Hi retrothis, i’m building a hollow surfboard with xps-rails at the moment, you can see the building process here:
http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/62-hollow-poplar-xps-surfboard?page=1
I’m planning to paint the rails befor or after glassing, not shure yet. I’d prefer to have the colour unter the glass, I guess its better protected over the time. The rest of the surfboard is wood which i’ll leave without colour.
cheers
florian
After some minor and finicky sanding of small trouble spots, it was time for glassing. I am going to do this in stages. Layer at a time. I have little epoxy left, and i dont think there will be enough to do the entire glass job. So glassing one layer by one layer should allow me to use the epoxy as sparingly as possible.
The glass will be layered as follows;
Deck: Deck > 4 (|) x 4(/) x 6 (|) patch x 4 (\). > EPS
Bottom: Bottom > 4 (/) x 4 (\) > EPS and 6 oz patches for fins.
The (|),(/),(\) indicate the direction of the weave. I'm going to criss-cross the 2 layers of 4 oz, and leave the 6oz patches and the top-most 4 oz layer straight. I am trying to incorporate a few of Benjamin Thomsons ideas into this.
I started with the deck because of the fins. I've ordered the 4wfs kit. It comes with some HD foam disks to be installed into foam before glassing. Once these arrive, Ill istall the HD disks and start glassing the bottom.
For now I'll do as much as I can.
Setting the new rocker with some cling film, nursing, cookery books....and ....ahem ....a picnic basket.
I had to borrow a pot of play doh from my son. He was not impressed when his request to build a BLUE aeroplane was denied.
Ill post a proper profile of new rocker when the glassing is done.
The board spent about a week under the picnic basket. Then it was time to mark out the deck patches.
Glassing the patches. I ended up wasting about 10 ml of resin on this one. Oh well, not the end of the world.
The fins.
This time I said Ill try something different. Initially I was looking at standard foils.
Since the tail rocker is so low, I thought that fins with less rake would suit better. So initially I chose this foil:
However these unfortunately were unavailable till December or there abouts.
So I ordered these instead: The F 16s:
Will be very interesting to try these out.
Sweet build thread, retrothis. Quite enjoying it.
This may be an elementary question but as a fairly fresh shaper I have to ask, how did you manage to cut the carbon tape after you glassed it?
Hey pichufo!
After glassing the CF I did not cut it at all. In the last photo above its just painted that way.
Cutting the CF when dry is difficult enough. Id say if id tried to cut it when its wet and on the board (for whatever reason) I’d prob. just end up with gouged and uneven creamy centre that is the EPS core.
Thanks for checking this out.
"After glassing the CF I did not cut it at all. In the last photo above its just painted that way. "
You had me fooled........great thread....keep it going......
Ray
Nice job. I like your resourcefulness. The pic with the play doh and picnic basket is too funny. You're like the Macgyver shaper.
Haha well then you had me fooled as well. Thanks for the insight. Looks fantastic, keep at it!
Gentlemen, thank you for the encouragement. I'm no shaper though, just a "study" hack.
More coming once the fins arrive!
The 4wfs kit arrived last week with some glass F16 thruster set.
Prior to glassing the bottom I needed to install the high density (HD) foam disks that were included in the kit.
The kit came with 3 foam routing/guide mats. These can be used to rout the holes for both the HD disks and the boxes. Since there were only 3, I decided to save these for when installing the boxes. So I had to make a routing jig for these incerts.
I used a 1/2in thick peice of ply (originally salvaged from a Lidl furniture unit, it was the backing of one of the cupboards).
I just simply marked out the dims as per supplied foam mat.
Then using the hole saw (prob. 2in diameter) drilled out the centre section. Also drilled alignment holes in crucial spots.
Since the hole saw had a smaller circumferance than the HD disk, I had to sand away the remaining colar.
Near complete.
Now it was time to put the DIY jig to use.
I went with the McKee dimentions for a 6'6'' board: Centre 3 7/16''; Sides 11 5/16'' and 1 1/4' away from the rail.
All three HD disks fitted (Not glued yet).
Since the disks are yellow, I decided to use Gorilla Glue rather than epoxy. So to avoid the glue expanding onto the bottom I masked around the routed holes before gluing in the HD disks.
Just a small update.
I installed the HD foam disks, painted them (AGAIN....Jesus)...and glassed the bottom with 4 x 4, not forgetting to put it back under the picknic basked to keep setting the rocker.
There is sh*t load of back and forth with this board especially trying to fix the aesthetics.
And after lam I found out that I still used too little resin/cabo mix for sealing the blank, so small dimples and craters can be seen under the lam. Oh well...
And there is more. Ive yet to glass the remaining 2 layers onto the deck, but thats cool, I was planning on doing it layer by layer.
The problem arose when I tried to order more surf clear epoxy from Seabase in uk. But they are no longer selling this epoxy.
So I have ordered RR KK instead. Now Im kinda worried abour glassing with RR over a surf clear, and Im even more worried about hotcoating with RR over the surf clear bottom lam.
I did order add F as well, I hope it will be enough to resolve any bonding/fisheye issues.
Anyone any advice/experience on this?
Ok, back in action. I’ve been doing bits and pieces for the last few weeks.
Glass on the fin box patches.
I used RR KK. Its different to surf clear, a lot more viscous, BUT…its actually clearer than surf clear (slight yellow tinge to it).
I wanted to put Sway’s logo on it, since a lot of ideas/methods came from this site. This is what i came up with.
Then it was time to glass the last deck layer.
I’ve ran out of 4oz unexpectedly, sourced some 6oz instead…(the marine shop did not have any 4 oz) No biggie…till I saw the weave…
Apparently is a looser weave than usuall…
This glass felt very ridgit…so I though i better tape it aroun the rails because there was no way i’d get the laps wrapped around the tail.
And finally glassed
I also cut lapped the bottom
The logo at the bottom…
BUT…
Ugh…bubbles…(reacher fo a cool Foster’s)
I’ll be a while
Hello Retro, This is going to be the BEST board you will ever make. No Joke. You are learning some real important shite on this one. I promise, you will never forget nor will you make these kinds of mistakes again. I'd bet the farm that you picked up more on this board with the carbon fiber, switching weaves and resin, and re-working the rocker than on any other. Now it's on to bigger and better mistakes! KEEP GOING.
Slainte`