Hi, Glassing went pretty good with the kinetix, actually found it real easy to use. I ended up doing 3 layers of 6Oz on the deck plus a deck patch and it seems plenty strong! I did three 4Oz layers on the bottom.The final weight came in at 3.8 kg so a little heavy but I think if I did it again I would probably save one layer on the deck as it seems pretty beefy. Un fortunately I have not been able to water test it yet due to a shoulder injury, but im about 2 weeks off surfing again so I will post a ride report soon.
The poly top coat went on fine, thanks KK for the tips, just cleaned it down good with a scotch brite after lam coat then straight over it with a hot coat. I had some air issues around the rails (pic attatched) Im not really sure exactly what the problem was but im putting it down to the cork rails, I think the cork was holding some air and when the resin was going off it must of trapped it under neath, its left kind of white dry spots, doh! While the cork is a real easy way to layer up rails quickly im not that keen on the look and outcome of it, oh well the next one I do I think ill just do a parabolic rail or balsa rails, again it would save weight as the cork is a bit heavy too.
Anyway thanks for the interest, happy surfing to all!
Air in cork or wood can be a problem if you laminate in rising temperature (morning). The air in the wood expands with temperature and is trapped beneath the glass / epoxy.
We warm the wood first to drive the air out then epoxy, it gets drawn into the fibres and cannot result in bubbles. We also try to do major glass skinning of wood in the afternoon as the temperature falls (no air expansion, no bubbles)...
Makes sense, thanks for that I think you might be right , it was quite a hot day when i did the lamination, something to keep in mind next time!
I thought it might also have something to do with epoxy getting warm as I did one board in poly and it has worked out fine, probably a combination of factors.
Ok so its time to post mark2 of this construction, The board above actually went pretty good but in sways tradition one board is never enough!
Have surfed it a couple of times and it was really fast and the flex still felt ok with all the extra glass…
I thought about trying to improve the design by removing the cork rails and doing Xps or dow foam ones around balsa parabolics. The main reason for this is to avoid the glassing issues that occured but also to save on weight, I might also reduce the glassing schedule as the above board is solid as so will probably go with two four ounce bottom and a 2 six ounce top plus foot/deck patch…
You gave one of the most concise and easy to understand descriptions of the spackling process that I've ever heard. If others followed your advice they wouldn't have so many problems with spackle. Lowel
Yes I sometimes do some patches of extra glass over the fin boxes, but I might do a large 6ounce piece over all of them cut 45% to a point towards the stringer…
Loving the look of that squash tail. What are you using for the nose block on this one? And is that cork or balsa in between the eps board and the xps rails?
finally finished sanding today, hope to water test it next week if I get the chance. Finished weight ended up 3kg exactly ( fins and tailpatch included).
There is not that much weight to be saved using this build technique but at least the foam is real cheap!
