After reading how Markyv bags on his glass I had to give it a try. I figured that I didn’t have much to lose since I’m not a great traditional glasser (one completed board hardly makes me a pro 
). I decided to glass on both sides at the same time. I am extremely happy with how it turned out! The lap lines are very smooth and nearly invisible. However, I have a few things to work on for next time: I had a dry spot (which was fixable) on the bottom from were I flipped the board, and a few to many wrinkles ( the top looked great but the bottom needed a little help from the sandpaper). I did one thing differently from Markyv. Instead of wetting out the glass on the board I folded it up into a little package (like Bert showed in the bagging thread), poured the resin on, let it soak through, then unfolded it on the board. I found it way easier to wet out the cloth this way (as I mentioned, I not a good glasser and it always took way to much resin(and mess) to adequately wet out the glass). I can’t imagine that I will ever traditionally glass a board again.
can you offer any tips/lessons learned beyond Markyv gave? any pictures? thoughts on what you would do differently?
How’d you do the vacuum?
use the bored out PVC pipe technique?
That seems to be the difficult part aside from minimizing the wrinkles
It turned out to be easier that I expected. I used the perferated release film and the paper towels as was recommended, but I intended to use the shade cloth that I always use. I got distracted and forgot to put it on so I no breather but the towels. It pulled the best vacumm I’ve ever managed. I was very happy with how it worked folding the glass up into a 1 ft. by 6 inch square, wetting it out, then unfolding it on the board. The coverage was much more complete with way less resin than I ever managed. The key is in how you fold it. Make sure the frayed edges are in the middle when you fold it up. I need to work up a way to get less wrinkles. They sanded out fine but I would like to reduce their number next time. I was working on the board most of the day and I couldn’t get over how much better this glass job was than my last. I didn’t take pictures this time because I was a little freaked out by the process.
very cool…
curious…can you pull the glass tight using that method?
man i hate f__k’n with wet glass but thats a nice trick…
It took a bit of fussing but once I got the hang of it it went really smoothly. I’m just hotcoating the bottom of the board and I can’t believe what a difference it makes (I must have been an even worse glasser than I thought I was). With the traditional lay up I had hundreds of tiny bubble when I hotcoated. This time just a few. I bet the first time I left the lam too dry.
I think this is the description of the Markyv technique you followed
http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=216893#216893
sounds good Dan
What was the glassing schedule?
single 4 bottom 6+4 top?
or single top single bottom cause you glassed under the wood?
Also how you’s handle the laps?
lap bottom and top or just top?
I have allot of perforated release film left so I’d like to give it another try to…
The problem I see is not being able to see through your breather/absorbant material paper towel etc etc…inorder to smooth out the wrinkles as the vacuum pulls.
would be neat if someone could come up with a transparant absorbant material that you could see through like you can with the perforated release.
But thanks…this is definitely good news…
a step towards a lighter and tighter(pressure applied) glass job than you can get freehand…
Not the stuff bert’s up to with his pressure/heat sealed skins but a step closer
When you put down the release/breather film it is there to stay. As far as I can tell there is no way to adjust it under vacumm. What you need to make sure of is that your release film is super smooth before you cover it with the paper tails. This is where I think I went wrong. The top was still very wet when I put the film on and I mess around until it was very smooth. The bottom was starting to gell a little so I rushed it and that was where the wrinkles showed up. However, once I sanded them they were invisiable under the hotcoat.
I did the top and bottom laps as free laps. They are so clear that I really have to look hard to see them. There were places where I had little folds or bumps in one of the laps and the vacumm made them go away. I’m truely amazed. There was no drama at all… at least at this point.
The drama came after the bottom hotcoat was 80% dry. the hotcoat was looking really good and I decided to go for one of my poor man’s hotboxes to speed up the cure (my hotbox is taking it outside on a nice sunny day and letting it bake in the sun). This method worked great for me when I did my fins (2 hour cure times), but I knew something wasn’t good when my wife came in after it had been in the sun for 10 minutes and asked if there should be all those bubbles on the board. Its going to be salvagable, but its frustrating to see my best work destroy itself. So boys and girls, the lesson for today is DON’T LET YOUR BOARD CURE OUTSIDE ON A NICE SUNNY DAY!.
Thats the thread I followed. However, I did run the pump at lower levels (8-13). I’m so happy he posted it!
Not trying to hi-jack the thread, but I have found and excellent & free breather/bleeder cloth - old carpet. The stuff I used was coming out of my office and headed for the the dumpster. In the spirit of reduce, reuse & recycle, I grabbed a chunk.
The carpet is the thin nylon loop stuff that is ubiquitous in offices across the country. In order to minimize handling time during lay-up, I cut the carpet to shape, and used spray glue to attach the perf film to the carpet face. Then I trimmed the perf film the carpet template. This gave me a single layer to roll out on the wet glass that has enough body to handle well. No wrinkles.
I did this on a skim board, not a “real” surf board, so your results may vary.
Coyote
The conformability of carpet seems a little stiff for the rails of a surfboard, not really an issue for a skim.
DanB: Just how hot was your nice sunny day? I was planning on doing the exact same thing. What do you think went wrong? I assume the boad was not in a vac bag since it was just a hot coat. Also, I was kind of thinking that bagging the outer glass would let you get away with out a hot coat, but if the board is still able to out gas through the lam layer then a hot coat is obviously necessary. I think the problem was that the board was relatively cool, you coated it and put it in the sun, then the board heated up, air expanded inside and pushed bubbles through the lam. So, having the board already up to temperature in the sun before putting on the hot coat and then keeping the board at a fairly constant temp should prevent this.
I had already drilled a 3/4" hole on the deck of the board to act as a breather so if the board was going to outgas anywhere I think it would have been through that giant hole. There was only about a 5-10 degree difference between my garage and the outside and I had done it with my fins on a way hotter day. I’m perplexed, but I’m not sure that I learned my lesson. When I was sanding my hotcoat I went a little crazy (exceeded my ability) and sanded through the glass. I patched it but didn’t feel like waiting for the resin to harden. SO, the patch is currently sitting under a halogen light (about a 1 1/2 away. I’m curious how it will go.
DanB
So glad my post was of help, It takes a leap of faith to decide to do both sides at once, I definately thought long and hard about it. I wet my glass out on the board usung a 4" mohair roller and use a measured amount of resin taking care not to wet out too much, if it is too wet things start sliding about! If you get the release film tight and wrinkle free and then tape the towels where needed, that is half the battle won. then I pull all the excess bag down to the bottom of the rails(assuming deck lam done after bottom), this way the bag should flatten the rails down nicely. I always have some wrinkles, but they are usually just resin. All I need is some RR epoxy!!!
I am hoping to lam the 6’1" next week, so should have some pictures if I remember.
Cheers and good luck
Mark
All my wrinkles were also just resin so the sanded out really easy. Next time I need to pick up the speed.
a good cheap substitute for breather is cotton bead sheets. just cut them to the size of your bag and spray adhes them into your bag and off you go. also since the sheets are pretty thin, the resin wont take shape to the texture of the sheets.
Brilliant, isn’t vac bagging a gas (or lack of it). It’s only a small step to resin infusion which is even cooler. boy me and infusion is like Tombloke and speed!!