I am using very light EPS (home depot) and it is soft so I want to use a lot of glass. Am I asking for trouble if I wrap the rails with two pieces of 6 oz cloth.
I am also going to add a deck patch and would like to end up with a good build up of glass on the rails as well as on the deck. I am going to free lap rather than cut lap because I don’t want to cut into the foam. Any advice would be great I am very much a beginner.
Glad to see another Home Depot foamer!
Cut your first layer of 6 oz a little wider than normal - like almost out to the template curve and past where a cutlap would be. Any deck patches or stomp patches or fin reinforcement patches go under even the first layer.
Cut your second layer about 3" past the your board outline all around. Freelap is fine. Wet out all the hanging glass around the edge until its totally saturated & dripping before you start to squeegee any of it around the whole rail to lap the deck. A little sacrificial resin onto the floor is well worth it here. When you start to lap it, start in the middle of one side & work toward the end and then go back to the middle and work to the other end. The wrinkles stay flat this way as the cloth stretches the right way. Then go to the other rail & start in the middle there. The epoxy will give you plenty of time to do this right. After lapping with a light touch, pull more resin all the way from the stringer out past the rail & around the lap and even past the freelap onto the (upside-down) deck. Don’t pull fast, as you don’t want it to foam, but make sure to pull enough so the resin doesn’t pool anywhere. That would turn yellow later. You want the resin thin enough that just a hint of the weave shows before your hot coat.
Once its set - like 24 hours to be sure - flip your board. You can then safely use a surform to smooth off the strings left behind by your freelap and you won’t hurt the foam because of the extra resin you pulled past the lap & onto the deck. Get the lap & all the folds at the ends really smooth before you lam the deck. Use tack-cloth (waxed cheesecloth) to get all the dust off before you lam anything. Lam the deck the same as you did the bottom. Again, wait 24 hours to flip and then surform the problems. Then go after the whole thing with 80 grit sandpaper - hand or power is fine. Since you used 2 layers, you don’t really care if you sand into the weave a little bit. Once its all sanded, install fins or finboxes, leashcups, etc. Glass around those with 4oz and sand the edges flat once its hard & dry. Once the whole thing is all sanded, good & smooth, you’ve even patched any total sand-throughs or air bubbles, whatever with little 4 oz patches, then hotcoat. Your epoxy hotcoat needs to go on over a totally smooth board as it won’t be good at filling holes, dimples, zits, bubbles, etc. Its just a smoothing & glossing coat over everything else. Make sure your board is totally dust-free and wear gloves when you handle it after sanding.
Good luck!
Hey benny1, Thanks for the reply I think I got it. Do you think I will have trouble wetting down two thicknesses of 6 oz in the laps. I feel like I will have a lot more strands with two laps. The foam is very soft so I want to end up with four layers around the rails.
As long as you cut the top layer 3" past the first later, you won’t get any strings from the first one.
Thanks. Obvious but I never would have thought of it.
marke