I have been doing a bit of research on glassing epoxy channels and if I’m right most people say baste the channel first and maybe the stringer let it tack off the press the glass in and let it cure before doing the full lam. Few questions though, what do you do if your doing a double layer of glass on the bottom? The channels I’m doing are on the rails of the board,I’m thinking I may need to do relief cuts on the laps to get things sitting right? Any other tips would be great (it will be a pigmented epoxy lam)
Basting and letting resin cure to ‘sticky’ state before laying fiberglass on top is good idea. Relief cuts - yes. Do one layer at a time. If you do get any bubbles in slot, it is pretty easy to massage some resin in if only one layer of fiberglass. Then do your second layer of glass before resin gets rock hard.
Beware of sticky resin when laying out your cloth. Pull out length and try to let it fall exactly where you want it the first time. Rearranging cloth on top of sticky resin is difficult.
I never got this right, so what I write here may be worth nothing.
You have a lot of sharp edges, and when you lam two layers at once, air will likely be trapped somewhere. I think it would be really helpful to have a helper to chase the airbubbles and babysit the lamination through the tacky state. I would not recommend to spread two layers at once over tacky resin, but it might work…
Looks like a big board, are you going to glass double six ounce?
Cheers yes it will be double 6, I’ll have to think more about the second layer I’m a bit worried that doing a second baste it will leave partly saturated glass that won’t wet out properly.
The edges I will dull down when I spackle so that’s cool. I wondering if it would be better to do some patches before doing the proper lam so that the second layer is not quite so Important.
Dang, Charlie, you are ambitious. Here’s what I would do:
Do one layer at a time. Lay the cloth out dry with no baste or spray mount so you scooch the cloth around slightly. While dry, tuck the cloth into the channels as best as you can for a pre-fit. Wet it out in stages using slow cure resin, and you and an ambtious helper start at the nose and using a straight edge, like a 12 inch paint stir stick, gently tuck the cloth into the channel. One Chanel at a time. Move to the next one. Hold the stick in the first channel as you tuck the next one. Probably need to do them in pairs side by side with your brave helper. You’ll probably need a 4 inch chip brush handy to paint some resin in here and there and to soak up excess resin in spots.
Overall, my crazy helper and I would wet and tuck starting at the nose and movin to the tail.
Keep a fan going because your are going to be sweating bullets while you do this. Also, hide your saws-all. You may be tempted the next day. I’ve found that surfboards won’t fit in the trash can without major surgery.
seal with tixo resin lay first layer on it fresh, that’s glue and start saturation of glass, finish lam with tixo resin and lay second layer, finish saturation with standard or tixo resin.
Can you squeegee out excess resin, or will it pull the cloth out of the channels?
Does your crazy helper hold cloth in the channels with paint stirrers while you squeegee?
Lemat, is this the sort of stuff you referring to? Will it hold cloth in place while wet under normal laminatinng process or do you let it set up a bit first?
I’m just finishing my first board with channels. I will post pics soon.
My two cents-
I did an extra tail patch and when I glassed I started to go crazy as the glass would pull up from the channels. I eventually figured out how to use two squeegees- one to tuck a channel and the other to hold in place the glass that otherwise would be pulled out of position.
With the second layer I tried the tacky epoxy baste coat. Word of warning- lay down you glass carefully because once it sticks, if you try to move it it will mess up the weave.
Be careful sanding. The resin of the hot coat tends to drain off the top edge of the channel. I got sand throughs after the first passe with the sander.
Actually I have done a board with channels before, but that time I bagged the laminate- e wings and channels and everything sucked down perfect.
yes it’s this kind of epoxy glue. you can make your one by mixing cabosil in epoxy lam resin up to a thick past, like shoes grease. Spread it and glue fiber in. You can lam directly but stay in place better if you wait a bit.
