Sand until you get rid of the little wiggles. If you kiss the cloth, STOP!
Never sand into the fabric. You will need another finish coat to bury it.
A hard rubber block for the curves
Reading Sways with that storm coming!
I’d be in Minnesota by now!
I faired out the first hot coat, to where it just kissed the fabric. Stop at that point.
Ok, so here’s a part I haven’t quite worked out yet, fin boxes.
Nylon really doesn’t sand well. So when shaping down the fin boxes, it looks like crap.
I filled the slots with spackle to keep them clear, and laid down a patch of 4 oz. fiberglass
After that, the final sanding coat.
On the spectra I’m using, I cut out the boxes with an exacto knife straight out of the bag. Fill holes with plasticine so I can hot coat everything
Then Wet sanding with 400 grit as this eliminates any frizzing.
For boxes I put the glass on first to ensure a good bond to the core then spectra over top.
I just figured something out for the next board.
- do cerex and cap layer at the same time, in the bag, but don’t wrap the rails, just to the Apex of the rail
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Cut in the fusion boxes after lamination.
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In one step, do a rail strip, and fin box cover in fiberglass, so it can be sanded.
Stay tuned next month for the next board!
How are you sanding the fusion boxes flat with spectra?
I’m thinking the answer to the fuzzies is super glue, shave with a razor, and top coat
Also, throw away brushes suck. A soft bristled nylox. Cleaned first with vinegar, then xylene then acetone. Use a comb to clean between the bristles.
Finally I learned the trick to sanding epoxy.
Cure it first!
Fresh epoxy sands like crap, and gums up paper. I don’t have a hot box, but I do have a furniture blanket and sunlight.
A disc sander and 220 does great for fairing. But not so good for final. I saw on a Patagonia/ Fletcher video them using a half sheet sander. Here’s mine. Porter Cable 505. They can be found on eBay.
The jitter bug works great.
Also random orbitals work well too.
Both give a nice scratch free finish.
Good lord, that’s a beautiful board. Thanks for sharing the process with us.
You took a process that is very simple…and turned it into something complex…very complex…
Glassing is really easy. Don’t do what this guy did… If you want to glass awesome surfboards…do not follow this guy.
- i cut out the part of the fusion box that will be exposed using an exacto knife prior to hot coating.
- I fill the fin slots with plasticine to prevent epoxy getting into the box.
- Hot coat (nothing special) .
- WET sand. 220 or 400 grit depending on how good the hot coat was. I find with wet sanding, it creates next to no fraying as it doesn’t pull on the fabric it just slide over it. Dry sanding when you touch the fabric you start to frizz The first board I did was a bit messy as I tried to sand through the spectra and did dry sanding at that.
I’ve got 4 copies coming up that are in the finishing stages and have come out very nicely after cutting first then hot coating then wet sanding
Agree with stingray, you totally f’d up the glassing…add GLASS next time you do a glassing thread… dumbass ;P.
Awesome surfboards can be made many ways…The first thing is to ask yourself what you want.
I’m guessng Everysurfer wanted ding and dent resistance in a low material cost board that he isn’t going to snap in half.
If that was his criteria this is an awesome surfboard.
For anyone reading who wants to make awesome surfboards, allow me to explain Every surfer’s design a bit more, then you decide if the process is worth following or not for what you want out of a board.
- It has high skin thickness. which gives it good dent resistance and improved buckling resistance. The microballoon fill slurry and the low density nylon both contribute to a high skin thickness at minimal weight
- The nylon has high toughness and excellent penetration resistance reducing the likelihood of water intrusion into the EPS caused by impacts with objects or mishandling.
- The Twaron makes up for some of the tensile strength weakness of nylon. Nylon has a high elongation prior to breaking. Higher than epoxy, Due to it’s higher elongation to yield you won’t be able to use the full tensile strength of the nylon prior to the epoxy failing. The Twaron strands used will offset this.
- Most of the materials here are pretty low cost.
- The stiffness with these materials would not be unreasonably high.
There are downsides most of which are the extra sanding of the micro and fuss of dealing with nylon
So if you want a board that is more resistant to dings,dents, and water intrusion and aren’t afraid to put in a bit of work,
This is a viable alternative to wood skins, And lower in materials cost than dcell/corecell sandwhich structures.
Would be pretty light weight, would not be terribly stiff, and would likely have a much longer life than a typical glass only board.
Again depending on what other material you have access to and if you/how you break boards the juice may or may not be worth the squeeze.
Personally I like it!
Massive swell, thanks for the explanation and the support. Great summary of the build.