Hey all. I was reading through the archives in order to find out how to laminate logo’s on rice paper and came to wondering if you couldn’t apply the same technique to glassing with epoxy. Instead of pouring the epoxy on top of the glass, why not put the majorityof the epoxy under the glass and the remainder on top? Then all you have to do is wet all the cloth and squeege off the excess. You wouldnt need to let it soak through, and it would lessen the chance of making the common mistake of working it through. My common sense say’s it would lessen air bubbles just like with the rice paper lamination? I think I’m going to try it on my up and coming board, but before I do any insights or thouhts? Mabey it’s not that much of a breakthough after all?
id like to know how it works…
i was also thinking has anyone ever pre-cut then soaked the cloth and lay the soaked cloth onto the foam instead of traditional techniques
also…has anyone made a sock to fit the board out of cloth and either dipped it or pre soaked or held the thing vertically and brushed it?
a couple techniques ive been thinking of…theres probably a reason everyone does it one way
I did a similar thing on my last lamination. 3 layers of 6oz. Put first layer of glass down and wet out as normal, seemed to have a really wet lam so the next layer I just lay straight on top and let soak in. 3rd layer I folded up on a largish piece of plastic, and used a squeegee to wet out, sort of picking up and moving the glass around a bit to get all the surplus resin on the glass. Unfolded the glass onto the board, pulled it tight, snipped some relief cuts and used the squeegee to push the laps onto the underneath as normal. I’ve found if you do the relief cuts first it’s tricky to get the glass back into exactly the right place.
Worked really well for me, used a lot less resin than normal, quicker and easier to get the resin wet out on hard plastic, plus the laps were really well soaked so stuck easily, didn’t have anything falling down afterwards.
Look up ‘wet-out table’ in the archives, quite a standard procedure with epoxy. I’ve also used a stiff piece of A4 plastic as a mini wet out table to go round and wet the laps out before as well. That worked really well for me too.
Being sold on the strenght to lightness ratio of adouble 4oz wrap with a 4oz. deck patch glass schedule. I’ve found that two layers of 4oz. wet out beautifully and that a small paint roller is the tool for wetting out the laps. I put the deck patch on the board with the rice paper logos under it before I laminate the deck. In a couple of hours the deck is just cured enough to touch a little to take any irregularities out and then go for the double 4oz. lamination.
No Worries, Rich
Hmm. Thanks for the replies all. Did any of you happen to put your epoxy on the bare foam and then lay all your layers of cloth over top? It seems that you simply laminated the normal way. Perhaps I’m not understanding your descriptions. I’ll clarify; I plan to lay out and cut my cloth for the bottom. Then I will roll up half of the cloth and put my resin on the bare part of my foam core. The cloth gets put on top of the epoxy, and i repeat with the other half of the board. Then I wet out the cloth with a paint roller, and remove the excess. Anyone tried that?
why work against gravity?
resin soaks down faster than it soaks up.
I’ve done a couple of these.
One, I’ve had the board on the racks and rolled out the cloth on my workbench, on top of a plastic sheet. Called a “wet-out table”, oddly enough. Wet it out, take your time, its all flat, no draining. Still square ends & everything. Easiest way to move it to the board is with a helper, pulling all 4 corners tight & laying it on. That actually works very, very well. You then do your scissor cut & tuck your laps & everything’s finished. Not even any time or reason for the strings to come out of the edges, if you make a good cut.
Downside is wasted cloth & resin (although we all have too much leftover cloth from the corners anyway, right? As if we’re ever going to need to do 20 thousand ding repairs). And I actually doubt there’s any wasted resin, as the ratio is so much better and none drains into the blank. You can always stack the cutoffs on the corner of your workbench, and over time you’d end up with a nice fin blank I guess.
The other downside, of course, is getting your wife out of bed at 11pm to put some shoes & rubber gloves on & come out to the garage “just for a minute”. So you can try folding it up , or rolling it onto a piece of PVC pipe (done both of those as well). Those work ok, the roll better than the folds, but there’s still quite a bit of drama getting the cloth all flat & wrinkle-free on the board. The only other problem, of course, is that you can still get bubbles in the epoxy if you move it too fast or too far.
Secondly, I’ve had some pretty good success with doing 2 layers on a sealed blank (or a sealed balsa skin). Lay down your first layer of 4oz, and mix enough epoxy for 2 layers. Pour all the epoxy on, nice & wet, like you’re doing an ‘apprentice lam’. Spread it around, nice & slow, no bubbles because its twice as much resin as you’d need for that single layer. And then drop your second piece of cloth on top and let it soak & settle into the wet first one. You’ll find a couple dry spots, and you still have to deal with the rails (I usually cut my first layer to the board’s perimeter, and only lap the rails with the second, or the last if there happen to be 3…) but the whole side of the board will be a really nice, even, bubble-free lamination. You do have to make sure your blank or your wood already got a seal coat, maybe 3 hours earlier, or all that deep resin is going to disappear into the foam before you get the second piece of cloth on there.
This second technique works great on kiteboards, skimboards, etc., where the things are so small that another layer of 4oz isn’t going to hurt, weight-wise, and the stiffness can be useful. Probably not so useful if your first layer was 8oz volan over 3# EPS 
yeah it works fine
done it plenty of times for light laminates
i just lam like normal now
i prefer a good seal to a light laminate
cuz light laminates pinhole
Contrary to popular belief and years of traditional boardmaking (me included), the recommended way to do composites is to wet the foam first. Seal with slurry (mix of resin and microballoons) even better. Air goes up easier than resin goes down.
But hey, it’s just a surfboard and your making it yourself. Do it the way you feel comfortable.
Thanks for the replies. I’ll let you all know how it works once I’ve tried it.
The other downside, of course, is getting your wife out of bed at 11pm to put some shoes & rubber gloves on & come out to the garage “just for a minute”. So you can try folding it up , or rolling it onto a piece of PVC pipe (done both of those as well). Those work ok, the roll better than the folds, but there’s still quite a bit of drama getting the cloth all flat & wrinkle-free on the board. The only other problem, of course, is that you can still get bubbles in the epoxy if you move it too fast or too far.
Ben-
I can’t even get my girlfriend to get out of the car when I need to “Stop by the factory for a second” anymore. I think I wore out my “Shit! Can you hold this for a second!” favors a long time ago! 
-Carl
hey wildy
ive been laminating how you suggested since the beginning
i think in my pursuit of low resin ratios ive prolly not given it a good enough chance
ill try again on my next on but use more resin this time
funny wildy …
so have you finally re ordered that 10 kms of glass you canceled ??
considering it was the same fabric you were using in the states all along …
or are you still touting the argument that who ever ordered it in the first place didnt know what they were doing ??
seems after that last comment , maybe putting the resin down first isnt such a bad idea and maybe sticking to the system that actually delivers some semblance of consistent quality could be a good idea after all …
just dont put it on a sponge tho …
hey wildy ! i thought it was against company policy to make public comments ???
Joe is watching …
regards
BERT
Bert, some mistruths in your statements.
Oh…, I get it. Good one Joe!!!
If you check out the plus one website (link below) it’s done on the “inner lam” on the deck. As for spreading your epoxy on the foam first (bottom), I can’t see it being a problem so long as your foam is well fused. Otherwise your resin may disappear on you.