Bert,
are you using gravity with low vacuum with a heating element in a reusable silicone bag to control the cps of your epoxy for infusion? And you must have the board sidways so that the resin does not have to travel far, just side to side and downward with gravity helping. So one side has the feed line and the other the vacuum with the board up on edge.
thats not how i do it , doing it that way creates problems with symetry …
there is always a noticable difference between the starting point and the finish …
a little wet and heavy on the entry and a little dry on the exit …
work with the nature of the process …
ive said in the past , that this wasnt a talking subject for me …
so i will go back to that policy …
regards
BERT
Bert,
Have you or anyone else used pre-pregs? It seems to me that for one off production pre-pregs offer more than the various infusion methods.
Simon
issues with clarity in the finished article on the outside , needing a little extra resin for the finish …
but to be honest i havent played with it for a while , and it could potentially get similar results to my finished article now with a lot less drama …
my personal opinion , infusion is great for small jobs , and great for huge jobs where you can use massive flow channels to get the job done …
but on surfboards for a reliable consistent result , infusion hardly offsets the benifits …
to get great cosmetics up to showroom quality is the biggest challenge so far …
you either have massive wastage from consumables , or have to make other sacrifices to the look of the board to get a clean finish …
using prepeg on the outside , would work , but would still have isues with showroom finish …
if your willing to give it a coat of paint you can dish up a shocking piece of work and cover it …
but when working clear over timber , it starts to determine the techniques you can use to still get light, strong and a certain amount of asthetics …
theres no right and wrong ways , and plenty of techniques and materials can work …
this is a constantly improving field …
but for everything ive been doing over the last few years , i keep coming back to the techniques i was using when i first got the system working around 98 , my boards do end up with a typical dry look and ive been chasing to elimate that ever since …
i was looking at ones that predate 97 which were handlay up on the outside , and they definatly look better under a close inspection …
hey peteuk , if you end up reading this thread …
whats your opinion on the look of the finished glass on that board you have , would you say on the top and bottom it looks unsightly with that slight dry look ???
im using different fabrics now to back then so its not as bad …
but ive come to except that finish , with the techniques im using now …
regards
BERT
hi Bert,
I can/t see that you could say that the finish on my board has a dry look at all, i would say the resin has a depth and showroom lustre , in fact i am struggling to understand how you have put so much glass and resin on this board and come out so light,
i have nearly finished another board at the moment and wish i could achieve your “dry” look ,
i have been reading as much as i can on vac bagging topics and thought some sort of resin infusion would work but i could see the thinness of the cloth fabrics we use to be a potential weak spot ,
i thought you could use the exhaust of the vac pump , filtererd obviously ,to pressurise the resin feed vessel with a suitable pressure regulator , maybe if the board was on end with the resin coming in from the bottom and the air out of the top the resin would fill the cloth on the way to the top,
does gravity and cappillary action still work in a vacuum ?
i don/t know if this vac bagging stuff is good for you really, all the different possibilities it opens up is good but my brain is begining to hurt and i can/t stop thinking about it , i think i need to make a poly board , nice and simple and i even like the smell!
pete
isnt the weave visable on yours??
i found when i was using this technique , the larger weaves were noticably drier looking so now i use multiple finer weaves instead of less thick weaves …
coz the thicker weaves breath more , you can suck more resin out under vacuum , hence the drier look …
even tho i get a decent shine , the weave was or should be more visable …
if it doesnt seem to worry you or if you even noticed , then maybe im just being to critical of what quality should look like …
no one has ever really complained , its just i know you get better cleaner results under handlam , if you want clarity and depth …
i know how your feeling pete , a few times along the road , i felt like just going back to poly for simplicity …
the thing that always stopped me …
just love the lightness , the twang and the feeling of livlyness under my feet , and the fact they last 10 times longer in comparison to similar weight in poly , if you can even get them that light in most cases …
i suppose it comes down to where it can all take you or what it can all offer down the track …
for me its my living …
even my own kids just found out the other day that i made conventional boards in the past when i was going through some old catalogs of boards where all the art was filed , they were surprised and wanted to know when all these boards were made …
my oldest boy is 10 and it was about then that my production went full sandwich …with a handfull of poly’s being made since , with my label …
my direction has been to firmly established to go back now …
also , your so right the possibilities are endless …
even tho i have my core systems in place , 1 in 4 boards and a whole range of different experiments still get done everyweek …
and each of them leads to another 100 things i want to try …
but at the end of it all it always either confirms that my core system is sound , because the experiment failed ,or it adds another tweak or improvement to the system …
regards
BERT
no more clues , ok maybe one …
resin feed doesnt work , it leaves massive wet spots and the vacuum still struggles to pull it into the job …
ive had to many disasters with force feeding …
the weave is visable but only if held to the light at an angle and you can see it in the water as well but i dont consider it to be a dry lamination,
i was only joking when i mentioned about going back to poly but i would like to to try a poly lamination over the the balsa sheathed core, it would make things easier to sand and polish and speed things up , i would like to make a fish again so i might try it with poly outer,
i will post some pics of my second board soon , pete
there are some really good reasons for not finishing in poly …
i strongly recomend you dont do it …
easier to make yes …
easier to ding , easier to get water in , easier to crack on repeated cycles of bending and flexing …
poor bond between timber and resin , poor completed finished product from a durability and performance point of view …
just trying to save you some longterm pain …
regards
BERT