First time epoxy user question

General Discussion
1

This won’t be the first board I’ve ever glassed but hopefully will be the first I’ve ever done well, and is the first using epoxy.

I’ll be using RR from Seabase in England, what I need to know is how on hell do you post cure over here in blighty when the temperature in my gagagagagarage never rises above 2 degrees C before July? Do I just postpone work until then?

I would like some advice on the use of epoxy, and the amounts to mix for each stage of the glass job (don’t want to be wasting much if I can help it). The board is a mini longboard in pine and red cedar at 8 foot 2" by 21.5". I’m planning on a single 6oz bottom and 6oz plus 4 oz deck.

What’s the best way to wet out the cloth and get optimum satuaration without going mad on the weight?

Any tips for any of this would be just great and really appreciated,.

Oh, and if I need to wait a while to use it because of the temperature, am I better off leaving buying til when its warmer, does the cold affect it?

Sorry about these being idiot novice questions, but hey thats what I am.

2

First off do a search this has been gone over a million times, heat up your glassing room to 70 ish F let epoxy get to room tempature. For heat cureing a easy way is to cover a two level rack with a heavy blanket and put a small space heat in there measure till you get the correct temp you want.

3

Never mind Girvin being so grumpy… The archives have never been good, and from what I’ve read now they aren’t really there.

So here are a few things I’ve learned/picked up:
Let the glue soak in - you don’t have push it in just let it soak in.
You can mix up small batches - you should have plenty time - so you don’t waste much if any.
You can do most all the flat surfaces, then go to the rails - I use a brush, and I lift the glass at the rails and brush a thin coat on the foam. Then I brush on the rails to cover it, work along, come back, make sure it’s saturated, if not add a bit more glue… then work it like you would, but this way you get it all wet, with out waste. You’ll be surprised when you think you had “too much” glue in an area, and a while later it’s soaked in and you see the weave.

I’ve done two things: Some times I brush on a full on “cheater coat” at the lamination time, and that way I just sand that how I want it and may or may not do a finish coat. Other times I just let it be, sand as needed then finish coat. I guess it depends on depends on how the glassing is going, and if I feel like mixing more batches or not.

As for the heat - You can make a “hot box” out of cardboard, and heat it various ways - lights, small heater, etc… Heat the glue first, and the blank - take 'em in the house overnight… then - worse case scenario - after the glue isn’t tacky anymore, just take it back in the house and wait a few days… Great thing about RR epoxy…No stink. I’ll admit, there has been lot’s written in the past about “curing” methods… I keep my shed heated from 80-90 F. and let the lam jobs sit for a few days, at least, before messing w/it. I’m in no hurry, and based on my understanding of the science, letting epoxy cure - as long as it’s warm enough - http://resinresearch.net/_wsn/page9.html - I don’t get up to 110 F, but from talks w/Greg (Don’t quote me, as I’m not “quoting” him - just sharing my understanding), letting it set longer at temps over 70F is going to be OK - And, my own empirical data would suggest that my understanding is right, as I’ve not had a failure ever, and some boards are now years old, have been to Kauai and back, setting in the tropical sun for weeks on end.

As some would right - “Hope that helps”

4

Never mind Girvin being so grumpy… The archives have never been good, and from what I’ve read now they aren’t really there.

So here are a few things I’ve learned/picked up:
Let the glue soak in - you don’t have push it in just let it soak in.
You can mix up small batches - you should have plenty time - so you don’t waste much if any.
You can do most all the flat surfaces, then go to the rails - I use a brush, and I lift the glass at the rails and brush a thin coat on the foam. Then I brush on the rails to cover it, work along, come back, make sure it’s saturated, if not add a bit more glue… then work it like you would, but this way you get it all wet, with out waste. You’ll be surprised when you think you had “too much” glue in an area, and a while later it’s soaked in and you see the weave.

I’ve done two things: Some times I brush on a full on “cheater coat” at the lamination time, and that way I just sand that how I want it and may or may not do a finish coat. Other times I just let it be, sand as needed then finish coat. I guess it depends on depends on how the glassing is going, and if I feel like mixing more batches or not.

As for the heat - You can make a “hot box” out of cardboard, and heat it various ways - lights, small heater, etc… Heat the glue first, and the blank - take 'em in the house overnight… then - worse case scenario - after the glue isn’t tacky anymore, just take it back in the house and wait a few days… Great thing about RR epoxy…No stink. I’ll admit, there has been lot’s written in the past about “curing” methods… I keep my shed heated from 80-90 F. and let the lam jobs sit for a few days, at least, before messing w/it. I’m in no hurry, and based on my understanding of the science, letting epoxy cure - as long as it’s warm enough - http://resinresearch.net/_wsn/page9.html - I don’t get up to 110 F, but from talks w/Greg (Don’t quote me, as I’m not “quoting” him - just sharing my understanding), letting it set longer at temps over 70F is going to be OK - And, my own empirical data would suggest that my understanding is right, as I’ve not had a failure ever, and some boards are now years old, have been to Kauai and back, setting in the tropical sun for weeks on end.

As some would right - “Hope that helps”

5
6

A great thing about epoxy is that it doesn’t “go off” suddenly, it just keeps getting thicker and thicker and thicker and it can be worked while its getting too thick to work anymore.

7

I was busy checking the air pressure between my ears when I stumbled upon this thread.

I mix my Resin Research Epoxy resin using the volume method. 2 parts resin. 1 part hardener…It’s right there on the label. Really hard to get it wrong. Every single person who has had problems with Resin Research is a person glassing in cold weather. Think it over real good. Can you keep your work shop warm enough??? I’m near San Diego , I glass all year long. I still have problems with weather. …Can you keep your workshop above 68 degrees F for 24 to 48 hours???

If not you might want to wait a few months…Today it’s too cold for Epoxy in my shop…It must be really cold where you live

Slow and steady…proper temp and proper mix ratio…stir slow and steady for about 4 min…work resin slowly across board…let it soak in…squeege it all out real good…

Ray

8

Hi Jase,

temperature is important with epoxy because if it drops below 20 degrees celsius it becomes so thick you have to work it into the weaves of the resin and that really sucks. Greg Loehr had some specific measurements for how much epoxy to use. Search for EPS construction primer. Otherwise contact Seabase as I believe the same info on how much to use is on their site somewhere as well. As for bringing the temperature up to 27 degrees celsius (the ideal for working with epoxy on the first cure I believe) well I can’t help you there except to state the obvious. A big heater! As for minimizing wastage, I’m getting a drip tray as curtaining is the easiest way to wet out the laps in my experience. Also use a softer squeegee if you can get one that spreads well. The reason being is surfboards are not two dimensional you know.

9

My 2 cents.

Don’t use the curtain method that PE users do. Too wasteful. Having watched the masters lam with RR epoxy, my strong advice is to wear rubber gloves and use your right hand to hold the squeegee and move the resin around while using your left behind the drooping lap to hold the lap while you carefully move resing down off of the top of the rail. The right/left thing is of course reversed for the southern hemisphere. kidding.

Backing up a bit, pour out all the resin on the flat top of the board in three mostly equal lengthwise strips. One down the middle and one near each rail. Smooth it out and it let in soak in for a while (minutes). Pull excess resin from the middle to the rails. Try not to move the resin too far or it will get a littel frothy (not a bad thing, but avoid if you can). Then, when the deck or bottom is well covered and soaked, and you have a little of the rail strips of resin on top still remaining, start to bring it down to the rail cloth while holding the cloth from behind. Don’t just drag a curtain of resin over the edge. Small amounts only. Just enough to wet the cloth. If you don’t have enough resin to wet the rails, mix some more. Unlike PE, you can just add more epoxy to the pot.

When done well, you will have not more than an ounce or two on the floor or in your resin tray. I’m good not great, and I lam in flip flops. I hate having excess resin hit the tray so I mix a little less than I need and add later. Wasting a pair of gloves to remix is cheaper than over mixing resin.

This procedure will minimize resin use and allow you to use the amounts G Loehr recommends.

After the laps are tucked under spend about 10 minutes and meticulously clean off excess resin from the board with your squeegee and a paper towel (wipe the squeegee). You save yourself a lot of needless sanding later getting the resin ridges off. When you are through, the lam will be tight all over, there will be no dripping areas, you will have gone round the lap 3 or 4 times underneath getting the excess off and no pooling of resin on the deck. Your back will hurt from bending over, sweat will pour from under your rubber gloves and you will be feeling very very smug. And for good reason.

In your temps, you can lam the board, eliminate all the lingering drips and safely put the board in a small box for post cure and never have a drip hit the floor.

As for working temps, heat the resin (not the hardner) in a micro wave BRIEFLY. Or keep it in your house until ready use. Use in your “warm as possible” lam room then bring the uncured lam’d board to a warm spot to cure. Or a post cure box. With the resin and cloth on, you shouldn’t see any further dripping and you can move the board around without much trouble.

Good luck.

10

hi Jase, my take on epoxy may be different to the others here so take it for what its worth ,

i use epoxy ,including rr and i use it because you can do things with it that you can/t with poly and the same applies vice versa, vac bagging with epoxy gives you time etc where with poly it would be a nightmare, or if you are laminating over styro foam you have to use epoxy,

if i make a balsa skin it is vacced down over a smooth surface ,there is no air there and the finish is hard and smooth, easy to sand and finish coat,

you don/t have to post cure epoxy , i have on some boards ,they have generally been ultra light weight where i need all the strength i could , boards below 5 lb

just normal glassing and certainly over wood i would just use polyester resin , with your glass schedule you are going to use it wil be realy strong anyway,

unless you can maintain a good temperature during laminating with epoxy you end up with amine blush which needs to be sanded away for a good key which is hard to do over the initial lamination, to key between the weave is difficult ,

i have tried the additive f and i found it to give a milky hue over wood ,you may not see it over white foam but you can over darker wood,

if you want a gloss finish you will have to use 2 pac or a final coat of poly gloss,

i would use what you are comfortable with better to do a good poly lam then a potentialy bad epoxy lam, pete

11

To every one that has replied to my post, THANKS! Normally I would have had a look through the archives but for whatever reason (possibly me being a bit crap at this technology thing) can’t get much of anything from the archives, on this or anything else.

Girvin, Taylor, Wouter, GTFD, Stingray, Dean, Pete and Greg, thanks heaps for sharing your advice and taking the time to pass on such detailed descriptions of your methods, thats really helped.

Unfortunately I feel I have to apologise for some pre-conceived notion I was holding that the only response that I was going to receive was to stop asking stupid questions and do a search. Thankfully I was wrong and as a result of your help and way cool attitudes I have my faith in this wonderful world which is Swaylocks restored.

Funny how a bad day at the office can affect your view of everything.

Greg, that makes so much sense re wetting out the rails and land laps. Brilliant.

The only other dumb ass question I have at the minute is this… I have read of people using different squeegies to those used with poly, what is best for squeegying epoxy? Bondo spreaders or the usual blue latex jobby?

12

I would be real, real hesitant to add more epoxy to an already mixed batch.

Polymerization has begun, and it will kick the fresh really really fast.

don’t ask how i know.

Pete

13

I like the soft white rubber squeegies (brain cramp - can’t remember their name) better than bondo spreaders. Bondo spreaders are too stiff, so they tend to pull the weave, and then you get wrinkles.

14

Lots of good advise here. I use yellow plastic sqeegees and have liked those for epoxy for a long time. I like them better for epoxy than rubber but that’s a personal prefrerence thing.

For me the best thing about epoxy was that I could do my laminates in a timely fashion and not have to deal with gel times. For me this made laminating much easier. i also liked that I didn’t have the fumes and no solvents.

Greg commented that when you do your rails your back will hurt. I made a couple glass rack extenders which are just a couple 2X4’s with a T on top which I clamp onto my regular floor racks with a couple spring clamps. That way my racks are about 6 feet high and I can finish my rails standing up. Works great since I’m too old to bend over like that.

I’ve built boards in the winter here in AZ and it’s cold. I keep my resin and blank in the house overnight, laminate outside and then bring the laminated board in the house and leave it in the guest room on a narrow cardboard box. Keeps the board above 20C that way.

15

For squeegies I use $.99 store baking spatulas taken off the handle, just the right amount of edge flex, could be a little stiffer in the body but still great. Got the idea from a story about the early General Motors Corvette body glassers when they got started, they went into town and bought every rubber baking spatula in sight:)

16

You can really minimize waste if you fold back your lap before you start lamming, and paint resin directly onto the foam all the way around the underside of the rail, where your lapped cloth will be… from the apex down, around to the deckside. I use those cheap foam chip brushes. Go ahead and paint on a nice heavy coat, but not enough so it drips. Then fold back down the cloth and lam as usual. Pour out all the resin onto the flats, spread it out, let it soak in then start pulling the excess out from the stringer to the rail, and tucking the lap in one stroke. You’ll find that when you go to tuck your laps, the dry cloth will hit the painted rail and we itself out beautifully. No resin running off the rail, down the hanging lap, and onto the floor.

17

You need one of these. Of course it does not need to be so big. It is the best tool in my shop!!

http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1029553

18

For colder temp epoxy glassing I built a portable tent like cover for the glassing rack and board to be used after laminating. The frame out of 3/4"x 1 1/2" lumber has arch like frames at each end connected by long lengths positioned to keep the covering material from resting on the board. Open at the ends, the frame would “slide” over the board and rack end on, then be covered by plastic sheeting material. A floor heater under the draping sheets made just enouph heat inside the tent. The lame plastic sheeting with floor heater gave about 10-15F heat increase, worked good, you would need better covering material in your truly cold climate.

19

Jeez NJ … I’ve been making boards for over 40 years and I’ve never seen or heard of this one … sounds like a great idea! Especially for for epoxy lams. I think a 1 inch brush would do it. I guess you never stop learning … I hope. Thanks. I’ll try it next board.

20

I like it.

Now, what is your trick for cutting out perfect darts? (the wedges of cloth in the corners of the tail and nose)