Has anyone done it?
I have an extra blank laying around (PU) that I’ve been meaning to laminate and Im so curious what structural integrity would actually be sacrificed if you just laminated the blank with multiple sort of hot coats instead of a conventional hand cloth laminate. Would save an ungodly amount of time. Always wanted to experiment with it! Any stories?
sounds like a good experiment. try it and let us know how it works!
First thing , look up the word , LAMINATING , tut tut todays yooth .
As GBZAUSA alluded to, without fiberglass you are not laminating. I cannot fathom why anyone would do such a thing. But it’s your blank, your time, and your money. So go ahead and coat the blank with just resin. Let us know how that works out. 
Sure, it’s not laminating. But if the process of covering this thing in resin and fiberglass is to create something strong and watertight, my question is what exactly does fiberglass bring to that equation and what happens when it’s omitted
You answered your own question. Create something strong(fiberglass) and water tight(resin) omit fiberglas and all you have is water tight.
I agree to the above. The fibre gives internal strength in particular horizontally (length of surfboard) I you leave it away it will crack pretty soon, sonce the foam is quite bendable between front and tail. And it is the glass that brings the strength into play, not the resin. Put some resin drops onto shrink wrap into a line shape and let it cure. Remove the shrink wrap and no bend the resin…
But why not try and replace the glass? Use length orientated wooden veneer or just cotton linnen and laminate it. Things like that will do much more sense to me.
awesome response surfdude,
this is the kind of hands on approach I was looking for. I am actually looking for methods not involving fiberglass. I have developed a really gnarly fiberglass allergy (beyond normal scratching) and I want to explore other cloths that can be done by hand. or I just need to get into vac bagging I suppose…
Are you sure its from the fiberglass? You mentioned epoxy resin…id be willing to bet you have epoxy sensitization
Ohhhhkay, a few things:
To begin with, resin is, like concrete, pretty strong in compression. Bending, not so good, tension plus bending, well, think hard candy. Take some hardened resin, say brushed onto wax paper. Bend it, it doesn’t bend very far before it breaks. Hit it with something, it shatters in a not too reassuring way.
Now, if you see how they do concrete with mesh and rebar in it? That’s because steel is good in tension and it’ll give it strength that way. Makes it resist breaking when it’s bent or stressed any way beyond pure compression. That’s what fiberglass…or carbon, or kevlar or similar, that’s what they bring to the dance. Resin plus some sort of fiber, yep, composites, are far better than resin alone. .
Resins have some tensile strength, true. I’d imagine you could put on a thick enough layer so that the board wouldn’t crack and break and leak and so on. Real thick, to where I dunno if the board would float, hardened resin having a density of around 1.1 to 1.5 ( having just looked it up) - the volume of the resin layer would be approaching the volume of your shaped blank.
Probably not what you want. Even if it did float, you wouldn’t want to carry the thing, you’d wind up with one arm longer than the other and permanently leaned over to one side.
So, resin plus fiber over and laminated to foam. Composite construction. . But, not necessarily glass fibers ( I’ll get back to that in a minute) . Let me commend to your attention the Fiberglass Supply Catalog - they carry a bunch of different reinforcements, like carbon fiber cloths and kevlar fiber cloths and some kinda cool-looking blends. In addition to a number of different fiberglass cloths.
Note that I used the plurals, ‘carbon fiber cloths’ and etcetera. There’s a reason for that- they do a lot of different weights and weaves and so on. Which have different properties, notably what the catalog refers to as ‘drape’, how the cloth will go over a curve and so on. . As some fiberglass cloths will deform nicely around compound curves and some won’t. the others vary too. Vaccum bagging really forces the stuff to deform, true, but I’d suggest you call up the folks at Fiberglass Supply, explain what you are trying to do and ask them what will work best.
I do know that they use hand layup with some of these fabrics in rowing shells.
Right, I mentioned I’d get back to fiberglass in a minute. Here we are.
Fiberglass is pretty inert stuff. It doesn’t really react with much. But if your skin is sensitised, it can get ugly when the fibers get into it. Dermatitis sucks. I get it from insect bites if I get a lot of 'em. Cloth isn’t the only thing, insulation is bad news too. My late father got something miserable from rock wool insulation back in the 1940s.
And it wouldn’t surprise me if you got similar reactions from sanding carbon fiber or kevlar. Especially after it’s been laminated and the fibers have resin in 'em.
As well, a number of people have developed sensitivities to the fumes given off as epoxy hardens. I know some boat guys that had to give it up after getting sensitised to epoxy, it doesn’t go away. Might be that’s a component of what is giving you hell.
So one more suggestion: the respirator, filters, the gloves and the full body condom . I mean, none of this stuff is exactly good for ya.
hope that’s of use
doc…
There was a guy in the UK who was building boards using a PU core with wood overlay on the deck and built-out wood rails; and he was sealing the exterior with varnish or similar from boat building. I forget what he was using but apparently it worked. He would glue the planks onto the blank, build up the rails and then shape/finish followed by his sealing.
Other wood board builders have been sealing with multiple coats of epoxy with some success. I’ve never done it so I don’t know, but as I understand it the exterior coverage needs to be 100% because even the smallest pinhole will seep water and it’s all downhill from there.
One of our moderators (Huck) has done some outstanding examples of hollow wood building and he’s been active on the wooden surfboard building forums, so he’s a good person to ask about this.
Thank you Doc!
Thats the kind of wisdom I come to swaylocks for. I appreciate your guidance and insight. Its totally possible that it is epoxy sensitivty that is getting to me. Its frusturating trying to make boards when your body has an adverse reaction to it.
Wisdom, guidance and insight… from the likes of me? That’s frightening.
In any event, look, none of this stuff we work with is good for you. Pretty much zero vitamins, the minerals involved are ones you don’t want. Low cholesterol, definitely. Amines, not amino acids. And protein? Fahgettaboutit.
Sensitivities, allergies, it gets into your skin and lungs and so on. Some are almost certainly carcinogens. Dust gets into your eyes, flying fibers too.
Respirators are cheap, filters too. Way cheaper than copays at your friendly neighborhood clinic. And you can smell and taste things afterwards. Spend the extra money for the full face ones with the plastic overlays/tear offs like they make for motorcycle racing so you don’t get resin drops stuck on 'em.
Coughing up crud kinda makes your date look at you funny.The suits make ya look like Gumby but then again you don’t get goo on your good pants or your favorite t-shirt or reek of resin and give off clouds of dust. Which also makes your date go downhill fast.
Which I wish I had known a long time ago. Put it this way, a woman who can’t smell resin on ya, well, she can’t taste anything either.
Which affects her cooking. Not for the better, Trust me on this one
doc…
If epoxy gets to you then the PE resins (and the acetone) aren’t doing you any favors, either. You might have to start sending your boards out for glassing. Or maybe work up a deal with one of your friends - you shape and they glass.
You won’t even have watertight. Reason being the blank will flex and cracks will occur across the blank allowing water to penetrate.
Jesus! Somebody actually did it!!
Not really. He just sealed the stringers so they wouldn’t suck water, and it wasn’t done as a permanent thing.
Heh- I’ll bet they had a fine old time trying to shape it after that.
doc…
Multiple Archive discussions about these kinds of things and why they are of NO benefit. Search. Fiberglass fabric of pretty much any kind or type plus resin equals strength and watertight. Dents, cracks, leaks and snaps are what you will get with resin only. But by all means disregard wisdom and experience. Please continue with your experiment.