Glassing confuses me a bit. My main question is, I’m going for a glossy look as a finished product of my board, which processes will I have to use to achieve this. I know the first lam, but then do I have to hotcoat AND gloss coat? Or what? Also, this will be my first glassing job, on a rather big board, just shy of 10’. I have looked into using UV but I am confused if this will still alow me to colour tint? I’m going for a sea-foam green colour. I have read posts about tinting problems with UV in the forums and elsewhere…Also, would it be remedied by adding some MEKP? Is a UV cure as strong as a regular poly? I am thinking about going this route mainly becuase it’s my first glass job, on such a large board, and I’ll be doing it alone so I’d like as much time to work with it before it kicks. Thanks ahead of time to anyone who replies!!
Hi simplesemple,
I just recently finished up a sea foam green board with a uv resin. Here are some pics:
http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=223246;#223246
I added a splash of green an about 1-2% of catalyst. I put the board in light shade and it cured perfect. From my experience, it seemed pretty easy, just don’t forget the MEKP catalyst or else it will never fully cure.
hey Cafka, i love the looks of the board. That’s exactly the colour I am going for! Looks good. I think I will go with UV, but I am still a bit confused as to what I need to order. I am looking here: http://surfsource.net/suncure/suncureproducts.htm What products did you order to achieve your board?? mainly…What I mean is what is the difference between their “Sanding” resin as opposed to the “Laminating”.
Sanding resin has a wax additive that makes it sandable vs. lam resin, which will always dry to kind of a tacky consistency. You can order pre-mixed sanding resin or you can get wax solution seperately and mix up your own as you need it. If you plan to glosscoat you have to sand the hotcoat as the wax rises to the surface as the resin cures, which is what makes it sandable. The steps for a tinted glossed-and-polished board would be-tinted lam coat, hotcoat, sand, glosscoat, wetsand, and then polish with a surfboard rubbing compound and buff. Lots of steps but well worth it!
So if I order: 1gal Sanding UVresin, 1gal Lam. UVresin, 1gal Supergloss resin…I should be all set for my longboard? Then I just use the Lam res. first and add a drop of green tint solution, lam the board. Then when it’s cured, used the sanding resin, cure it and WHILE it’s curing I sand the board down?? Then after it’s sanded and brushed off I would use the supergloss to finish it out??
Thanks for all the help guys!
P.S. two more questions:
1)Surf Source sells resin pigments and resin tints. Will the tint work? Just a drop or so to get seafoam green?
2)I’m glassin on a singlefin, when I glass this on, I will only do so during the lam coat? I don’t need to hotcoat and gloss it do I?
for the best results with the least possibility of screw-ups, use UV-cure lam resin, MEKP-cure hotcoat resin, and Reichold (brand name) gloss resin. tint your lam, and add a little bit of MEKP to ensure a full cure. it is possible to use UV resin for the hotcoat, but if it cures before the wax has risen or the hotcoat has leveled itself out, this would be a real pain in the ass for you. nothing too tragic…but definitely more unnecessary work. mix up the gloss resin according to Kokua’s not so secret formula. it requires adding additional wax and styrene to the gloss resin. and Reichold > Silmar.
so here’s your shopping list…
- UV lam resin
- hotcoat resin
- Reichold gloss resin
- green tint
- MEKP
- styrene monomer
- wax / surfacing agent
- squeegees
- brushes
- respirator
- acetone
- gloves
- eye protection
- resin buckets
- measuring cup
Thanks for the posts, that last one in particular…covered a lot of my questions! I am going to buy the UV from Surf Source. Where would you recommend buying the MEKP-cure hotcoat resin and Reichold gloss resin? From Fiberglasssupply? By hotcoat resin, you suggest not using UV, so I should buy Silmar S249A and add the styrene/wax?
Also, do I need a whole gallon of each resin? How much MEKP do I need to order, and how much styrene monomer?
buy it all from the same place unless you can pick it up somewhere
because there is a 20.00 hazmat charge for resins. makes no sense to pay that twice. acetone you can get from home depot.
Ok, taking your advice of buying it all from one place, I looked on Surf Source. They list this: Lam (S249a) 1 gal w/MEKP or Sand (S250) 1 gal w/MEKP
If I buy the Sand version, do I not need to buy extra styrene/wax solution?? Also, it says w/MEKP, does this mean I do not need to buy additional MEKP? This is getting to be quite a confusing process!
This is how I understand it right now, what I need to buy is:
1 Gallon of UV Cure Lam Resin
1 Gal of Sand (S250) w/MEKP or Lam (S249a) w/MEKP **and add wax/styrene?
1 Gal of Gloss resin (I don’t see any gloss resin on the Surf Source site besides the UV stuff, so I will either have to use the UV or order additional Gloss resin from another place…
Thanks for the help, if someone could confirm or correct me on those that would be awesome, and also if I really need a gallon each to do my 9’8 board or not…
1 Gal of Lam resin and 1 gal of sanding resin will be enough for your board. However, you won’t need a whole gallon of gloss resin. 1 Quart will be enough.
order the gloss resin elsewhere. i believe that when only buying 1-quart, there is no hazmat charge.
where do you live?..there might be someplace where you can go pick it up.
Lot’s of good stuff here.
People tell me that I’m a glasser but I think of it more as a problem solver. Be prepared for small little problems. Resin kicks too fast /too slow. Laps don’t lay down right at nose or tail. Phone rings when you have resin on the bottom of your shoes. CD stops playing when your gloved hands are covered in resin. You set up a fan for good air flow and blow your lams out the door. It’s all fun and the swaylocks crew will help you through it.
Welcome aboard.
Ive just finished glassing my first board yesterday , had all the questions , just like yourself,
Make sure you use the gloves they reccomend, I used yellow latex gloves, thinking they would fine, but they stained my laminate. so check out using the proper gloves.
Rehearse everything you can think of in your head first, before you glass.
These r the things that threw me out:
If you are going to place decals on your board
laminate the board surface first before your place the decal on top, otherwise the decal may not saturate and it will leave air bubbles
Have sissors ready for when matting threads hang down.
Have a fresh set of gloves ready for when you are finished and you need to clean your squeegee or brush
these were my dumbarse things that happend
if you prepare yourself well, its easier then you think
GOOD LUCK BRO!
If you are going to place decals on your board
laminate the board surface first before your place the decal on top, otherwise the decal may not saturate and it will leave air bubbles
Have a fresh set of gloves ready for when you are finished and you need to clean your squeegee or brush
About the decal and air bubbles, if you brush on a little resin directly on the foam and then lay the decal on you won’t get the air bubbles that you mentioned. Brush on resin, lay down decal, brush on and squeegee, lay cloth on top and laminate. As for the gloves, good point, I wear two pair of desposeable gloves, when one pair gets all gooey, just pull it off and continue on.
Howzit RandR, There will be a lot of left over sanding resin also since it only takes about 20oz per side for hot coats on a 10’ board. I think it would be better to just buy an extra quart of lam resin and some SA to make his own sanding resin. This would give him 5 quarts of lam resin which should be enough for the whole board. The lamination process will take a little over 2 1/2 quarts of resin and that leaves plenty extra for hot coating and fin system installation. Probably will still have some left over resin for any ding repair later. Aloha,Kokua
Sorry I misworded my post a bit, you don’t sand the hotcoat as it curing, but after it cures. What I was trying to say was that the wax in the sanding resin rises to the surface as the hotcoat cures, and if another coat is to go on top of the hotcoat the wax will prevent it from binding.
I just got done glassing my first board yesterday… I found the stephen pirsch resin amounts to be incredibly helpful:
http://www.surfersteve.com/resin.htm
I used 1/2 of the catalyst amounts and it still went off pretty quickly (I was just able to finish the bottom with about 2 seconds to spare, laying the art took longer than I expected). Here are some photos of the experience (doing top deck here)
http://collidernyc.com/clients/luna/board_01/images/
If you notice, I forgot to masking tape the foam on the rack… bad idea - some of the foam stuck to the bottom deck (which was still slightly tacky) and I couldn’t get rid of all of it - left some nasty dirt marks. I should have let it dry a bit more, then try to razor it off, rather than sand… which just gummed up the whole mess…
Another problem I encountered was not sanding down the first lap enough before laying the top lam. I think I’m going to have a bumpy board, but maybe I can get it down a bit after sanding the hotcoat, which I still have to do…
I went with the laminating resin and separate styrene wax… I highly reccomend 2 of these:
http://surfsource.net/Manufacturing/Resin%20Accessories/resinandaccessories.htm
Catalyst Dispenser - $6.12
to hold your styrene and your mekp
Oh, and if you get the paintbrushes from surfsource, leave yourself LOTS of time to pick out the hairs - those brushes really suck and leave hairs everywhere. It’s not too hard to get rid of them with some sort of blade (i used an exacto with a cloth wrapped around the handle so I wouldn’t destroy it) to poke them up.
The funny tyvek suit is also another good purchase… No resin on my shoes or clothes. And you get to look like Bozo the bio-hazard clown to boot!
Good luck!
Jeff