glassing job for hollow wooden

General Discussion
1

hey guys, I went to see a mate of a mate today who has a glassing business, as I am getting close to finishing my board I thought I would check prices etc…

firstly he convinced me to go with poly over epoxy (I always had epoxy in my head for some reason!) I just hope it is strong enough with a 6 and 4 on the deck so that the 6mm timber deck does not deflect between the ribs in the frame under my feet! what are your thoughts?

the price he gave me to glass the board was $450 AUSTRALIAN, this includes:

foiling and glassing my timber D-fin with thick resin bead around perimeter

fully glassing the board (6/4 deck, 4 bottom skin)

and a gloss coat

does this sound reasonable?

he had a balsa shortboard at his shop that he had just finished and it was a first class job.

I should also point out that all the people I have talked to they all are saying to go with poly, and even if i wanted to do epoxy I think I would be hard pressed to find someone to do it, all the guys so far say that they “wouldn’t touch the shit!”

any recommendations or thoughts would be greatly appreciated on this

2

sounds like a plucking ripoff to me

mate if you have the ability to build a hollow wooden board

glassing it will be a piece of piss.

the guys who wouldnt touch it have probably never used a decent resin.

epoxy resin is far more suitable for glassing onto wood

with better penetration and elasticity

i was repairing a twenty year poly glassed wooden boat and the glass job was falling apart

you could peel it off easy

the only reason it still being used in boats is cuz its cheap and punters cant tell or dont know the difference

“wouldnt touch the shit” is a classic example of plain and simple ignorance

epoxy is also more water proof

the cost of glassing materials in epoxy or poly would be about 100 bucks

so 350 labour (say 7 hours at 50$ph) isnt that bad really but honestly??

i dunno how long does it take a guy to glass a board ??

polyester resin does have its place though

like those portable dunnies

id rather have a board made with high quality /high tech resin used in aerospace

than some thing they use to make portable dunnies

at the end of the day it probably wont make to much difference

specially if you got money to burn

but 450 could buy me a car or plane ticket to fiji

my advice is try doing the fin yourself and see how it turns out

then go from there

3

First board I shaped was a balsa/eps done the Simmon’s way (not modern sandwich technology). I was afraid of doing the lam myself so I gave it to a shop. Now I’ve built other boards (including a hollow) and I’ve laminated all of them on my own (some with UV polyester, some with epoxy). My advice is : go for it. It’s easy, you’re not gonna do any tints or pinlining and Swaylock’s is here to help along as you go. On top of all, the satisfaction is so much greater when you’ve built your board entirely from start to finish.

4
Quote:

the price he gave me to glass the board was $450 AUSTRALIAN, this includes:

foiling and glassing my timber D-fin with thick resin bead around perimeter

fully glassing the board (6/4 deck, 4 bottom skin)

and a gloss coat

does this sound reasonable?

any recommendations or thoughts would be greatly appreciated on this

how ya going Rob !

to give some idea [and bear in mind these are west oz prices …retail for me …

this is with using polyester resin , okay ?]

…And, I have overestimated the quantities possibly [you could get by with less gloss resin , I’m sure …but this is just to give you a rough figure to work from , okay ?]

9m 6oz cloth @$9.30m = $83.70

4 litres lam resin $42.00

3 litres filler resin $ 39.00 [may as well have 4 litres eh ?!]

4 litres gloss resin $51.00

total c $ 215.70

so , labour , he is charging you $234.30 , roughly .

… hope that helps !

ben

5

Robbo - epoxy, and do it yourself.

Unless you want your beautiful new board to smell like a chemical plant and peel apart in a couple of years.

Believe me, even for a carpenter, compared to the woodwork, the epoxy glassing is the easy part.

6

Hey Robbo. One or the other DO NOT mix the two. Poly will not bond to epoxy. You do not get any mechanical or physical bond. You will get an initail bond. But it will only take a small impact and it will start chipping off. People say it does, suppliers and manufactures say it does. But I am yet to see an epoxy that will allow poly to bond to it.

Personally I would not use poly over timber. Epoxy or Vinylester is the way to go. Vinylester is closer to epoxy chemically but it is ativated with mekp and poly is compatible with it. So you can do the lams in Vinyl and filler and gloss coats with surfboard resin. I glass all my boards with Vinyl.

If that price includes materials. Then I would say it is a fair price to pay.

I’m with the others. Have a go your self. There are plenty of people here willing to help. platty.

7

ha and they say poly is cheaper

i can glass a 6 4 with 1.2 litres of epoxy including the filler coat

i can gloss with 2 pac say 200 ml

and im an amature

its sure not that hard

that epoxy cost me about 160$ for five litres

thats 40$nz per board

cloth is 7$nz to 10 metre

8

just wanted to clarify that when I said “he convinced me to go with poly over epoxy” I meant he convinced me to go with poly RATHER then epoxy…

OK well thanks for the input so far guys, I am starting to lean towards doing it myself again, I have heard alot about RR epoxy on here, is it available in Australia? can it go over other brands of epoxy because when I glassed the inside of the decks some epoxy (FGI brand) seeped through the joins in the strips of timber.

should I go and watch some boards being glassed to get the idea?

what are those glassing videos like? are they just for poly or is the process basically the same?

thanking you again for your advice

9

Hey Robbo,

FYI I got a quote here in the States by a local and well known shaper/glasser to glass my latest 6’0" fish. He quoted me $450 USD (this would have included RR epoxy, 1 layer 4oz. E-glass deck and base, a hot coat, gloss coat, glass leash loop and glass-on fins - I foiled the fins myself). Although I thought that was fair, I’ve since decided to do it myself as well. How hard can it really be if I take my time, learn as much as I can, and focus. Can’t be any harder than building and shaping these HW boards - right? Plus I really want to do it myself.

So I’ve ordered the 3 gallon Resin Research kit and will “have at it” as soon as it arrives. Let us know how it goes down there.

10

Tell him he’s dreaming!!!

Robbo Robbo Robbo, do it yourself, it’s really not that hard, use epoxy. Lavz put up some vids of me glassing a little while ago, not perfect but worth a look.

Plus you get to say you did all of it, not just the wood bit…understand…slap slap slap…you’ll save money…slap slap slap…get it…slap slap slap…

11

Yo dude, I went did up one of them HWSB’s last year too ( http://www.swaylocks.com/resources/detail_page.cgi?ID=979 ), and I went with 6 oz cloth top and bottom and epoxy (Aqua-Set, sold by Fiber-Tek). No Delam issues, but make sure that whether you or someone else does the glassing, you don’t go with CUTLAPS. Search the back posts about it, but I got the same problem as Paul Jensen did on one of his. Namely shearing of the glass underneath and the consequent water logging problems. Do freelaps. Use a slow hardener. And do cheater coat first. You can easily do it yourself. I had never even seen videos of anyone glassing before I did my first glass job,(a cedar strip canoe) and it worked out alright for sure.

  • Joel

Ps. What’d you do for a vent?

12

sorry to be a dumbass, but what exactly do you mean by “don’t do cutlaps… do freelaps” ?

13

If you do cutlaps, ie trim the glass when it’s half set on the board so it looks neat, you can get a weakened area that will shear through making your board leak air and suck in water.

Free laps are just cut before you use epoxy and lammed onto the board, no cutting on the board while it sets.

PJ might be able to shed more light on it for you…

14

Right, thanks Hicksy. I get it now. I was a little confused because I forgot that our method is different (we don’t have glass inside the board and our planks are 1/4" thick - not a veneer). Just wanted to be clear before I start…

Thanks!

15

No problems man. And you aren’t dumb, just questioning the info given you. I had to learn the hard way. Ya, I soaked my board with sealer/cheater coat, to prevent the wood form sucking too much out of the glass weave. Then I did my Deck glass. I taped off just around the apex of the rail, and then glassed the Deck. LAter, when the epoxy had gelled up good, I trimmed along the tape line and pull off the extra overlapped glass and tape. Let it finish hardenening up, and then flipped the board. Up until now, my technique, IMHO, was good. But I decided that I would do a cutlap on the bottom too. I wanted the glass to be just perectly following the rail lines, as I’m a bit of a perfectionist. So I taped off further over the Rail apex(to allow the overlapping of the glass), and then glassed. Once again I trimmed the taped part off with a razor. I went real careful, but I still must have scoed/nicked through the glass underneath. I couldn’t tell, and just hotcoated. The board held up for a few weekend trips, but after a particularily bad thrashin on a bad takeoff to straight down the face for an 8’3", it split along my cut line for about a foot and a half. I ductaped it and finished the trip, but had to reinforce my rails after that. Adding more weight. Anhoo, here’s some pics to help with the visualization…

Joel

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