Hi all, I curious how much small bumps and nicks I can get away with without creating airbubbles when laminating. I’ve sanded the blank to a 180 grit, but since it’s EPS I ended up diging out foam beads here and there. I’ve spackled it and sanded, spackled and sanded, etc. quite a few times and are getting fed up. I’ve still got some minor depressions and bumps and the texture of the beads are showing through in some places. Will these bumps fill with resin if I’m careful with the squeegee? Any other advice on laminating? I’ve read what I could find in the archives. It seems like the key to avoiding those air bubbles is a good wetout, squeegee out the airbubbles and leave enough resin in the cloth. One question, what is the right amount of resin in the cloth? How should it look? What do you do to make sure the laps stick to the blank without getting any bubbles in it? regards, Håvard
It’s good to over-spackle on your first epoxy/eps board. You’ll learn what’s important and what’s not. You’ll fill in those little one-bead depressions with epoxy resin during lamination if they are shallow, smooth, and sealed beneath. However, every such depression, filled with resin, adds weight to the final lam job. Exposing the eps surface while sanding is okay. Smoothing the surface is reason 2 for spackle. Sealing the capillaries between eps beads is the main reason for spackle. That’s why you thin the spackle. You don’t even have to seal all of the capillaries. You merely have to seal enough capillaries to prevent a pressure overload, and keep the board light. Wet epoxy sticks to surfaces quite well. Wetting out multiple layers of glass will prove a little trickier. Wetout is a greater potential source of bubbles. As difficult as shaping the spackled blank is, shaping a glassed board is more difficult. Shaping glass also weakens the board. Take out those big dips and bumps now so you don’t have to take them out of the glass job later. You wrote that you were having trouble finding lightweight white spackle. Looks like you found a source.
Hi Havard, No matter how careful you spackle and sand the board, there still numerous tiny hole, you paste, you sand then you creat new tiny hole. I just leave these tiny hole away and going to lamination. Spray color on the hotcoated surface to block the UV and so to cover the mistakes made. Regards, Crabie>>> Hi all,>>> I curious how much small bumps and nicks I can get away with without > creating airbubbles when laminating. I’ve sanded the blank to a 180 grit, > but since it’s EPS I ended up diging out foam beads here and there. I’ve > spackled it and sanded, spackled and sanded, etc. quite a few times and > are getting fed up. I’ve still got some minor depressions and bumps and > the texture of the beads are showing through in some places. Will these > bumps fill with resin if I’m careful with the squeegee?>>> Any other advice on laminating? I’ve read what I could find in the > archives. It seems like the key to avoiding those air bubbles is a good > wetout, squeegee out the airbubbles and leave enough resin in the cloth. > One question, what is the right amount of resin in the cloth? How should > it look? What do you do to make sure the laps stick to the blank without > getting any bubbles in it?>>> regards,>>> Håvard
when using polyester resin…will increased heat and humidity effect where air bubbles will form?
You wrote that you were having trouble finding lightweight white spackle. > Looks like you found a source. Nope. But I found a semiwhite heavy spackle. You might say my blank gained some weight… Not too bad though and the surface is fairly smooth. Thanks for the input. regards, Håvard