Here’s my first foray into vac bagging - A friend wants a full carbon fish - remake of the last board I did for him in pe/pu. This one is eps (stringered and yes I know it was overkill but I’m free bagging so I aplied belts and braces to prevent twist and flattening of the rocker in the bag). so here goes: step one was to install carbon rails. I did this with a carbon tape - masked off for cut laps both sides. Painted the rail with epoxy, rolled over the tape, pulled it tight from each end and then brushed epoxy over the top to wet otu thoroughly. I used cling film to help ull the tape down tight and prevent the carbon from swelling out as it absorbed the resin.
next deck was masked off - I used the poly bag that the eps blank was in from the blank factory. I normally use masking paper but guessed that would be problematic in the bag so switched for a material that I knew wouldnt stick to the blank.
Next I cut the cloth - got some 200g carbon from a boatbuilder friend fro free - yes its a bit heavy but it was free. Laid over a 40z glass layer and allowed about an extra inch of lap hanging. This allowed me to lam the board as normal but when pulling the laps my squegee wasnt touching the carbon and pulling it’s weave. The glass serves to protect the brittle carbon and help keep the stiff fabric down on the rails. Once I’d lamed and lapped I laid over a pre cut layer of peelply, followed by perforated release film (bread wrap) and finally the breather. Each layer was held on with masking tape to keep the wrap nice and tight. Then into the bag, again made from the same poly tube from the blank factory, sealed at the end and then the vac was attached and switched on…left for about 4 hours till the epoxy had gone off.
When it came out of the bag it looked amazing - no twist or flattening of rocker - lam looked tight and rails were spot on - no air trapped beneath carbon. I’d been warned by some very experienced guys not to attempt free bagging - some suggested it wouldnt work…but Huie advised otherwise - his advice was absolutely spot on - without his help I’d have got nowhere so massive thanks go out to Huie - you really did make this a great success for me mate!
The hardened laps were clearly proud of the surface thanks to a double tape layer to leave a ridge and trimmed back with a sander - obviously a blade wouldnt have been an option here as the epoxy was totally cured at this stage. The result was super clean lines.
Impressive results for your first time. It’s clear you though through the process BEFORE you started, which always makes things go smoother.
As someone who has been riding vac-bagged boards for 5+ years, I think you’ll be stoked on ther performance/durability of bagging the lams. If you get the process down it can actually be much easier with much less waste and give you more consistent results. It’s not as hard as most make it seem, it’s just a different process than what most of used to.
Hey that is looking sweet. I’m particularly interested at how you kept the rails so tidy as I’ve got some kevlar which may find it’s way onto my nose and tail, purely for ding resistance as that’s where I always ding 'em. Those lines are super sharp. Will revisit this whole thread to extract some of the relevant parts which may help me keeping the kevlar down tight, and prob use your double tape method for sanding off after. If I completely took your method, I’d be putting it on before either top or bottom laminates, but the bottom lam will be pigmented, and I’m thinking it’d be nice for the kevlar patches to show their true colours. Any thoughts there at all? Thanks!
Hey grasshopper the carbon rails are there because of my extreme over engineering. I was afraid the bag could pull a twist as its freebageed without a rocker table. I had been warned of that by a few people here. Seemed like a good way of stabilising the shape…may be completely inappropriate but its the earliest stage fro me on this little avenue…Next time I’m planning alternative materials for main lam with stringerless eps - possibly using a cork sandwich layer.
Got the deck on tonight same proceedure - didnt manage any photos of layers going on as it all felt slightly stressy due to first time bagging. Will post more pics soon.
Really nice! Thanks for the pictures! I like your marking tape and cling filmed rails for tension. Having seen how nice yours have turned out has confirmed that this is the way to go for some compsand glass taped rails I’ve got in the offing.
Thanks for posting this Rich, it’s great to see a build thread with photos! Your approach of glassing the rails before free-bagging validates what I’ve been doing - I have been doing exactly the same (just with 6oz glass rather than carbon) prior to free-bagging my bamboo veneers, with the aim of minimising any change in rocker under vacuum. I’ve been thinking about bagging a lam for a while now, but your post has inspired me to give it a go on my next build.
Thanks for the blow by blow Rich. Very interesting. Flipping the board to get the tape applied nice and tight was brillant. I’ve never been brave enough to try that. My fear comes from flexing a 14 ft SUP blank by accident and making lots of cloth wrinkles. Oops, that was a bad day.
Its been a few years since I messed with (polyester) peel ply. I switched to release ply (millions of pin holes in plastic sheeting) because it shortens my flip time from overnight to 3 hours. I’ve never heard of anyone using both peel and release ply. They perform the same job. Although peel ply does a better job letting the excess resin escape. I don’t need my peel / release ply to do a lot of resin escape work since I wetout on a table, so my cloth is extra dry already. Bagging just mashes my lam until it looks more like rice paper, than thick cloth.
Hey Dwight, all I did was cut the peel ply to hang below the laps when they were draping over the board by about 3 inches. I lammed as I normally would, tucking the rail nice and tight then rolled out the precut peel ply and smoothed it down on the wet laminate. For the rails I started at the centre and worked both forwards and aft slowly pulling the peel ply out tight under the board. The weave of the peel ply is easy to conform to the rail shape as you pull it. I also stuck the excess that went beyond the lap down with a little masking tape as I went. Next the release film - but this dosent conform to the rail so easy. Finally the breather which I wrapped round under the board and again held in place with bits of masking tape. That again was pulled real tight. I even turned the board over at this stage to get a good bit of tension on the breather.
Now that was my self made technique for wrapping up the layers but hey, that was my first time…maybe some of the exprienced guys can chip in here and offer some other way???
Cheers
Rich www.thirdshade.com
It looks really nice...I will follow this build thread.....and this thread is a big reminder of why I choose to remain Low Tech. All the equipment is sitting out in my shop. Donated by friends. It's just a big fat hassle with a low return....More time...more money for materials. More sanding....less time surfing.....and if you do it right you will get a stronger board. But with all that carbon you might get a rock.
I'm not a bitter old man.....I'm happy without vac bagging...and I have two vac bag projects left before I can jump ship!!!!
