How much shade is needed to prevent hardening while glassing? I was thinking about making a temporary lean-too with tarps so I could glass outdoors. It would be on the shady side of the house. I would like to do a longboard so my usual glassing set up won't work due to space constraints.
My experience under a cover outside (no walls) was that the resin still will kick. I wasn't glassing a board, but working on one and had time to do the repair, but the resin was still trying to go off. I'd say do a tester first and see how much time you have before the resin gets to the gell stage.
The answer is… a lot. I glassed a 7ft board inside a carport with a blue tarp covering the entrance and it went off wayyy too fast. I would recommend those gray supposedly “UV” tarps. Those should help a lot. I’ve only done a little bit of work with UV poly so maybe someone else has a more quantifiable and experienced answer.
I tried that with a pop-up tent. It had white sides, and it went off too fast. I’ve done it successfully with furniture blankets from home depot.
You could try the black plactic sheeting they sell there also. Just keep in mind you need ventilation. You don’t want to end up brain damaged from the fumes.
In short, any natural light will set it off.
very dark tarps
florecent lighting
ventalation
I do it in my garage, if the garage is open the refracted light will kick the resin fast enough to screw things up, on a longboard, I can do up a short board ,no problem
NO SUNLIGHT !!!
absolutely NO tents or tarps or anything. Indoors or it will kick. Or if it’s warm enough, do it at night (add hardener).
Like jjlam said, not outdoors. if your gonna do it at night kick it with Mekp in 30 min. Youmight as well use normal lam resin though. Bugs suck too. Lay down some roofing felt in your garage, lam, then roll it back up for your next project.
when UV kicks, it kicks rock hard in a matter of seconds, don't cut corners!!!!!
I glassed a 7 ft board back when I was doing more poly glass jobs. I had a shop with windows on the sides, but the garage door was shut. I did it early am around 7:30 so the UV would be low.
It kicked off in about 5-7 minutes. I was hauling ass to get the lam done. The last bit of the rail wraps were starting to go booger snot when I finished.....I went back for a touch up, and the resin had turned Gumby.
You better be pretty confident in your glassing abilitys if you have any light in the mix.......But I say go for it...and make a video to show us the mayhem!
I wish I had the space to do things right. I've worked outdoors with poliester and hardener and did not like working with it in the summer heat. I like the idea of working with sun-cure but don't have a garage or other suitable space available.
So one of these $200 portable sheds wouldn't cut it?
A good way to test it is to seal it up with tarps and stuff on ALL sides. Next, test sun exposure and different times of the day (as the sun is changing position throughout the day). You should be standing in your shed mid day, and barely be able to see your hand in front of your face.
Once you got that dialed, get a light or two in there, and test a batch on a scrap piece of foam.
Howzit mako, Any sunlight be it direct or indirect will make the resin kickoff. I have even taken boards out after the sun went behind the mountains and it still kicked off because of refracting light. You have to do it in an area where there is no sunlight of any kind and only light bulbs for light. Aloha,Kokua
Take Kokua’s advice on this one, or just use MEKP. Why set yourself up to fail. UV light will go right through tarps and reflected light will kick it also. It can be done, but my first rule of making surfboards is to control as many variables as possible, because things do go wrong. Under tarps is fine for making surfboards but as a rule not with UV curing resins.
No… that shed won’t cut it.
No ambient light.
mako
check out you tube...search something like solarez surfboard glassing....you'll see a guy from solarez going through the glassing process undercover in a carport, with only a blue tarp at one end??!!!
I glass in a totally UV free (except for flouro lights which only give off very little UV) area, under flouro lights and dont seem to have a problem...not sure if warmer weather (winter here at the moment) would affect it though??
best bet...do a little tester!!
cheers marty
yes… I’ve seen that SolarEZ video… See bottom of page
http://greenlightsurfsupply.com/solarez-uv-cure-polyester-resin-pint-1.aspx
Amazed that there was no respirator and amazed that the resin didn’t kick.The guy basically had one side of the Lean-to open to sunlight.
Drew