Hi everyone,
I´m laminating an Agave surfboard. I made my homework and read A LOT before starting. Did a cheater coat to seal the pores. Lam as usual.
Everything went fine.
Came to check few hours later and it seems the wood just sucked all of the resin in many places. There´s big dry spots everywhere.
Can I prepare some more resin and try to fill those areas with a roller, maybe?
What should I do??
Also: Is there another way to seal the pores on such a porous and soft wood like Agave? I´ve read some use shellac.
How about varnish, something compatible with resin?
It might require several sealer coats before laminating. Meanwhile you might have some success doing another coat of laminating resin over your lamination and squeegee hard to get it through the glass. This might fill in some or all of the bubbles if you did a single layer of cloth. I would at least try it and if it doesn’t work, peel the cloth off and try to seal the agave better before proceeding. If it comes down to that, you might mix up some cabosil and resin, add a touch of tan colored pigment and see if that helps fill some of those pesky areas.
Hi John,
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
I will definitely try to squeegee some resin before peeling the cloth ( I was afraid of that )
Did not know about the cabosil trick. I just hope I do need to go that far.
I will try tomorrow and see how it goes
make a thick slurry using microballoons into a paste and sqeegee it on as a sealer or make a super thin sealer using 10% thinner like xylene to seal the pores but the more it sucks in the heavier it will get. the microballoon paste will seal the surface more than a penetrating thinned sealer
agave is like balsa or wiliwili
micro balloons are like glass so it will dry clearer than the other stuff
Hi Oneula,
Thanks for the tips.
This surfboard was intended to be 3 inches thick, but after I made the blank I thought it was too much, and went a bit thinner. I think I maybe went too close to the center of the stalk and the pores are way too open and soft in some places.
Anyhow… im learning a lot by doing it. Mainly the things to avoid in the future.
…hello; that is why all these type of boards are too heavy.
-You cannot fix 100% that dry lamination; you should peel off the layer.
After that, sand the shape to avoid possible sharp or not so smooth areas, then use a brush and apply styrene monomere, then apply another coat. Now apply a UV resin coat let it dry and sand it down, then apply another styrene monomere coat, let it dry a bit and proceed with the lamination.
The big problems are with hard woods; I have been testing all types of techniques and nurturing but without 100% of success, may be 90%.
On western red cedar I use a fine pore car wash sponge from the 99 cent store, washed and thoroughly dried and cut into smaller pieces with a clean chef’s knife, and then use this to spread epoxy around and push it into the pores of the wood.
The thirstier areas make themselves known pretty quickly, and I keep going over these either until they no longer appear thirsty or the epoxy starts thickening and the sponge starts falling apart, but 2.5oz of epoxy is usually more than enough on a 7 foot cedar board. This is not a cedar veneer vaccuumed on foam, but hollow construction.
No idea if this method is valid for Agave with polyester resin.
I’ve had no issues with dry laminations using this method, but Cedar is not Agave, and POlyester is not epoxy.
The only issues I’ve had with hardwoods and epoxy were with Pau Ferro. The bond strength was extremely poor, and using minwax oil based polyurethane on it on a non surfboard related project, well it would not cure. Water based was fine.
Hi i use ayou wood, it’s a porous one and i have same bubbles problem even with pre seal. So Now i start my lamination by spread a thin layer of a thick past made with epoxy and cabosil, i lay carrefully glass on it and finish lamination as usual. No more bubbles. Clear laminate.
Hi everyone,
Many thanks to all for sharing your knowledge and experiences.
I tried to fill the dry areas squeege-ing hard into the weave before attempting to peel the cloth.
It worked pretty fine, although, as REVERB said: it did not worked 100 %. I can see some tiny bubbles yet. But compared with the disaster it was, I think I will accept the deal.
I have another Agave board ready to be glassed, and it seems I´m going to use this one to make all the mistakes.
WRCSIXEIGHT, I did something similar at some places: I pulled off the sponge of a roller I had and just stayed there filling those thirsty areas until the resin started to kick. I thought I was doing something wrong. There was a place I would keep on filling and, after going around nursing other parts, I would come back to find it had sucked ALL in. It was frustrating.
That little spot took so much resin in there I couldn´t beleive it.
2.5 oz ?
Im ashamed of telling that I´ve used at least 25 oz on both deck and bottom to seal it (!!!). Two coats on deck and one on the bottom.
As the deck took soo much resin in, I just thought : ok, one pre coat, then the cloth, lets do it. Too bad.
I did not know about Cabosil. Probably working with denser resin will avoid the pores sucking a lot into them? That is so good to know before-hand for the next one.
Hi LEMAT, thanks for that one.
Do you add a bit of pigment as John has stated up here in the conversation, or mixed with the resin Cabosil just turns transparent?
The thing now is that, as I made another coat to fill the dry areas on the single layer of 4 oz at the bottom, I tried to take all of the excess off, but in some parts a thin layer remained.
Would I have to wipe the surface with styrene monomer before hot coating -to guarantee bonding properties- (?) or I just go for it?
It appears that the extra resin I poured to fill those areas has done what in spanish I think they call “orange skin” reaction. Some sort of contamination probably.
I don´t worry too much beacuse I just go over it with the Hot Coat and even the surface, right? Unless…
For those who didn´t realize yet, I´m lost in the darkness of resin´s realm
