Saw a board today that was stringerless, carbon fiber rails, silver texillium cloth on the deck/bottom and then finished with 4oz layer on top and bottom. Board was really light.
Ive worked with texillium before with doing CF car parts on the side and the stuff is a b!tch to work with since it’s really stiff and from my experience you really have lay on the resin thick at first or prepreg it to get it to wet up evenly. Ive only used it with doing vac infusion when I do my car parts.
Since I have some texillum Im not using for parts (I can only limit using it on flater parts since it it doesnt like to contort to curves or bends), Id actually like to to make a similar board I saw today and since Ive only worked with texillium in a vac infusion environment, Im wondering if anyone has any tips/tricks on glassing with it so I can ensure I get it to wet out enough, but not have pools of resin left in the cloth?
This will be on a poly board if that makes any difference. Should I glass with epoxy to allow for time for the cloth to soak the resin, then finish with a poly hotcoat?
Sorta fishing for opinions here on what you guys would do.
Vacuum bag the stuff to the board, especially if you want to do rail laps… Yes, use epoxy for this…
The stuff looks nice, but has no structural advantage over plain E-glass other than a shiney surface…
If you’re not doing laps, you could make a top sheet inlay, similar to your car part skins, vac, this to the core then hand lam a single 4oz. over top…
Thanks for the feedback Kiterider… I know the texillum is just basically a dye/spray they use. I have red and silver and there is a definitive top and bottom to the cloth where you can see the color is brighter on one side. It’s really cool stuff, has a killer look when laminated properly and gloss coat added. In fact, im tempted to buy some of that bronze carbon / zylon hybrid cloth to use in place of the texillium since it comes in 7.2oz 2x2 twill. Probably wouldnt have to use 2 layers of 4oz on the deck.
The strip of CF on the rails was id say 2-2.75" wide, rolled centered on the rail, so it lapped just barely around the bottom side. The texillium was cut along the CF line on either side. I believe it was 1 4oz layer on bottom, 2 4oz top. This is where I guess the “strength” is coming from since it still is lamed like you would any other board. Seems like a ton of cloth when you consider CF / Tex / 4oz, but being a stringerless board I guess its needed.
I guess my next question to all this would be to ask if there are some instructions along with pictures on vac bagging a board. I can hand lam boards and vac infuse car parts all day long, but have never brought the vac process over to making boards other than doing ding repair for the surftechs / avisos, but never for the entire glassing.
Should I wet out the board first, then bag and vac it… or lay up the cloth, bag it and vac infuse it?
Since you originally mentioned using poly; I'd say forget using vacum and just go to UV Poly. Because the cloth is colored you should use a small amount of catalyst. That will insure that it goes off throughout the lam. Using UV will give you all the time you need to saturate and squeege off excess resin. I did a carbon fiber deck lapped to the rail edge and cut. I did not attempt to lap it under, only to the rail edge. I used UV with minimal catalyst. Set it out in the sun for awhile and it did start to kick. Brought it inside and by the next day the catalyst had hardened the rest. I carefully ground the CF edge at the rail and lammed a layer of four ounce over the CF and free-lapped it on to the bottom. Hot-coated and sanded. One of the best lams I have ever done. No bubbles etc anywhere, No dry spots, nada. It's nice to have a vacum set-up, but quite a cash outlay for one board that could be easily lammed with UV Poly.
Good info McDing, thanks. Didnt consider using UV, I’ll definitly consider it. You wouldnt happen to have pics of the board you did do you?
I’ve got rolls of CF and texillium along with plenty of material for vac bagging, so its really no cost up front to me other than what I already have invested in my own material. I might get some of the bronze/CF zylon cloth to either use in place of the texillum or CF rails just to be different…plus, I just want to see it since it looks sweet
Hi surfboardmedic,have you read the WMD comsand thread yet?You may be able to wet out the texillium and bag it to the shaped board (instead of using a wood veneer),then hand lam the board as normal with 4oz.
the wrinkles are always an issue when you wet out first then bag. If you vac infuse…meaning if you bag it, set up your vac and clamp your feed hose, you can work out the bag and make it nice…then put the feed line in your resin, unclamp and watch the fun and start nail biting that you set it up right. This is how I do my car parts. A plus side is that when you pull vac before you introduce resin, you can find any leaks beforehand and take care of them.
what oz/weight was the blue that you used? I have 2x2 twill 1k 6oz. It’s stiff, but Im able to vac infuse it around some pretty decent curves…much more than it would be on the deck and bottom of a board.
Heres an intercooler cover I make using red tex… each corner is a different curve. You can see where I had to make relief cuts in the cloth to help it form into the mold.
