Dog,
Still working on getting my 3 inch laps to one nose cut but dang can’t seem to get it. What cloth do you use and and how much excess do you hang to get enough pull to make it around the bend? Do you work it before during after wetting out the laps?
See even after 6 years and hundreds of boards I hope to still learn a thing or two!
Troy
Howzit TS, Are you trying to wrap 3" of cloth around the nose? I don’t see any reason for that much glass in the nose area unless it’s a pigment or tint layup. I usually taper the glass cut at the nose and tail, but it’s not neccessary when it comes to wrapping the nose. It’s all in the squeegee technique. As you wrap you need to angle the squeegee so it’s pushing the glass inward and foreward at the same time, Kind of hard to explain this. If I’m not wrong you and Austin do a lot of taped off layups which should actually make it easier to wrap. I do almost 100% free lapping and it’s a little harder to wrap them. With 3" of glass to wrap a big relief cut would definitly help. Do you have any pics of a board with the 3" lap. Bet it’s getting cold in your area these days, I have a good friend who lives in W.Va. and she says Brr in her e-mails to me.Aloha,Kokua
glad to see I’m not the only one strugling with my nose/tail laps.
I too like big tint laps. I’ve got 4 boards all with big thick tinted laps, and struggled with all 4.
maybe someone would be willing to do some drawings or picture of their releif cuts for a longboard nose and both square and pin tail. had a heck of a time with my fish twin pins.
Kokua,
In the last 100 boards I think we have done one clear one! With 3 inch laps (volan) I am able to get down to two relief cuts on each side but I really want to get it down to one in the center on the nose. All our 3 inch laps are cut laps. On the board below I circled where I currently make my cuts but I really want to get it down where you don’t see the cuts. I know gene (cooper) can do it and I remember that you said you can do it. Guess I might have to
fly back to Kaui to see you action!
If you can do it with ONE cut, you are truly a messager of saturated cloth.
I only glassed 115 or so, would normally go for 2 cuts each side, + the stringer cut.
But believe it or not, I’ve never shaped a surfboard, out of over 400, with that wide a nose!
Obviously, no funboards, no logs, no longboards.
Lee,
If you look at Gene’s boards you can’t really see any cuts on the deck of his boards. You can sometimes see a cut on the nose and a cut at each corner of the tail but then sometimes you don’t see any cuts. Not really sure. Any ideas?
Troy
I gotta take a look at one of them thar Cooperfish’s
Off topic, but…are your boards called “Placebo”? Do you have a trademark? Could be very valuable…
Howzit TS, First that’s another beautiful board you’ve made. I like the work you and Austin do with the old style classic boards, brings back good memories. Now back to the subject of relief cuts. I think they are easier for me since that was what we were doing when I learned the art. I think a big vee cut would work, but before making the cut try wrapping the glass to see how big the cut needs to be and still overlap a tiny bit, then see if you can wrap it with out getting any kinks in the glass. If you can do this you are on your way. the trick is to be able to wrap and and slightly twist your squeegee so the weave tightens instead of kinking. It’s a lot easier to do on cut laps than free laps because with free laps you will get a lot of glass strings but with cut laps the strings will be past the tape and go away when you trim the glass. It’s kind of hard to explain with out showing it, but it’s a squeegee technique that is a some what lost art. These days my free lapped noses are only about 1 1/2" but the technique is the same and I only do 1 cut at the center of the nose. Never realized it was so hard to do for others. I will try and do a drawing of the technique and post it for you. I can see in the ppic where the relief cuts are because it looks like the pigment is a little lighter color from sanding where the cuts overlap. Keep up the great work.Aloha,Kokua
Kokua,
Your ability and your adherence to real craftsmanship amazes me. I’m currently working with epoxy and I have to admit, the ability to even get the glass to wrap on the nose and tail (cut long or short) is a tough nut to crack. One thing that I’ve found is that if you let the epoxy cure for about an hour you can come back and form the glass on the nose by hand. The glass, fully wet and somewhat hardened, is almost like clay. TSaunders you might experiment with this approach when you do your next nose without too many cuts. Worse comes to worse, you may end up doing some sanding because this approach takes some trial and error. Good Luck and continue your spirit of true craftsmanship.
Rusty
Nice board mang!!!
I pretty much only do tints as well.
I used to do two or three cuts on each side of the nose and tial and was not at all peased with the color disparity. So I committed to jsut a single cut at the apex of the nose and tail (pin…square tial then you need two cuts at each corner).
2, techniques have worked for me. I trim as much cloth as possible to the tape line. The less cloth overhanging, the easier it is. Also I nstead of a nothc I cut a small vee at the apexes of nose and tail. Not a big vee maybe tapers to about an inch on the overhang. This reduces the overlap of the two sides of the noctch.
The other techique is how you squeegee.
sart from the middle obviously, and then go all the way till about the 12 - 14 inches from the nose (a little less for tail). I then start from the very apex o the nose and fold under the side of the notch and wok my way backwards to meet the section that I ahve already lapped under.
I did a quick guide to go off of that more or less captures my technique:
Just follow the numbers!
The arrows are the direction i am folding the cloth under with my squeegee, this is the key to getting a good solid color on the laps with jsut the one cut.
I still ahve some slight color variation on the tip of the nose, but my laps are now a world better than what they used to be. Not GENE COOPER yet, but I’m working on it.
Hope that helps.
Drew
Drew, that’s a great illustration! I do it exactly like that, but with an additional relief cut right where your 5 meets 2. I don’t cut it ahead of time, I wait until I’m rolling in that #5 tuck, then cut it with scissors, tuck it in, and trim off the overlapping part after both sides of the cut are laid flat.
I can’t get it to tuck flat without the cut…yet 
thanks Benny!
That’s the one area that gets tricky. Key is to have enough cloth to smooth out the part closer to the nose, without ending up bunching at that point along the lap.
I also wet out first before I make my vee cut in the nose. The cloth can shift a little when weting out.
Drew
Kokua, you need to do a rail lap video, as I know it’s hard to explain to people the technique. Lots of squeegee and hand technique, comes with experience and understanding of how the fabric can conform to curves. Part of my aeronautical experience was learning to do everything with no cuts, or if necessary, minimal.
Should be no reason to cut between 2 and 5 on the diagram. Difficulty in laping around the nose and tail also depends on the width of lap, but it is amazing what fabric will do with a little technique. Perhaps that should read a lot of technique.
As for getting laps to stay down on the tighter harder edges, pull pretty tight and don’t use too much resin. The fabric can act like a sponge and not hold the surface tension to keep it tight. Sometimes puting more resin on to fill up those pesky bubbles is just letting the cloth get more wet making it worse.
Use the squeegee and keep it tight. A loose glass job is like a limp wrist, a tight glass job like a clenched fist.
Is this technique more for colour work or is it more for tight curves?
