Regarding glassing of wooden surfboards, it is possible to use polyester, cotton, or polycotton cloths for timber boards if a clear finish isn’t required. I am talking about cloths which can be bought from any material shop. Muslin is particularly nice to use. Wash the cloth with warm water to remove any sizing compounds first. Avoiding fibreglass dust is a good idea if board building is taking place in the lounge, bedroom or garage. Interesting results can be had if white cloths or cloths with white backgrounds are used. The timber will still show through quite nicely. Avoid any patterned cloth with white paint in the patterns, you have to look carefully to detect this.
Nice one Hicksy. No I didn’t cry, there were too many people watching, I just grabbed my old twelve foot balsa and paddled back out. It was a while before I could face fixing it though, and it’s still not done. No doubt you will post some pics as your machine progresses?
really interested in hearing a bit more of your use of cloth rather than glass fibre. I’d be interested in giving it a go, I hate using fibreglass, dust etc
If you use muslin, do you use epoxy? What is it like to sand?, do you sand? What is the finish like? Is there a strength issue with hollow boards?
There are a lot of ifs buts and maybes with cloths, and there are a lot of different cloths. I’ve had a few nightmare scenarios with tightly woven cloths like rayon, which float and won’t release air bubbles. An open weave is the best (like muslin) and I have only used epoxies. Sanding is a little different from glass because glass acts as a fairing compound and sands off easily. Other cloths tend to fuzz up when being sanded ( kevlar being the worst) but cottons are pretty good and will only fuzz if the resin is still soft. Because of the fact that it’s nice to bond filler coats into the laminating coat and into each other by applying them before the previous coats have cured, it can be a issue knowing when to sand. These days I don’t sand until I have applied several coats in one long session, and will brush a coat on as soon as the previous one is tacky. If you are using pigments it’s really easy because any mistakes can be covered with another coat. With clear resin any sanding into the cloth will show.
Cloth is really only necessary with balsa or soft timbers (like cork?). For my own boards I do the clear finish on the deck by brushing several coats of epoxy on (no cloth) and then just let it go off and never sand it.
I don't see any structural problems with no cloth , although it will depend on the design of the board. Cloths do obviously add strength. Cotton is actually a good structural material. W.E.S.T system use cotton fibre in their structural glue powder. There's also a nice polyester boatbuilding cloth around called Dynel.
Regards, Roy
Just a quick query. The cork rails have little holes in it about 1mm, how forgiving is the laminating, will that cover and fill these holes. I will be giving it a cheater coat, it’s just that I’m a fussy bugger when it comes to smoothness.
Hicksy, I wouldnt worry about the double layer on the deck, the board will be heavy enough, but thats just my opinion.
I get my epoxy from Fibreglass and Resin sales in Kew St Welshpool. I use the same type epoxy as Bert.
On a deck single layer lam I use roughly 350g of resin/hardner combo. But best bet is to mix smaller batches and when you run out mix another and continue till youve finished the lam. Plenty of time with epoxy before it goes off.
I have a nightmare at nose and tail releif cuts, which turn out like dogs balls when laming. There getting better the more boards I do. Hope you get perfection, but dont flog yourself if its not as good as you’d hoped. The board will still surf better than you expect.
I put the vent in after the lam.
I caught some nice waves over east last week on the wooden fish, 6 sessions at Bondi, nothing flash, but I was stoked. Mixed comments on the board…one guy asked me if I was riding a piece of my house!!..ha ha. Never surfed anything that small before and its super quick and turny. I’ve got a knee brace on after the board decided to go vertical without me!
G’day as you say down there. I’m building my first board and thought that a hollow wooden was the way to go for me as I’m not bad with wood and have quite a selection of kit. Whats this about a vent? Not something that I’ve considered. So far I’ve done all the internal framing including the int rails and I think it’s looking a bit sexy. The finished board will be 7’ 4" x 22".
Over in U.K. apart from a shortage of waves there seems to be a shortage of suppliers of resins who know about wood boards and I’ve had some conflicting advice regarding the use of Silmar resins on wood. Does anyone know if this stuff will stick properly, I’ve been trying o get away with using everyday stuff like 1/8 ext ply where I can to keep the cost down, hence the need for some gen on “cheaper than epoxy” resins. Any advice would be appreciated.
Nice one Jack, Good to hear from someone who’s actually done this that the cheaper Poly resin is going to work for me. What brand did you use? what quantity did you go through? My board is going to be almost identicle in dimensions to yours when it’s finished. So far I’ve done all the frame work and started cutting for the deck.
I’ve been trying to work out how to attach piccies but I’ll have to try another time as I need to get to work.
Nice looking board, congratulations on a job well done.
I’m having difficultes with getting to grips with 21st century technology. This is another piccy of the internal structure in my very cramped and crowded workshop.
Well, I don’t know the brand of the poly resin since in the fiberglass shop they sold me the resin in plastic soda bottles. I think is the cheapest I could find, about 2 dlls for 1 kilo. For amounts of resin, I bought 5 kilos and laminated the whole board, inside, outside and the fin. I wasted lots of resin inside, because it was the first time I worked with the sutff, and the chopped strand fiberglass mat sucks a lot too. after fiberglassing the outside I rough sanded the whole board and eliminated about 2 pounds in weight. Your frame looks incredible, it will be a nice board if you continue working that way. Keep us posted to see your progress. Jack.
The vent is so that you don’t have pressure differences between the outside air and inside the board. Leave it open when you are not using it, do it up just before you put it into the water. If you don’t leave it open and it heats up inside… BANG … all your hard work will be pulled apart from the inside.
Your frame looks great, that flooring it’s sitting on would be good for the top and bottom sections (he he)
I got around the clamping of the rails to the skeleton by using sashcord. Drill two holes either side of the rib on the rail and one through the rib. Put the cord through all three holes, apply the glue to the rib and pull tight putting a half hitch in to tighten it right up.
your sash cord system was obviously better thought out than my attempt at a similar idea, all my attempt achieved was a very twisted stringer.
The floor would look good as decking and bottom, unfortunately it wouldn’t last long. I am actually trying to find some decent cherry veneer to part finish the deck in along with some rock maple veneer to contrast it with. for now it’ll have to be two halves of pale veneered ply split up the centre with a darker veneered strip nose to tail, still don’t look too shabby or scabby on the table. Ill scan in a pic of my intended design for the deck as I think I might put some print on. Any idea what dye to use on wood that you intend to resin, I need the grain to show through so cuprinol blue wood stain would be ideal but don’t know whether this will affect the adhesion of the resin (Poly resin cos I can’t afford epoxy for my first board experiment).
AAARRRGGGHHH. Why would you want to discolour the wood you are using? I don’t think you should go down that track. Most stains are oil based and you probably wouldn’t get anything to stick to it. The dryer and less oily the better. I’m no expert but I have learnt a few things through this forum. Ask Paul Jensen or Bert Berger’s opinion. They’ve been doing it for years… Look forward to seeing your plans and progress.
I’ve just seen the pics of your board, nice job! How long til the glassing’s over and it meets salt water? Make sure you take someone with a camera with you.
I wasn’t thinking of staining the whole board just printing some celtic banding up both edges on the deck, I’d also had an idea about glassing in a leaf from an acer palmatum atropurpureum in the middle of the deck near the nose end but who knows- eh!
