I’m currently glassing my 4th board and I’m getting a little frustrated with doing the laps. On a previous board I did a free lap on both sides, but found it to be very sloppy and required more sanding. Next two boards I did a cut lap on both sides. Much neater, but you can clearly see the cut line on the bottom of the boards.
Did some research in the archives for my 4th board and followed the advice of doing a cut lap on the deck and free lap the bottom. Again, my free lap is very messy with a lot of threads hanging down. Hopefully it will sand out ok tomorrow. What is the trick of getting a clean looking/invisible cut lap for the bottom of the board? Or, should I continue to free lap and, hopefully, with some time get better at it?
In case it matters, all my boards have been Marko eps/RR epoxy/6oz cloth.
When doing my laps I keep a pair of all metal scissors at the ready. Once the laps are saturated and hanging, I snip any hangers or loose strands before actually tucking the laps. It helps but there will always be a ragged edge. As Ken says, basting helps with the “step” where the edge ends. I don’t thin my basting resin - I just brush it on to fill that step. Once it cures I apply my hotcoat. Vacuum bagging helps flatten the step also if you have the gear to go that route.
Oh yeah - the all metal scissors is so the plastic handle doesn’t melt when cleaned in acetone.
If this is your fourth board ‘sounds like you’re into it. Buy yourself a right angle die grinder and a small compressor. Out fit the grinder with 3M “Diskit”. They can be purchased at Wal-Mart in the automotive body repair section. Lay those laps down as neat as you can get them when you lam. No “hanging chads” (threads). Work from the middle of the board towards the tail and then again from the middle of the board to the nose(each side). Use a hard plastic squeege(yellow) to get rid of excess resin. Rake it off into your bucket. If a thread hangs and gives you problems cut it with a cheap pair of scissors then clean the scissor with alcohal sp.(epoxy) When the freelap has set up, grind it (ever so carefully) with the right angle die grinder and the Diskit grinding pad. Learned this years ago. Once I started getiin’ this process down my freelaps started coming out puuurrrrfct. Good luck! Lowel
First of all, good cloth. Aerialite is hard to fray up and lays nice and flat as well as being easy to saturate. Second, good sharp scissors. Very important for cutting a nice clean free lap edge before saturating with resin. Also are you using a Bondo spreader for your epoxy? Rubber latex squeegees (polyester squeegees) don’t work all that well with epoxy as epoxy doesn’t need to be pushed in between the weaves. It just needs to be spread out across the board, left to soak for a couple of minutes and then you draw the excess out. Also check out BammBamm808’s glassing video for how to wet out the laps with epoxy. Takes a bit of practice but saves a lot of resin! Also when you cut the free lap for the bottom, follow the line where the tuck under edge starts. If you try to follow the rail leading into the deck your free lap will be all over the show. When you cut the free lap for the deck also follow the same edge. Your free laps will thank you for it!
Thanks for the help. I’ll have to change some of the tools I’ve been using. My scissors are sharp, but not very long. Maybe that will help with some of the jagged lines. I’ll switch from the blue squeegees to the yellow plastic and look into getting the right angle grinder.
I’m not set up to vacuum bag, so I’ll keep plugging away with bottom free laps. Not really sure what is meant by basting the laps. Is this done after the bottom lam sets up?
Not to say that I am a glassing guru, but I noticed a big difference when I got longer scissors and better glass on my board. Made a huge difference on the hangers that I had. Then sand with a electric or air angle grinder will easily take care of the rest.
Also check out BammBamm808’s glassing video for how to wet out the laps with epoxy. Takes a bit of practice but saves a lot of resin!
Where can this video be found? I found the “Best Laminating Video…” thread but cant seem to find the link in it. Maybe it is just too early in the morning for me
so after your cutlap you have a little step or edge left where the cut was made. Get some little brushes, alot of people use the soldering flux brushes.
Then go around with a little dixie cup full of lam resin/catylist and brush a little coat all along that cutlap cut. I find this especially helpful to do on the top cutlap (bottom lam) at the foam/cutlap border as i’ll get air bubbles under the top lam along that cutlap void otherwise, especially if my razor work was less than perfect. Esentially what you are doing is filling in that void where the step up to the cut edge is to allow a smoother, flatter plane.
When you baste like mentioned above specially when doing tints youll have a color variation where the baste is. Best is to take your grinder with those small Roloc disk and get them flatter.
Here is the link to the video… It is great, I have followed his technique for laminating about 15 boards now and have had good success and have wasted very little epoxy resin. Hope this is what you were looking for…
My question about laminating at this point has to do with laminating the hard edges. When I have tried to do so in the past, the glass hasnt wanted to bend around the edge and leaves me with a nasty air bubble and bump in the lam that I have to sand through and fill (kills my goal of a continuous structure also). Should I maybe soften the edge up a bit in the foam and then rely on a tape dam to get that hard edge late in the lam process?
I cut a nice, clean overhang with the scissors, pull out any loose threads, then fold up the lap and paint the rail with resin using a cheapo foam chip brush. then I fold the lap back down, and let it hang while I wet out the flats. When I pull the resin off the flats, I tuck the lap. Once around the board, and by the time I get back to the starting point, the laps have soaked up the rail resin, and I do a final pull and tuck. The trick here is to really pull out all the excess resin on your lap. Get it tight and flat to minimize the lap edge. If I have any strands pull out while tucking the lap, I do the OPPOSITE of what everybody else does… I intentionally pull them off the flat and let them hang straight down. When the board is cured, flip it, and simply break off any hangers. They’ll stand straight up like needles and break off clean. On the bottom lam, I’ll then take a stir stick and gently press the lap edge into the foam to make it flush with the flats. No sanding or grinding necessary. This especially helps if you’ve painted… I always seem to hit the foam with the abrasive and leave a bald spot where I’ve removed the paint. On the deck lam, I’ll gently sand the lap edge on the bottom… if you hit the lam, you won’t leave a mark.
At this point, you can baste, or just do a sanding fill coat over the whole deal… resin bead, grind the fin boxes, etc. Sand it perfectly with 80 or 100 grit, then do a thin… really thin… final hotcoat with no resin bead or anything. Just tape it off mid rail all the way around and lay it down thin. When you sand, you can start with 220. Done.
When you baste like mentioned above specially when doing tints youll have a color variation where the baste is. Best is to take your grinder with those small Roloc disk and get them flatter.
I’ve done it a couple times without too much of a variation…wouldn’t sanding down a tint affect the color as well?
