[quote="$1"]
I've glassed longboards with 12 oz. E-glass on the bottom and 18 oz. on the deck. I think this is "glassed heavy". I've done this for the following reasons:
1. I want my boards to last awhile.
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Good for you. Especially on a longboard. Once opon a time, I had a whole fleet of rental boards, glassed top and bottom with double 10 oz. And you know, a lot of 'em are still around today, well nigh 40 years later.
[quote="$1"]
2. Access at my local spot involves climbing over boulders. I don't want to have to do ding repair every time I bonk my board.
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Or when you drop it taking it out of the car, or in the doorframe coming out of the house, etc. Again, too few people think about that. My own boards are glassed lighter...and they're kneeboards.... but I'm near-religious about keeping them in padded board bags when they are not actually in the water. And even then, I go with the heaviest glass the maker offers.
Again, good for you. Thinking ahead isn't something a lot of people do. I was a ding repair guy for a long time, and most of the dings I saw were what I called 'garage dings', what happened when somebody was a little careless. Or the consequences of having a few of those and neglecting them.
[quote="$1"]
3. I'm not good at babying my stuff.
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Haaaaa - well, like I said, I'm a board bag fanatic. But I suspect I am the exception rather than the rule. The people who think they are good at babying their stuff ...usually ain't.
[quote="$1"]
My friend's shop seems to classify new boards as "glassed heavy" if they have anything over 4 oz on them, especially if they have a deck patch added on.
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Yeah, well..... he's going with what are 'industry standards' these days. Which means boards that get stomped to death in short order, delammed before their time and busted often if it gets any size to it.
[quote="$1"]
This got me wondering...am I overdoing it with the glass?
My sanding coat and hot coat are one and the same; I've just been doing fine sanding and buffing it out to save on resin and weight.
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Okay, I'm the antichrist here, maybe, but I would go with hotcoat/sanding coat and gloss. How come? Well, you might have less chance of getting a pinhole in the one coat, which in turn leads to a wee bit of water leakage, brown foam freckles and what have you. A few ounces, but it adds a little peace of mind at the very least.
[quote="$1"]
Any thoughts on what is considered a heavy glass job these days?
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Like you say, anything beyond 4 oz bottom, 6+4 deck seems to be called heavy. And...that's dumb. Or it's diabolically smart.
[quote="$1"]
Also, I'd appreciate any opinions on how to get a durable board without adding glass. Perhaps S-glass? Maybe not doing another resin coat is false economy? (I'm talking strictly polyester resin).
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Heh- carve it out of a solid wood beam?
Seriously, though, 'durable' is something the mainstream biz has abandoned. Light foam, light glassed boards are what they push, on account of how if a board lasts a long time it's going to be a long time before they sell another one. Dunno if that's an oversight or the 'diabolically smart' thing I mentioned above.
This is why the various molded boards from Asia are selling well, they hold up compared to what else is on the market.
The industry, again, is pushing 'lightweight boards, just like the pros use'...and while a pro can happily use up a board a week, you and I can't. We don't get our boards free. What little performance advantage there may be- and I'd question that, especially in a longboard , well, maybe a few pros can use it, but 99% of us will never notice it except when carrying it or replacing it. And...you gotta stomp a longboard to turn it, light or heavy. It's a freakin' longboard, after all. If you have light glass, you will stomp it to death in short order. heavy glass, well, you'll have it a while.
Are there ways to make a board stronger that don't only use heavier glass? Sure there are, including layers of heavier foam over top of your basic blank, which are sandwiched between a couple layers of glass, vaccum bagged and what have you. There are some weight advantages, yes. Not major weight advantages unless you have the underlying foam extra-extra light, though. Which in turn has it's own set of tradeoffs.
But, hey, you're using a simple shaped foam blank with plain old glass over it. Nothing wrong with that at all. You can do things like certain rail contours that you can't do easily otherwise. You don't need to vaccum bag it, a whole list of other things you don't have to do and a whole list of things that can go wrong that you don't have to worry about. Stick with what you're doing.
And, we are talking about a longboard here. What's the extra weight, 5-10 lbs? If you had a large lunch before you went surfing, that'd be nearly the same. How about wetsuit weight. Or, in my case, that spare tire I seem to have these days. Getting rid of that would make far more difference than a lousy few pounds of board.
[quote="$1"]
Thanks!
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Keep up the good work, man.
I, for one, would far rather see something like this question than the ones I see of 'I made my ultralight longboard, now why is it delaminating?' or 'Why do I have these stress cracks?' or 'why did my board break?'. Those are questions with a simple answer.....
...and you've found it.
doc...