I just started shaping my first board. I've found this forum one of the most resourceful places to prepare myself for the task at hand.
The shaping is done, and today I've had a go at lamination the bottom of the board. It didn't quite go the way I wanted it to.
One major mistake was using a small alcohol marker to write measurements on the blank after shaping.
All the black particles got smeared out when i spread out the resin.
LESSON 1 : never use a alcohol marker to write on the blank.
I also have some yellowish parts in the resin after it dried out. The reason why they are, i do not know, and i'd like to prevent it from happening again.
But as you can imagine i do not wish to throw the board away so a paint job on the bottom is a decent solution.
I was thinking on using 2 coats of fibreglass on the bottom anyways, so I assume I can apply colour in between both layers.
But i don't know what paint to use and how to apply. I have used acrylic paint on the top of the blank for the first design. But I have read this type of paint job is prone to delamination so i minimised the painted surface area. Anyone any idea what paint to use + application and what might cause the yellowish spots in the first coat ?
As you have already learnt, never use solvent-based pens or paint under poly resin; Poly resin contains styrene (read “solvent”) which will dilute anything solvent-based. use only acrylic pens or paint. The yellowish colour on your lamination may have been caused by a yellow squeegee? Yellow gloves? Yellow resin pot?
Now, saving your bottom lamination: since you were thinking about another layer of cloth, just use pigment in this new lamination. Opaque pigment diluted in resin will cover everything underneath. Just buy the right stuff (pigments specifically formulated for use with poly resin). Maybe avoid dark colors such as black: it will cover all “mistakes” but will also heat up easily under the sun and might cause delams.
Solvent based pens - check - lesson learned the hard way.
I was thinking about using a a pigment in the next layer of resin, but it seems more of a struggle to achieve decent colour separation between the pigmented and non pigmented coat. Although if it is the better option, it’s worthwile to look into.
Good to know acrylic paint in between layers is ok to - is this btw less or more prone to delam./
Yellowish gloves might be the cause of the coloration there, thanks for the tip. btw, I am talking about a PU blank with polyester resin idd.
solvent pen problem : for all of you who’d like to see why not to use these pens for yourselves.
shape and colours : it’s an 8’6 longboard
I wanted to design a speedy board that allows noseriding and relative good turning. Considering it’s my first board, and I have only surfed boards of the rack without thinking so much about the shape, I’ll be making some big mistakes - anyhow it’ll be a rewarding mistake - be it a lesson learned or a board i like.
I made a slight single concave in the nose, flattened the centerpart out and make a slight vee in the tail. I assume this stabilises the board when noseriding and when the nose is lifted standing on the tail, the flat centerpart allows easy speed buid-up. It’s a small squared/squash tail (somehting in between) with a lot of rocker. I hope this gives it a skatey feeling, by pushing the fins in the water I hope to lift the nose out so it allows faster turning. Although a rounded tail seems like the more obvious choice for this purpose, it just didn’t really feel right to go with it.
Foil : it’s heavy in the midsection and light at the nose, that way it supports my front foot well (i’m quite heavy on my front) and makes the weight balance okay for paddling and hopefully not too heavy to kick it out when turning.
Rails, rounded to less rounded, nothing to boxy there.
Overall I’m quite curious to find out if i’ll do what i hope it does. Any opinions - feel free !! I guess there’s rights and wrongs, but i don’t believe in the absolute truth - so feel free to bash the idea or tell me what you like about it! Happy to find out.
Just about to place the fins and actually I haven’t really put much thought into untill now. It’ll be a 2+1 setup.
(mainly because the tail is to thin to fit a finbox)
Browsing through the previous discussions I figured the center fin is best placed somewhere around 5 - 5,5 inch from the tail.
And the sidefins can be somewhere around 14 inches and up from the tail. But I’m having a hard time finding more in depth info op fin placement.
I’ve been trying to eyeball them and it relates to these measurements, but What i’m unsure about is how putting fins closer or further away from the sides influences behaviour. I assume a wider setup creates a more balanced feeling, but makes it harder to make short turns and vice versa.
Any link to relevant discussions is much appreciated.
It’s a V, and in what I’ve read I shouldn’t place them to much up front
