I’m nearing completion of my first HWS and am facing a dilemma. I was going to glass the board in my garage but I have two young children at home and I’m worried about exposing them to fibreglass dust. How are you guys currently glassing at home and how do you protect you families from the harmfull dust?
I have read some posts by Roy about only using epoxy resin with no cloth. Anyone try this? Roy some input please. I’m following Paul’s method of construction.
How toxic is epoxy dust? I only seem to be able to find polyurethane resin and the health warnings regarding dust are terrifying!!
Dust is bad. At it’s least it itches at worst it is a serious health threat. Keep the kids out of the garage and wear protection. Get a good vac to clean up after your done. Make note that a vac needs to have a fine dust filter otherwise the finer particles (and most dangerous) just come out the exhaust!
5:30 in the morning here and I can’t sleep, why not talk epoxy?! With my HWS fish I had the same concerns regarding fiberglass, and built it around the concept that I would not be glassing. I think that this added a lot of weight, since in the end I think I used 8 coats on the bottom, and 6 on the top. At about 8 oz per coat of epoxy per side, that’s 7 lbs of weight. I only sanded the rails and bottom where I had the extra thickness of epoxy. My construction was with 1/4" western red cedar top and bottom decks, with 1" solid cedar rails. No inside glass on the decks.
The result: a very heavy very solid board. I’ve slipped on algae covered rocks on my way down to the water and hit the deck on the rocks and no ding. The board has been over the falls multiple times, and the only damage has ever been to my body not the board.
If you’re using cork/wood rails I’m not sure how well this would hold up over time without a laminate layer. Also, how thick are your skins, and did you glass the inside? This will make a difference. With wood, as far as I can tell from everything I’ve read in canoe books and here, epoxy is much better than PE resin. Another thought, is that if you are set on laminating it, but don’t want to use fiberglass, is use cloth. When I did my hemp longboard project, I used a 4.6 oz semi-bleached hemp with epoxy. I think roy has used cotton in the past as well. The top deck of the longboard is balsa, and the wood showed through beautifully. The hemp only added a slight tan tinge to the balsa, and I think that with a fully bleached cloth this would be less of an issue. Although, It’s much harder to work with than fiberglass. If you go the cloth route let me know, I’ll let you know exactly what worked and what didn’t.
Hi Antman, if you have cork rails then it’s probably a good idea to use cloth of some sort, otherwise (on harder wood) resin coating is fine, and doesn’t have to be heavier. What we do is brush resin on and sand between coats, usually three coats.
Re. epoxy dust it’s just like any other dust when it is cured, still a hazard but not poisonous.
What we do is brush resin on and sand between coats, usually three coats
Good to see you respond to this one Roy, you’re the man in this dept. Quick question: you’r boards hold up well with only 3 coats? If so, maybee I can go back and shed a couple pounds from the fish by sanding of a lot of that excess epoxy. I know you like heavy boards, but for my design I found that it was a drawback.
Actually sometimes we do more coats, but the weight of resin doesn’t depend on the number of coats, it all depends how much is sanded off each time, and also how much fairing needs to be done, if there are lots of peaks and hollows then more resin is needed, so it’s a bit misleading just going by the number of coats It sounds like you got plenty on there though.
Another point is that because the resin is runny and there is no cloth to hold it on vertical surfaces there tends to be less resin on the rails, also it’s easier to sand the rails so more gets sanded off . . . . the result being sand through to the wood and/or very thin coats on the rails. What we do is to take the deck coats right round the rail onto the bottom, and vice versa with bottom coats, that way there are twice as many coats on the rails.
I know that there are wooden boatbuildrrs out there finishing wooden hulls with straight epoxy, you might want to check out the woodenboat magazine forum for tips, I’m still a beginner really
This is an all plywood board. It’s my first board so I didn’t want to waste money on a failed attempt. Rails are layers of 3mm ply and skins are 3mm ply. I think I’ll need cloth because of the thickness of the skins but I’m gonna try and source some epoxy instead of poly. I’ve heard of guys sanding outdoors. Have you ever done this? I’m concerned about all that dust polluting the environment. I know it ends up there anyway but I’d feel better if it didn’t come directly from my back yard. I’m sure my neighbours would as well
I like the sound of the hemp cloth. I’ll have to see what I can find in deepest darkest Africa. Can you give me the links to some sites I can check out on the net.
How does your board surf? It must be awesome surfing something you made yourself. My board is strill dragging out. I’ve had soooo many interuptions. I spent 2 weeks in the states beginning of Dec. I was in Boston on business. And in 2 weeks time my wife is giving birth to my second daughter so I fear this board is going to drag out a little longer. I keep telling myself that the second one will go much faster!!
Hi Antman, sanding outdoors is a breeze, if you are worried about dust it is possible to wetsand if the board is sealed, at 4mm thick deck you will need some cloth, muslin is a good glassing cloth, or try a polyester boat cloth like Dynel or Xynole polyester cloth mind you any ploycotton from the material shop is good, if you want a 12 ounce equivalent cheesecloth is good, nice and stretchy, it can be pulled around curves but it takes a lot of resin. Yes epoxy not polyester resin.
Roy, stupid question time. Obviously plane white. Duh. But does the cloth go transparent? Will I still see the wood grain clearly and if I had a logo underneath would it show through?
it’s 4.6 oz semi-bleached hemp. Hemp is really expensive here in the US, though. Here’s the thread with the hemp longboard project so you can see what it looks like laminated:
I used Resin Research 2020 epoxy, which has more flex to accomidate the elongation of the cloth vs. fiberglass. I would think that a white muslin would be visible once you look closely, but not from a few feet away. I was told by Greg Loehr that their standard 2000 modulus could crack with hemp. I don’t know about other systems.
As for how my HWS fish surfs… not too well for where I surf and what I want to do. It’s so crowded in santa cruz that you really have to be able to slalom around people in the water, and the fish doesn’t turn quickly, and since it weighs 18 lbs is a bit dangerous in a crowd at my skill level. My current project is only 6 1/2 lb though… go compsand!
Hope this helped.
pat
P.S. Roy, I did the overlapping rails with the epoxy coats on my hws fish as well, so I guess they got about 14 coats total. I only sanded each coat lightly to help adhesion prior to the next one. If the board doesn’t ride better once I play with the fin setup I may do a bit more sanding.
