So I thought I would start a thread for people to share their hard earned knowledge and expierence, with those of us making mistakes for the first time.
And in the same, I would like to encourage all the noobs to be able to come here with their newly learned mistakes, to discuss effictive solution possibilities, or to seak the input or advice of those who have already figured out how to work through these hickups.
Whether it is a design/shaping issue, or a lamination/finishing problem, I encourage everyone to participate.
I will pipe in my issues and solutions as they arise… (or as I get them photographed)
In the "Spirit of Sway’s’’ here are a couple of fin box screw ups:
Was helping a friend glass his board. We got the finbox hole cut in the blank OK and everything was good to go. Board masked off, tail leveled, etc. He mixed up some resin, dropped the box in and pushed it in to place. I forget what I was doing but when I turned around to check it out, discovered that he had forgotten to mask off the box opening. Resin had run over the top and into the box. He looked at me like, “Oh shit!” - Simple enough. Yank that thing out, scrape all the resin out of the hole in the blank and get busy with acetone to clean out the box. All went well on take 2.
Another time and another fin box incident… same kind of deal. Carefully cut the hole - always a source of high anxiety for me, masked everything off, covered the box opening, leveled the tail, etc. Poured some resin in with some glass patches, dropped in the box and taped the fin from rail to rail to keep it vertical. I still like to put a fin in the box and mask off the opening when installing single fin boxes. Hours and hours went by and the resin was as liquid as ever. I waited until the next day and… still liquid. I FORGOT TO ADD CATALYST! As with first mishap, cleaned everything up with acetone and managed to stay awake for the second try. All went well. Sheesh!
Doing a lam job, I ended up with a couple dry spots in the glass, but not like empty of resin just light. but the kicker is the spots didnot adheir to the deck of the the shaped blank. Causing a void between the glass and the deck, that acts like a delamination.
After closer examination i have solved the culperate, after a couple hangups in process of laminating the bottom, a rogue dot of resin was over looked in clean up of the laps, not allowing the glass cloth not to make full contact with the foam, allowing the resin to run out of the void.
Now comes the part where you all play along.
Anyone have a surefire method to fill the de-lam spots with resin, without removing the glass and patching the spots. im just looking to avoid further delamination durring use. this is a personal board so im not too worried about how good it looks… just looking to quick fix to move forward, and to do it cleaner and better next time.
My thoughts were to try and track down a larg enough syringe that I could fill with resin and make a couple holes in the glass and pipe in some resin…??
Are those actually bubbled or does it just look that way because the clear resin ‘primed’ the spots in question? I.E. those spots won’t take up tint like bare foam will. They will stay looking more clear than the other tinted areas - kind of like the overlaps. Since the board kind of has the ‘acid-washed denim’ look anyway, unless they are actually bubbled up, don’t worry about it.
If they are bubbled up, you can buy syringes with a curved pointy tip that are perfect for that sort of thing. Just poke a little hole, squirt some resin in there and weight it down with some wax paper or plastic sheet and a brick.
System Three epoxy sells them and I’ve seen them in hardware stores and on eBay. Look for ‘dental irrigation’ syringes. It never hurts to have a few of these around for filling little bubbles. I flush them out with acetone and reuse them - just don’t leave the plunger inside while storing.
I have heaps of stuff ups and fixes in my threads. I always take detailed picks of the stuff ups and the fixes… Sorry I’m not gunna copy them all across to here, there may be an easy way to do it but I’m not that savy.
This one has too many to mention, it has two boards in it, the first one I had a majore stuff up routing the fin due to poor marking that had a pretty cool repair, bubbles in the fabric inlay around the fin boxes.
The second one has a myriad of funky build elements but just as I was finishing the fin box routing it fell off my back yard stands an put MEGA dints in the rails which I fixed with Spakfilla. with the tinted resin in the lam its hardly noticable now.
I will have to track down a syringe or two. There is definatly air between the glass and the deck. I dont expect to ever match the tint to whats there… I just gonna accept defeat for my first resin tint and rock the ugly. maybe even accentuate it with a contrasting tint. and do all my repairs on this board as ugly as I can…
Here’s a couple. I was working on glassing a board and I didn’t have enough resin. The inital thought was a mexican blanket style horizontal lines but when I got towards the point where I knew I was screwed, I decided to peal the glass off then scrape as much of the resin off the blank. I ended up with a interesting looking resin stain. I was able to glass the board with a clear lam later then I added a cloth deck inlay. I made the board for my brother and he has since sold it.
Another time, I made a board and layed out the template backwards. Got the board cut out before I figured it out. I just kept on going and finished it. It actually works OK, instead of being a semi-gun, it’s a more hot doggy looser board.
that foam stain looks pretty alright. but why pull the cloth off? were you out of resin all together or just tinted catalyzed resin in your bucket?
I had a similar mishap on the orange ugly beast mentioned in the post earlier .I was using uv cure resin so i just refilled with non tinted resin and did my rails with that. and threw it in the oven. used non tinted resin so I didnt have to use catlystand, ad it would catch up to the catlyized resin in the UV oven
I ran out of resin or hardener. I thought I could get it done, but didn’t have enough. I would have ended up with dry laps and I didn’t want to try to fix that later.
so I tracked down some Syringes that were large enough to flow some resin through and mixed up a small batch of tinted resin, after drilling out a series of holes with the edge of a razor in the delamination pockets for injection and relief. got them all filled, well almost. there are still a few micro pockets of air in the edges of some of the repairs, but I think its alot better than it was. just thought I would folow up with the repair. I hope this can help some one in the future.
Shaped a board for a friend and he wanted it professionally laminated with color. He came over to pick up the shaped blank on a very windy day (springtime) and put it in the bed of his truck. We wrapped it in blankets and secured it well enough for a five mile drive to the glassers. Had a beer together and say adios. I watch him back out of the drive and head down the street with a wave. Then at the corner, a neighbor’s palm tree lets loose a dead frond and it sails right down into his truck and impales the board breaking it in half. I hopped into the truck and we drive to FGH for an identical blank to start all over again. This time we lammed it ourselves.
Here’s another one… I made a board from an old Poly windsurfer. Cut it down from a 9’ + x 24" x 5" to about 7’ 9" x 21.5" x 3.5" semi gun. Got the bottom glassed and then when I did the deck inlay, I forgot to add hardener. I had the deck quite a bit done when I realized that the resin didn’t have hardener. I mixed up another batch with a little extra hardener, this is using epoxy now. I took the second btach and forced it through the glass as much as I could and got it all covered and when I checked it later I noticed that it had a really strange look. I let the resin cure a little longer than usual before I added 2 more layers of glass over the inlay. The board is heavy, but I think it’s because of the blank more than the glassing. I’ve ridden it in 2x OH and it seems to work well. The extra weight is a good thing in the bigger surf.
I was able to keep my self moving forward with a little input and advice from those more expierenced than myself, and got the ugly stick finished out and in the water. My girlfirend says she likes how it feels for her. ( I think she is just being nice) but after giving it a go my self, I feel I am going to need to re-assess some of the design elements and build another one. But here is the finished board stuff ups and all.
