There are a series of videos called ‘Custom Construction/ Poor Man’s vacuum’. I saw this on the ‘Zone’ where they had gotten it from the ‘Breeze’.
He shows how to set rocker on a stringerless EPS SUP without vacuum bagging. He also shows how to do HD foam inserts, cut lap / grind lap, selective carbon fiber reinforcements, rice papers on top of color work, capping fin boxes with glass, adding glass nose and tail for sanding forgiveness, adding silica and spheres to epoxy…
For the fans of the ‘cheater coat’, he offers a wet-on-wet alternative in the last video. It’s be neat to know if anyone here has had success doing this.
I thought others might appreciate the glimpse into his shop and methods. I have no connection with JL.
I’d try to embed the videos but the buttons in the editor are still missing.
Thank’s for posting that. Interesting techniques. Not my cup of tea. Very labor intensive and time consuming. None the less, I learned a few things from his methods. That’s what this place should be all about.
This guy knows his stuff and has gone thru it all on the Island of Maui. Never knew the back story, but there must have been a Bing connection because he turns out a Nuiaha(sp) Noserider better than anyone and that includes Calvani. Surfer,Windsurfer and SUP. I believe his SUPs are Vietnam Nam production. But he knows the process. I heard that he had a brother that used to do his glassing. Until his SUPs got popular; you had to have visited or lived on Maui to even know who he was. But believe me; Most people in the Surf Industry know who he is. Used to surf with him at Ukumehame from time to time. He has a niece in the Northwest that reps his product. Lowel
Very informative. Also a lot of those processes seem very time-consuming, although I imagine they yield consistent high quality results. No wonder most of his sups are made in Asia. Massive labor needs. A few takeaways:
The cabosil-infused “cheater coat” squeegied on between the lamination and hot coat. Including the “tape smear” around the rails. hmm
Sanding his hot coat with 40-60-100 Grit! Ballsy.
Polyester gloss coat (pigmented, no less!) over the sanded hot-coat.
I used or still use all of this tech. Learned then as i spend some times in a hi tech composit workshop (airplane parts, competion car and boat parts) when i was studdent.
Instead of thin plastic i use for RC airplane wings i turn to peel ply for surf, better on rails. I use the cabosil cheater but one day i have some lightly yellow cabosil that turn blueish resin green so i go with epoxy alone and it work as well for me but i seal my blank before lam so no pinholes in lam. I like more roller than brush with glass. I sand my hotcoat with 40grit too but with a forecd roto orbital sander. I use poly finsh too.
Great videos, this guy knows his stuff. What thickness/type of sheet plastic is he using? It seems very thin and light yet durable enough to withstand the squeegee pull. I could def. incorporate that technique in my low tech setup, especially since I do stuff outdoors one board at time. This might decrease my overall “bug in lam” count! Ha ha
I really appreciate this video. The process is roughly the one I was trying… didn’t work out so well for me haha
No release agent on the plastic? When I tried this the plastic just stuck to the epoxy. What slightly stretchy plastic is this?
Why not sand bags as weights?
Why not epoxy the foam first before laying on the glass rather than trying to saturate all layers from the top?
Why when he presses hard with the squegee it doesn’t go dry like it did with me?
Faring down between the laps to remove the tape was hard for me. I cut into the foam a few times. Orbital sander. He say’s ‘And it’s gonna crack right along there’ when lifting the masking tape. For me it didn’t, the tape just tore.
He puts glass and then resin over the leash plug. He runs the brush straight over the plug - why doesn’t resin run into the plug? I guess it’s masked off?
When I did the hotcoat I kept getting drips. When I used masking tape to try to stop that the masking tape gets resinned down and I couldn’t release it without tearing and generally making a mess.
Coat for filling holes (cabosil),
Hotcoat to allow something to be sanded.
Gloss coat for…?
^ can this be reduced for a test board? Poly gloss surely increasing spider crack risk?
Perhaps cabosil could be replaced with a flour mix for remote shapers.
For plastic i use a thin polyéthylène film found it in homedepot paint products, sold for laying on chair, table etc as protection. I also use nylon for parcking but too stretchy. No need release agent with those plastics.
Seems to have no problems for laminate all glass and foam in one go over, he was not so conservative with resin. Technic dépend of resin viscosity and cured time, and kind of fiber. With thick and/or tight fiber resin under is the Industry standard process. he only press hard over plastic sheet wich avoid drying glass too much. Sand fairing is a trick that work realy well when you just cut fiber but not scotch, need a cured resin, not gummy under sander. Poly finish on well prép epoxy only spider crack if well dinged.
Jimmy Lewis added 2 new photos.
May 4 at 4:50pm ·
Just finished this 7’ X 24" stand up for Derek Hamasaki from Oahu! I’ve done lots of pinlines in my life but I must say that I got my style (or should I say I STOLE the style) from a guy whose nick name was Nuclear Norman. I feel a little guilty because I don’t know his last name… He worked at the Doug Haut shop in Santa Cruz when I lived there in 1970. I used to snoop around there to learn how to make boards. While I’m at it I need to give the glasser, Bob Cates, who I never really met except for spying on him when he was glassing credit for the glassing strokes I use to this day. I got all of my squeegee moves from watching Bob Cates laminating boards at the Haut shop. The shaping and design genius, Greg Griffen gave me my basic design principles without which, who knows what would have happened. I’m grateful to those three guys, all who were in Santa Cruise that year I was there, who turned my first attempts at making boards into some real skills that they had already mastered. Aloha, Norman, Bob and Greg!!!
I don’t thing he was removing much if any resin by squeegying over the plastic. If anything he was tightening things up and pushing the resin deeper into the foam.
The beauty of the plastic is that it draws some of the resin to the surface of the laminate and creates a smooth film of resin that fills the interstices of the weave. Then the fill coat can be thinner, which reduces weight. In some cases you can avoid a fill coat altogether.
Gdaddy has done similar with his vacuum bagging directly to the laminate.
Looked like that 0.5 mil cheap plastic painting floor cover. I use the same stuff when laying up stringers and Gorilla Glue and various epoxies do not stick to this plastic.
There are two reasons to use the plastic sheet.
First, because when you press hard, it doesn’t drag the cloth with the squeegee.
Second, is it prevents pin holes in a dry laminate. If you squeegee out too much epoxy, air will fill in the voids where the epoxy was removed. The plastic doesn’t allow in the air.
