Great! Now How am I Gonna Glass It?!

General Discussion
1

I like wood boards – Timberline, Blundell, Hess, Jensen, all the stuff on Sways and T2S – amazing.  The beauty, craftsmanship, eco-factor etc.  make this genre incredibly appealing to me.  One problem though that’s been bugging me for a while now:  Every time I’m headed to the beach and craving some air time or just a smash-bang session, I find myself leaving my wood board in the shed and grabbing the 5’11” stringerless EPS/epoxy shortboard.  I know they don’t get much lighter than that, but I also don’t believe that a board that light is going to provide me with the same amount of down-the-line momentum as say my 6’6”, 11 lb wooden single fin.  Granted, I have accumulated a little air time on that particular board – 50% on the flight to Oaxaca and 50% getting pitched onto the sandbar at Escondido. 

 

  And can you believe I got stung by a G.d. scorpion the next morning?!  !Viva la Mexico!

   

 OK – realize I’m getting a bit off topic here. 

 

What I need are some ideas pertaining to a build method I came up with and prototyped over the past couple days.   I’ve been planning on building a wooden rocket-type fish for a while now but kept putting it off because of tedious and wasteful wood building methods, flex, and weight issues.  Well, a couple nights ago I had one of those ‘in the shower / 2 glasses of Affligem Trippel’ flashes of inspiration.  The frame build came together lightning fast, between glassing up some fins yesterday and today. However, now that I’m about to drop a 1# EPS core into it, I can’t help wondering how I’m going to glass those rails without setting the board on edge and getting puddles of epoxy on top of every strip, or glassing it upright and having to fill a bunch of dry weave and valleys in the voids. 

 

The best solution I’ve come up with so far is to heat shrink some heavy painter’s  plastic around the rails, single 4oz glass, popping of the glass, stripping the plastic, then vac-bagging the glass cove back onto the rails. . .Here’s some pics of the frame, weighing in at 2 3/4lb with mahogany nose and tail blocks unshaped (Can’t help but wonder what it would weight without the mahogany, but I’m a real sucker for nice wood)  

 

   

 

  Well, any ideas -even the crazy ones (that how I ended up here)- are much appreciated.  Thanks.

2

That's an intriguing idea there .... molding the glass to the rail and reattaching.  One concern is that the plastic might conform to the open spaces and leave dips? Then again, with shrink wrap, maybe it'll pull tight.  Give it a try!

3

why not cover the rails with really thin balsa or a veneer before glassing?

4

could u fill the voids with some of the foam in a can stuff, shrinkwrap, glass, pop off the glass, remove foam then vacuum the rail glass back on?

5

Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing John, and will probably just try a small section first.  About covering the rails: definitely a consideration, but then the cool factor suffers . . . OK - real reason is that I've never wrapped veneer around rails, and the unbacked Tamo Ash veneer I'm using for the deck and bottom would be a nightmare for a first try.

6

niiice Camplus!

what about gravity and seran wrap? one rail at a time.

7

I think Keith Melville has provided the best solution to your ''problem.''

8

Thanks chrisp.  I'm thinking plastic, gravity, and one-at-a-time will be my friend here too.  And, the more I'm looking at it the less I want to cover or hide the rail construction.  I'm thinking that even the light passing throught the rails will at least mentally lighten it up . . . 

9

word ;)

10

I don’t have any words of wisdom to offer, but it’s an intriguing rail build-out.

My first thoughts after your mention of wanting a “light” wood board is why then put a heavy wood out at the end of the nose, which is the worst possible spot to put dead swing weight on a light high performance boad.

How much weight do you think you’ve saved by doing the staggered rail build-out versus a solid one? I’m assuming it’s balsa. Seems like for the work and effort it would be much quicker/easier to hand pick some super-light balsa to use and just do solid rails. I’m a big fan of KISS, complexity usually just adds weight.

With all that said, you should be able to just glass right over the voids. Check out the guy who does the cardboard core honeycomb boards: http://www.sheldrake.net/cardboards/. He’s glassing over voids with good results it seems. Maybe you can get in touch with him and see if he’ll share any usefull tips. He may actually post on here.

Curious to see how this one comes out. Please keep us updated.

BTW, thanks for the DIY fin base molding tips. I’m hoping to put some on this weekend.

11

Hold up lawless - I thought you didn't have any words of wisdom to offer, but then you start droppin' trufe bombs.  Good points brought up, and I agree with you on the heavy wood blocks.  I think next time I'll make those from cedar like the rail strips. This time around I'll shape them and chamber the bulk.  However, I think having a denser wood on the perimeter will offer some impact resistance and a little stiffness in the construction. 

Now about the balsa - stuff is expensive + shipping, and I'd be wasting quite a bit in a solid rail build. I built the frame above with a single 1x6x8ft board of cedar, and had enough left to make the blocks. Don't get me wrong, I'd really like to get my hands on some balsa and paulownia lumber, but I'm holding out for my home-grown trees to mature.  

Weight saved? - I'm thinking a couple pounds. Next time more.  Also, good call on the cardboard/honeycomb guy.  Someone pm'd me and brought up his name.  Checked out his website, and he's gotten pretty good at getting that glass smooth.  I'm really trying to avoid mine ending up like his #1 prototype in the photo.  I'm definitely going to try to squeeze some info out of him. 

Thanks for keepin' an eye out.  Good luck on those fin bases. 

12

Here’s a trick -

Get some rice paper, spray tack it on around the rails, use a light dusting of 3M Super 77 spray adhesive.

Then you can glass straight over it, and the resin shouldn’t drip through.

The main prob is that you’ll maybe get some sagging into the voids, but you’ve got that problem with the other methods that have been put forward anyway…

 

13

Smart trick KK - direct and to the point.  I decided this morning to build a small rail section (2') out of scrap and try out the ideas proposed buy the Sways guys.  Good stuff as expected, and most worth trying.  So, I'll give them all a shot this evening and post the results. 

 

Thanks again guys.

14

Well, for anybody interested, I ran the rail-glassing experiment last night and came out with some pretty interesting and unexpected results.  Here's some shots of the mock rail with a variety of lay-up techniques using a single layer of 6oz glass.  From left to right, they are:

1 - over heat-shrunk vinyl

2 - over stretched and tacked tissue paper

3 - veneer wrap w/ tape clamping

4 - direct layup over voids

 

Sorry - just realized that in the cross-section scan above, #3 & #4 are switched.  3 - direct layup  4- veneer.

 

I had originally planned on going with my first idea - stretched plastic.  However, you'll notice that sample #1 shows a bit of cupping in the voids.  The heat-shrunk vinyl layer drew into the voids slightly, and adhesion between it and the glass layup projected the cupping.  Also, the tedium I avoided in the wood build would definitely show up in glassing the rails this way. 

Sample #2 - paper wrap - showed some great promise during layup, but as the resin flowed, the paper that was tight before saturation began to sag underneath the glass layer (top photo shows it best).  The glass conformity on it looks great inside and out, but that optical effect is just not working. 

The direct lay-up method, which was the control as I expected it to be a horrible failure, turned out much like the paper wrap sample.  No pooling as expected but a very slight fillet in the corners, which might be beneficial as a 'key' between the strips.  An interesting consideration about the direct layup (and the others) is that the glass I used was of a particularly high thread count (45x31), and pretty stiff.  I think the glass selection in this case had a lot to do with the success of the cured weave saturation, and rail curve conformity in all samples. 

The veneer worked okay, but probably would have been much better if I'd prepped it with some 2oz glass backing, or used a more pliable wood type.  The veneer pictured is 1/42" unbacked tamo ash with highly-figured, irregular grain pattern.  Could probably get it to work on a straight rail section, but really foul it up on the compound curves.  Definitely a choice for the seasoned veneer/vac-bag pro. 

Well, thanks again to everybody who contributed to this thread and encouraged the experimentation.  Like lawless, I too am becoming a KISS fan (though not their newer stuff - so bubble-gummy and pop oriented). 

15

Awesome work, Im wondering how it would work if you just cut the vinyl wide enough to cover both slits (top and bottom) along the rails.  This would allow you to make a cleaner adhesion between the glass and wood, and still allow for the light to shine through the slits.  Use 4oz glass first, then a layer of 6oz on top? 

Love what your doing so far.

16

Im likin the direct layup method

you may be able to achieve a drum skin effect by weighting the perimeter of the cloth overhang and cutting the lam at the center of rail apex, do the same for the other side then another layer to overlap

 

food for thought

17

Just when I thought the good idea pool was dried up . . . Thanks again guys, I’ll keep plugging away at this one until I reach that balance. 

18

hi mike, 

just in case you haven’t decided on a final rail finishing method yet, how about using woven plant fiber?

coat one side with a sealing solution (i use a local acrylic-based, water-soluble roof sealant that flexes yet stays impermeable) and let dry. then coat your rails all around with contact cement, let it sit until tacky, then stick on the woven plant fiber on its sealed side, untreated side facing out, wrapping the ends inside the frame. the weave should add an interesting touch to your frame once glassed.

if you don’t have any grass mats where you’re based, how about a pair of faded jeans you don’t use anymore? a pant leg should suffice for both rails, though if you want to feature the stitching as a rail design feature, you’ll need to use both legs " )

cheers

19

just realized you may actually prefer letting the wood grain shine through the glassing, in which case if you have access to what we in the philippines call “barong” fabric, you could use it in place of woven plant fiber or your old jeans, same method as i suggested earlier.

btw barong is the formal men’s shirt worn here on special occasions (like weddings, senate appearances-- even for burial), handmade from fine plant fibers like pineapple, banana and abaca. expensive but really worth it. here’s quentin tarantino showin’ off hehe :

20

Hey surfiber,  I like your green and sustainable thinking, and believe that once I get past the visual novelty of the rails being half empty I'll take you up on some of those ideas.  Only problem is that I don't wear jeans - I'm a khaki guy.  Just Kidding. I do have a small stash of some of the best quality woven palm mat I could find in Mexico lined up for just such an occasion.  Thanks for the reply.