mid to tail, worked well for me being stingy with the resin runoff & addressing dry spots.

I also tried it a little bit on the flats, it worked well filling small bubbles but avoid over rolling & be careful, try going only forward as it has the opposite effect too - starts pulling up cloth real quick!"

I think that the bristle rollers would avoid the ‘pulling up’ of the cloth the nap rollers would have. I think I’ll have to try the bristle ones sometime…

Dave - do you think that your lams get pulled pretty tight with the roller? I still use a spreader for this like Bud describes above, but if the roller can do it as well, I may be a convert!

Thanks again,

JSS

20

Hiya Max,

I am not getting it super tight but I fidget a bit with my hands to tighten up.