perfect, sounds good. Looks like the final (god I hope it’s teh final) layer of glass will get on today. Then some touchups and the fin plugs/ leash plug. I’m still trying to decide how far up to place the sidebites… I think I’m just going to point them at the nose, so as to keep their measurement complications as low as possible. We’ll see. Anybody have any thoughts on their distance from the tail? it’s 8’ long by 23 wide by… not certain still as to thickness but thick. Rounded pin-ish tail. Wide point far forward…
thruster?
center fin 3.5 to 4" tail to rear base of fin
side fins 12 to 12.5" tail to rear base of fin, rear of fin 1.25" inside of rail, toe in 1/8" give or take a 1/16"
Two plus One
10.5" center box 6" from tail
side fins 16.5 to 17" from tail, rear of fin 1.25" inside of rail, toe in 1/8" give or take 1/16"
Anything close to these dementions will work just fine
personaly I would just do a 10.5 center box only
Thanks Ken;
There is a center box in there already, I believe a 10.5 although I haven’t measured it. The original board has glassed on sidebites which I have removed, to replace with the plugs so I have the option of single or 2 + 1… I’m stoked to find out how it goes as a single, although I noticed when I started this whole process that the center box was originally installed very slightly crooked… irritating. Always wondered why the board had that slight slew to one side… Not enough for me to notice while actually surfing though, just after a quick bit of paddling followed by a glide. I’m sure it hasnt’ helped the board out any… and it won’t with this one either. I didn’t want to deal with removing the fin box and trying to keep the length, so I decided to just leave it that way. My first board… I have no high high hopes of this being a performance machine…! heheheh I’ll be stoked if it floats and I can log out on it on small dumpy days.
Thanks again for the input, I’m stoked to be nearing completion of the glassing. With any luck I’ll be able to pop in the fin plugs/leash plug tomorrow or monday and then sand it up and give’r a shot next weekend. Unless the swell is good…
hi kyle it is okay to do one layer at a time btw. its just a bit more work on the lap
i would do one layer of 8 or 6 on the bottom and 2 layers on the deck
when doing two layers on the deck, the underneath layer doenst lap round . it just finishes at either the rail apex or at the outline
if you do two layers on the deck and the bottom of the board is already glassed then its quick and easy to clean up the lap on the first glass layer, when doing one layer at a time
its harder to wet out laps when there is two layers of glass to wet out. so this is why we cut the bottom layer just to the outline and the top layer with the full overhang
it is best to tape off your deck when doing the bottom glass, this will ensure a very clean lap
there is plenty in the archive about cutting laps.
the resin kicks in 12 minutes or less. you dont have much time and doing two layers on a longboard is pretty stressful on a really hot day ( id use 1 1/2 percent cat on a hot day) 2 percent in winter.
i have a particular method of glassing that is unique to me due to being self taught, it is easier then how it shown in videos at glass shops. basically i wet the laps first . its hard to explain, but ive watched the pros do it on vids and they squegee the flats first with grader passes and then the resin thats left in a long bead along the rail is pulled over on to the laps. you watch them and they make passes back and forth when doing flats , also they use quite a lot of resin and catch it in the bucket. the reason they use so much resin is that when they pull the bead over the rail to the laps, it runs down in drips if there is not enough resin, rather then flood the whole lap . this can leave dry spots and make it hard to get a nice wet lap in a short amount of time. and this is the simple reason they use a lot of resin…( i use similar method for swirl work)
with my method and im sure other use this way as well. i tip the resin in a line up the center of the board and i lightly drag it right out to the lap around the board like a clock. im not pushing it into the cloth, just moving it out across the coth to let it soak in ,i put my hand under the lap glass and lift it up so the squegee runs right out over my hand and wets the lap evenly across the width of the squegee. that way in a few minutes the flats and laps are wet all over. then i start the grader passes from the stringer. mostly all in one direction (not back and forth) back and forth can cause little folds. now once the flats are done my laps are already wet and i have plenty of time to pull them under . i push hard with the squegee and pull it round to the tape, wth the edge of it (the squegee)parrallel to the stringer.once they are down allway round you can go over the laps again to get any excess, i will video it and put it on my blog over the next week. now this may not be how they do it in the states but it works and gets the job done fast. i dont care if someone can do it 1 minute faster. my glassing is clean and my laps are clean. and there is no stress or waste of resin. always leave 100 grams in the bucket for dry spots on the lap just in case.
so you can find your own way to do this. i cant speak for huie, but hes been glassing for 50 years and he also has his own unique way to glass that you wont see on any of the pro videos. it comes from being isolated and the need to find your own way. like my cedar compsand boards im building, they are very cheap to build maybe 100$ US and materials are sourced locally without anything to do with the surfboard industry. in the early days i was using boatbuilders glass and resins as well, the surfboard specific stuff is cosmetically superior but doesnt build a physically better board in any other way IMO
Paul, thank you very much for the detailed tip list! I did use that system for this last layer to wet the laps and it certainly worked better than my first attempt. I still ran low on time and finished up just barely, with the resin starting to glob. had to mix a frantic fresh 250 ml to finish wetting one side properly, as the stuff in the bucket was already past working life. Barely made it, and one side got a bit gobby. Didn’t quite wet out a couple spots well enough on the lap so get a bit of sag; all in all though a much much better job than the first one, and I’m fairly happy. Now just a hotcoat and I’ll install the fin plugs, then sand 'er up and see how it goes!
had a good day of surf today; short session but the waves were cracking pretty nice up here. crowded at 15 people at a normally secluded break though; the times they are a’changin’.