I’d like to set up my basement to take a cut at some shaping over the winter. I have an unfinished basement that offers plenty of space and most importantly, heat.
I also have plans to rebuild my detached garage and create some dedicated shaping space, but that is some time off and currently it has no power or heat so it’s a little out of the question, at least as we start migrating into the colder months.
From lurking over the years, I’ve decided to go the EPS/Epoxy route, but have questions of fumes. I haven’t hotwired EPS, but have read that at the proper temp, the foam evaporates from the heat of the wire rather than burns, is this right? Are there any fumes that would otherwise stink up the house?
I know I’d have to jump through hoops to minimize EPS dust that gets everywhere, but that’s manageable, my concern is smell from hotwiring EPS during the shaping stage or from Epoxy/hardener during the glassing stage. I’ve read about the smell form Additive F but is it such that inside glassing is out of the question?
I’ve gotta be a good neighbor to the rest of the family in order for this to fly in my house, it has to be as unobtrusive as possible and with young kids about, I certainly don’t want anything dangerous to young senses.
Am I better off waiting until spring and moving my plans out of the house?
Whenever I have cut a block of EPS with a hot wire, it has made a terrible chemical smell. My hot wire foam cutter was also made with a old model train transister, and is certainly not perfect. If you could set the temperature of the wire to be just hot enough to melt the foam without burning any, you might not have as bad of a smell though. I have also found that even without any additive F, you need to have a well ventilated work space when working with epoxy. Glassing with epoxy in a poorly ventilated room will make the room and all surrounding rooms smell like a bunch of kids are sniffing glue. Just my own opinion from my experiences, but im sure many people on here will have advice coming from much more experience than I have.
I can’t speak to hot-wiring yet, but I glass with RR and additive f indoors. I do it in a separate room on the main floor and lay plastic down and go for it. Nobody complains because there is barely any odor.
I’ve built a number of boards using traditional Poliurethane blanks and then Epoxy for the resin. It really makes a great, super tough board. Its the best of both worlds for the home shaper. Recently I’ve switched over to UV Cure Poliester resin and I am using my tool shed as a makeshift glassing room.
You could easily shape in the house with poliurethane blanks if you hook the planer to a shop vac. Then take the board out to the garage to lamanate and take it out in the sun to cure if you use poliester. You could also glass with epoxy in the house. I don’t have much worries about epoxy resin in the house so long as you shut off the ventilation from the rest of the house. Sanding is another story. That I would not do in the house. (By the way if you have forced air heat like I do I’d highly recommend shutting off the registers before doing any epoxy resin work. Dust is a killer with epoxy)
Hotwiring eps is not something I would try in the house. Fumes, Fire Risk. No thanks.
There is a sweet temp that will part EPS foam with little by way of fumes but the trade off is time so your cut will still be slow and anyone in the house with a sensitive nose will still pick up the scent.
Evaporating is just invisible fumes, but it’s fumes. You have styrène fumes when you cut EPS with hotwires, it’ smell and it’s nocive but small quantities (with thin wires).
Additif F works because xylène evaporate and let paraffin seal tha surface to avaoid reaction of hardener with humidity. So you have fumes of xynol, it’s smell and it’s nocive, but small quantities.
So you need protection against fumes, as you have small quantities of fumes you can just use a good ventilation. Vapor mask is safer.
When you shape PU there is small quantities of isocyanate fumes that evaporate from cell of foam. It’s a strong poison. You MUST ventilate room when you shape PU foam
A Basement is not a good place for EPS smoke, resin vapor, dust, resin fumes, low VOC or high VOC, add F , MEKP, acetone, thinner, polyester resin, UV cure or not.....
....Most people on Swaylocks work in a well ventalated workshop....Please read the labels.....Air flow matters.......
I work in a two car garage. 1/2 set up for surfboards. Hot wire an EPS blank ...the fumes will knock out everyone...need big fan and lots of breaks.......Resin Research Epoxy not so bad on the smell......and Low VOC....but with chemicals....stay on the safe side.....where's the gas furnace and the hot water heater? I'm not saying you cannot do it.
Proper planning and you will be stoked all winter!
Outfit the entire family with quality 3M N95-N100 / 6500-7500 series organic vapor masks. Change your cartridges often for a family fun winter of surfboard building.
If you feel guilty, buy masks for the entire block, have a block gas mask party. But only trust quality 3M products with your family.
Get them at Home Depot, Lowes, or a quality auto paint shop near you.
Which division of 3M do you work for? I wasn't aware of any seal-hunting specialists at the company, but maybe you guys are making a top-secret adhesive from blubber or something. Anyway, keep up the good work, I don't think I could live without your 233 tape.
For the OP, if you're only hotwiring one blank here and there, just do the best you can at exhausting the basement and wear a respirator (or the carbon-loaded N95 paper mask for ''nuisance levels'' of organic vapors). Good epoxies don't have enough VOC emissions to worry about, some household cleaners and many paints you might use in your home are worse.
Thanks all. I figured that the basement would be pushing it for all but the shaping itself. What I may do is spend the winter gathering tools, making some racks, and perhaps starting off shaping from a blank rather than making the blank myself in prep for running some electricity and setting up my garage for a full shaping area once it gets warm again in spring.
Mako, I am about an hour due west from you in Moorestown although OC is where I spent all the summers of my youth and where I still go whenever I head to the shore. I grew up at 58th street surfing mostly the south end.
I wanted to shape & glass in the basement at home but I knew that the second my Mom would smell some chemicals in the house, I would have to kiss this project goodbye. So I ended up using a 10$ kitchen fume extracting hood bought on craigslist to throw these nasty fumes outside. I have hotwired lots of xps, glassed (epoxy), stained and varnished some furniture, and even use it now to TIG weld and no odors have got out of the room so far. I have connected a 6" laundry dryer duct to the hood so I can bring the aspiration where I need it. With such a setup, no need for a respirator when hotwireing or doing resin work on a small area. All the smoke/fumes goes right in the duct and even if you’re right next to it, you won’t smell a thing. When glassing the whole board though, the respirator is required.
May take a couple of hours to setup, but well worth the effort.
I’m also in NJ. In winter I have done my laminating and hot-coating with Epoxy in my finished basement with blue tarps under the glassing racks. No complaints from the wife and kids. Keep a window open if possible for some air movement. It’s not a big deal if you’re just doing a few boards.
I would do any sort of shaping, sanding, lap grinding, box routing, etc. in the garage. Not a big deal to do it in the cold if you are properly dressed.
Basically, anything that creates dust, do in the garage. Anything that doesn’t, do in the basement.
Good stuff guys, thanks. I’ll probably just work on keeping as much out in the garage as I can, use the winter to gather some proper tooling, and maybe run some practive shapes on some scrap foam. My little interest is already a hard sell as it is so anything to minimize intrusion is prudent. I want to get to the point that I can put out some half decent craftsmanship and a few boards for my kids even though we’re an hour from the waves.
I’ve been hooked for years but have never given myself the opportunity to dig in and get shaping. This year changes that. Thanks for all the input guys. Much appreciated.