I’ve shaped two boards at my school’s shaping room, and sent them off to get glassed. The second one actually should be done in a week or so. But I’ve got this itch to glass one myself. I just want a board that I have created from start to finish. The problem is, I live in town, in a family style neighborhood, and my there is a bedroom built into my garage, so I don’t have much room to work with, and I don’t want to kill my roomy with chemical fumes. So what do you suggest? I thought about using UV resin, because i hear you have less toxic fumes to deal with, but I would still have to work indoors (in the garage?) until I took it outside to kick. So what about epoxy? Is this something I could do outside from start to finish? Are the neighbors going to be calling up about the smell? Will epoxy give me enough time (as a newby) to lam the board before it starts to kick? Also, I have heard that you can use epoxy over a non-eps blank, but how does it compare to a standard poly glass job? Thanks for any insight you guys can give me.
Epoxy has very little obvious odor. But the more important thing to remember all of these resins we use for surfboard construction are toxic in one way or another. I would seriously reconsider glassing boards in or next too my bedroom. If you dont have a safe area with proper ventilation its probably best to leave it to the pros. There is a reason professionals were respirators and coveralls.
Use Resin CE from Resin Research. It’s designed for use polyurethane foam. Mix it with the “slow” hardener. It will give you PLENTY of time to wet out. No smell…your neighbors won’t even know you’re glassing unless you tell them.
Go ahead and use regular poly. DON’T glass it in your bedroom; it will end up getting all over, and it will smell up your house.
If you do it outside, you shouldn’t have any problems with the smell. I’ve done more than 20 lams on the back patio of my apartment complex which is surrounded by houses that are pretty close together. Never had a single complaint. Just make sure you’re not doing it next to someone’s AC unit or right in front of an open window.
I understand that they are all toxic in their own way. I wouldn’t get near the stuff without a mask. I’m studying environmental engineering, so I get to learn about all the nasty chemicals that we release into the air. I like the sound of that Resin CE. Would using this outdoors be an issue? Can it take a resin tint, or pigment? I’m not packed tooo close to my neighbors, so I think that there would be enough air flow to dispurse any harmful fumes before they reached anyone who wasn’t wearing a mask. So what do you think? Would this be a good way to take a stab at glassing? Thinking I’m going to shape a single fin, either with a center box or a glass on, depending on whether I can get ahold of a router.
Oh yeah, the bedroom is a walled off section of the garage. No way I would actually do this IN a bedroom…