Hi everybody
I´m about to finish my second agave surfboard.
The lamination went fine. I did three coats to seal the pores. No dry spots on the weave. No bubbles.
So yesterday I went for the hot coat. I´m far of being an experienced glasser, but I do get the point of not screwing too much on that stage.
As far as I know , everything was looking pretty good when I left the board.
So today I go to check and here is what I found:
1-there´s some small parts where the cloth is showing (under the hot coat). Like it was a too-dry lamination. (It wasn´t like that before hot coating).
and
2-it is full of tiny bubbles everywhere. I mean, not just a few, but soo many…
Not sure if it is under the lamination or between the cloth and the upper coat of resin-wax.
3-what are those white wax crater-like holes?
I know i´m supposed to be using epoxy for laminating over wood.
I could not get it and, after talking to some guys that did used polyester on agave, just went for it.
I´m working on a super basic shack . Nylon walls, outside, under a metal sheet roof.
It was on the evening, 18 celsius, 64.4 farenheit. So I used more mekp of what the bottle of resin said. 350 grams of resin- 15 cc mekp.
When I was done with hot coating the wind started to blow hard and some rain appeared out of nowhere. It did not get over the board, but it was a bit of a change all toghether.
also doing cheater coats I used more catalyst, maybe 4%, trying to make the resin kick before it was sucked into the wood. (bad idea?)
something else: three sealer coats did build up a bit. I was wondering if this could have prevented the cloth properly bonding to the wood.
such an annoying bunch of issues to share, I know.
But it would be great to know how to avoid this in the future, because i´m loving and really enjoing working with this wood.
…the cristallization is a very difficult thing to fight and I still do not have any remedy to prevent it after 30 years building boards; the worst scenerios is with hardwoods on tailblocks and fins. You can do all the tricks and somehow from time to time you can have some on the parts that are accumulation of cloth, or too much color (paint)
I really think is a thing of countries with a non dry climate.
In the case of those micro bubbles occurred because the lamination gelled too soon then the hot coat cannot enter pretty good there. Also, other % occurred due to gassing.
–You do not have gassing on the bottom and only have cristallization there over a stringer.
-normally you do the bottom first.
reverb,
i´m paying attention to your words.
so it seems i´m condemned to cristallization, being at never dry land, also known as “the coast of Argentina”.
i´m already worried. I used the same amount of mekp on the bottom.
how do I prevent gassing?
(how come you don´t have gassing on the bottom?)
I mean, I thought gassing was a problem when lamination. that´s why I did it with outside temperature going down.
hot coat was the same. even cooler.
maybe the resin went too hot with so much mekp
Agave is very porous. Possibly 4 sealer coats might have done the trick. Glass during decreasing temperatures and be ready with a ‘cheater’ coat - an extra layer of lamination resin squeegeed hard after the initial fiberglass lamination. You may be able to squeegee some lamination resin in to the existing pin holes(?) Epoxy or poly - doesn’t really matter. Some woods are like a sponge.
Hi John, I remember you gave that trick of squeegeeing hard over the lamination to fill some dry areas. It saved me on my first try on agave.
Now I was surprised, because lamination was good. No dry spots. But after hot coating appeared many bubbles and those crystallized areas.
Next time i´m gonna do one extra sealer coat, just to be sure.
maybe this will prevent gassing? if gas reach the surface is because pores are still open, I suppose
Thanks everysurfer.
I´ve read about shellac and actually went to buy some. But I had this small bottle in my hand and the stuff was so liquid (water-like) I thought I would need quite a few, working with such a porous wood. There was shellac in flakes also. Maybe that could work? preparing the stuff to a more viscous solution.
