mimimising glassing time

Hi.

At present when I do free laps I find myself spending TIME grinding down all those little bumps after the Lam layer has dried and even when the hot coat is done the little bumps are vissible especially along the rail area.

Is there a method for doing clean free laps that allow you to go straight into hot coat without havign to worry about this. I’ve tried cut laps which do give a very clean lap but when the board is finished I can always see the razor blad mark along the board

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG ???

HELP

Hello, i’m not an expert, but i think that if you use less catalyst or if you are faster, you can be sure that the laps have enough resin before you put the laps on the foam.

I had this same trouble and i found that i wasn’t filling the laps with enough resin or i was sticking the laps to the foam when the resin was harding.

I’m sure the experts here can give you better tips.

Maybe UV resin will be a good option.

Howzit Brian, Try using one of those yellow plastic squeege’s to finish your rails.They’re stiffer and should get the waves and bumps out of the rails. Aloha,Kokua

Hey Kokua

Thanks for the advice and all the exellent other posts you put up. I managed to find some stuff in the archives - pictures of some of the guys doing a glassing seminar.

I’ve just finished the bottom lam on a 7’0" gun. It was a free lap and so far it’s looking really good. I squeegied out all the resin to the edge and let it drip over and roll down the lap. Then with the excess resin in my bucket I used a paint brush to soak the laps and tuck then up on to the other side of the board. The rails have ZERO bumps or distortions and the other side of the board is lookign pretty clean also.

Thanks again and greetings from Ireland

B

Howzit Brian, Glad to hear things are working out,next you need to learn how to wet out the rails by sheeting the resin instead of using a brush. Aloha, Kokua

Hi Kokua

I’ve searched the archives and found a bucket load of info on doing laps. Jim Phillips wrote about folding the laps up on to the deck / underside of the board to saturate them and then unfold them and let them hang back down. Id this the “sheeting method” you mentioned or is it something different.

one more Q … In another post just above this you mentioned that poly and epoxy don’t work too good together. I was considering doing an epoxy Lam and covering it with poly to save $$. Is it likely that this hot coat will break away if a collision occurs or if the board is subject to large stress on a big wave. Could the epoxy lam be sprayed with clear acrylic before the poly hot coat or is the acrylic just as likely to break away ???

 Howzit Brian, The way I sheet the rails is I pour a 1 1/2" bead of resin from the nose to the tail, Then run the squeege so the resin flows down the rail and saturates it. I start my lam job by doing this and then wetting out the rest of the glass and squeeging towards the rails then wrap the rails and finish the lam. As for the epoxy and poly, they will not adhere and yes you will get delamination of the two. Another reason people use poly is it's easier to sand but I don't think the trade off is worth it. Use epoxy for the sanding coat. Aloha, Kokua

correct me if im wrong but isnt it true that there is no need for a hotcoat on an epoxy lamination?

correct since there is no lam/sanding resing difference…any coat you put on you can sand…thus no hotcoat needed. Epoxy all dries non tacky.

Howzit arakawa, That’s why I called it a sanding coat. But hot coat ,sanding coat, one and the same. Aloha, Kokua