So I had a chance to work on my board again yesterday. We got Manland cranking to 30 C with the wood stove even though it was minus 7C outside. It was almost too hot. I used a lot less catalyst this time and it stil kicked pretty quiick.
Lessons learned:
I don't need to lap all the layers (I did three layer of 4oz on the deck and 2 on the bottom) this would have made wetting out the laps easier.
my resin spreading technique sucks. Basically I don't have a technique. Maybe board #2 will go easier.
I spent more time on the the nose and tail triming to make sure everything would fold over nicely and it worked
Questions:
what would you do with the spots where I left pooled resin on the dock and bottom?
should I try and sand them down before I do the hot coat? or just leave it and let the board look streaked?
should I do a hot coat arund the laps firts and sand it all down before I do the real hot coat?I've got quite a mess there as you can see.
It's gonna take a lot of time to clean up all those laps before I can do the hot coating.
You'll notice a football patch on the O'Fishl fin box.I had lots of air bubbles from the first lam do to not cutting the cloth first to go over the box slot and inexperience. so I cut out the air pockets and put down a football patch. I hope I keep my fin :).
Madprofessor, the board looks sick! Interested to hear how it rides, as theres some similar waves here. Did my first (and only) lam job last summer and ran into a lot of the same problems. http://www.surfersteve.com/introduction.htm has some good diagrams for spreading resin, that i followed on mine and it worked out alright. I had the same results on my laplines ( 4+4 bottom, 4+4 deck), and figured i'd lightly sand them and let the hot & gloss coats fill them in. Bad idea, all the lines are still there, and wish i wouldv'e spent a lot more time sanding down before hotcoating! Good luck.
for first time glass job that’s not too bad – many worse ones have been posted! Clean up the laps with a file or sanding block where they are sticking up. Don’t worry about excess pooled resin at this point.
a tip or two for next time - get the resin on the board once its catalzyed, don’t leave half of it in the bucket, it will kick slower in a thin layer than in a bucket. if you have troubles wetting the laps, try using the edge of the bucket to hold them more horizontal, and pull a bit of resin off the board (from the stringer to the rail) then move sideways along the board and do it again.
check the fit of your glass at the nose & tail by test-wrapping it while its still dry.
for a newbie glasser, I think fin box installs after the glass are easier. (Just one less thing to thing about while you are learning…)
don’t stress out over appearances, the board will surf just fine. Congratulations on being brave enough to do your own glassing!! many guys never will…
thanks all for the encouragement. I feel like I have to learn how to do the whole thing or it’s waste. kina like surfing. you gotta love to paddle cause if you don’t you won’t do it well and you won’t ride a lot of waves. I wanna be able to build all of my equipment from start to finish and I’m willing to ride a few dogs to figure it out.
for cleaning the laps I used a 120 grit flap disk in the angle grinder, taking care not to stay on any spot too long and feathering slowly. I also knocked down some big bumps with a sanding block and 40 grit and with my small Surform.
[img_assist|nid=1057204|title=fin patch|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=427][img_assist|nid=1057205|title=bottom outline|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=427|height=640][img_assist|nid=1057206|title=top outline|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=427|height=640][img_assist|nid=1057207|title=top rail profile|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=427][img_assist|nid=1057208|title=bottom rail profile|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=427]I think I’ll call this board the Red Null.
Here are some photos of the board before I hot coat it. This is my first lamination and I’m glad that used a tint because it allows me to see mistakes more easily. I think that if I’d done a clear lamination I wouldn’t have noticed some of the techniques that will make the next one easier. I hope that the hot coating and sanding will smooth things out a bit. I’m not worried too much about how it looks because it feels super good. This board is gonna go really well on the points when it’s under head high and mushy.
So stoked to have finally made my own board. It’s been a long time coming that’s for sure.
I’ve already got a blank for my next shape. I’ve got a 5’10" Pavel US Blanks fish blank. Right now I’m leaning towards a 5’9" quad fish with 11" tip and -15" nose.
Looking good mate, the more you do the better you'll get. You'll be surprised it only takes a couple to get a lot better at glassing.
I cannot believe you guys surf in a place where it snows. Coldest water temp here is around 14c/58f, and i struggle once it gets below 16c!!, credit to you
This board looks like a real nice shape for your points. I'd like to see another one similar with a simple vee in the tail, (no concaves) and hear the ride comparison, which one you'd like better.....turns or speed. By the looks of that left in the photo, I'd want some speed. Nice job on the shape. Your lamination skills will improve with experience. Good job, Keep Going!
[img_assist|nid=1057230|title=fire|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=427][img_assist|nid=1057232|title=painting laps|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=427|height=640][img_assist|nid=1057233|title=sanding my mistakes|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=427][img_assist|nid=1057234|title=sanding 2|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=427]Finished hot coating yesterday. It was -6 C. (20 F.) We fired up the wood stove and got the temperature up to the 80’s. I didn’t tape off the rails on my top hot coat so I could paint the bottom laps and tail section to do some clean up sanding before hot coating the bottom. It made a big difference.
I’ll be the first to admit that my first lam job is crap. It’s will totally look like a homemade board even though the finished blank was pretty smooth.
At the same time I’m very pleased with the results and with the knowledge I gained. My next one will be much better and I won’t do it in the dead of winter again. All those fumes in an enclosed space are not a good idea and controlling the temperature is too hard.
Now it’s time to sand the fin boxes and hot coat. I have a small soft spot to repair on the tail. No biggie. I also scored a Fostner bit to drill through the deck for a leash rope install. I’ll sand throuhg the O’Fishl box first to get a good measurement then I’ll drill the deck and fill the hole with resin and q-cell.
Or should I just use resin with chopped up glass cloth? Any thoughts?
hey tblank. do you think that the one with only vee would turn better? This one has quite a bit of vee in the last foot of the board. I’m really interested to see how it rides -how the hull entry will work with the more traditional single to double concaves and tucked edge. the board is super wide so I see it more as a down the line type design with the occasional carving turn. no sharp re-directs on this one. I also look forward to trying it with a 9" Liddle volan flex fin from my hull.
beerfan: the cold is like anything else. you get used to it. adaptation. before moving here four seasons ago I’d lived in Florida, Jamaica and Hawaii. now I wouldn’t trade this place for anywhere. the people are amazing and so are the waves. wetsuits are really good now too. I use a Patagonia R4 with West 7mm mitts and West 8mm boots. toasty. perhaps the hardest thing is figuring out what size performance shortboard to ride with all that gear which adds 20 pounds or so of weight. it’s taken me a lot of tries to finally figure out a shortboard that isn’t too big or too small.
Hey Professor, Howzit? If you like turning your board from the middle then a hulled or flat bottom will be faster. Some have said that the concave flattens out your bottom but I don't buy into that. What it does is flattens the rocker from tip to tip, but the bottom is not flat. Any change in surface will cause some amount of turbulence, the less turbulence the faster the planing is. A lot of guys need to turn all from the back foot. This allows for quick transitions and shorter turns. By the looks of that photo of the left, I picture some long drawn out turns with speed to burn and that happens from the middle of the board. The vee in the tails helps to facilitate the turns.
ps. You may want to play around with fins for awhile. A 9.5 Liddle may be too much fin for a six foot board, depending on how hard your turns are. Hard meaning PUSH vs. snap. The board you shaped and a flatted one with vee will be a great pair for those type of waves.
today I sanded through the O’Fishl fin box so I could drill a hole for the fin rope. I started with a 1/8" pilot hole from inside the fin box through to the deck so I could get it where I wanted it in the fin box. next I drilled with a 1/4" bit from the deck down. Finally, I used a 1/2" Forsten bit on the deck. I think it may have slipped a little less if I’d sanded the hot coat a little.
lesson number #558 jotted in the memory bank.
tomorrow morning I’ll pour the hole and when it’s dry I’ll sand the hot coat.
swell is on the way for the weekend and looking good for next week. I am gonna get some good opportunitites to test out my own design since I’m not working regular hours right now. soooo stoked.
As you can see I have not yet sanded the Futures boxes. this is a traditional 2+1 fin set-up except that I placed the center box a 7" from the tail instead of 5". Don’t ask me why.
Now tblank has got me ready to make a second one of these with a flat entry and vee out da back. shoots.
Hey Professor, for what it is worth, all my boards have a belly or hulled nose. They transition to different bottoms for different breaks but the daily-daily has a flat section under my feet that blends to the tail Vee. This one trims fastest and is my fave. Some friends hate it because they try to swing the nose around and catch rails. This design is to sink the rail and fly.
ps. you're addicted....don't put that on my back, Hah!
Hey tblank, that is interesting, im making an egg, and im going to put some belly in the nose for sure. Its pretty flat, but i was thinking of a single concave under my chest/front foot, for trim speed, but if you say you have a few, and the flat to V is best for trimming, i'll go with that. Muchos easier. Thanks for sharing mate. How do you do your belly, do you just upturn the rails in the nose and blend it back to the stringer??
Beerfan, Exactly as you said on the rails. They are hard in the tail and gradually "corkscrew" up to the belly. This flat to Vee works for me, you may like the feel of a concave better I don't know. To me, the concave will have a dishy feel unless it is a real drivey wave. That feeling also allows it to be looser obviously.
Congrats Madprofessor, the board looks great! Gona be glassing a board soon and am trying to decide between a leash plug and drilling through the center finbox like you did. Did you take the forstner bit from the deck through the fin box, or just deck & foam? Also, do you just fill the hole with resin and redrill after curing?
I used a sander for the first time today. overall it went well. but I did uncover a few air pockets on the rails from the deck lam. Again lesson learned. This is due to lapping two layers of cloth and kicking the resin too hot. live and learn.
I also sanded through the glass on the deck thinking I was still on the weave of a big chunk I’d been working on. Luckyly I stopped before I dug into the foam.
So I’ll have to patch the bare spot with a piece of cloth and a little red laminating resin. I’ll probably just fill the shallow air pockets with sanding resin. then I’ll hot coat it again and finish sanding.
good news is my fin boxes came out fine and overall I’m happy with this as my first ever shape. Too bad I won’t have it ready for the swell that’s headed our way in a couple days. but then I got plenty boards to ride.
hey sparky - the fostner bit only went through the deck and barely scratche the fin box. you only want the 1/4" hole to go through the fin box. I put a straw through the hole, bent the straw under and taped it to the bottom so it would stay on place. then I poured the mix aroud the straw. once it dried the straw pulled out and left a perfect hole.