I just finished the lamination process on my first glass job. Despite my best efforts, my laps didn’t come out as nice as I would have liked them. I’ve got some sanding to do (not to mention trimming)! Here is what I’m thinking. Please let me know if this is at all possible. I’d like to do a hot coat (no wax additives) and then throw on some sort of gloss or sealing coat. I don’t want to spend to much time sanding the hot coat and I’m not really sure if I have to, if I’m just going to put something else on top of it. And finally, I have read some discussion about using floor finishes as a gloss coat and as an additional seal on the board. What should I look for, any name brands? I’ve used polyester resin.
If you don’t want to spend much time sanding the hot coat, that’s understandable. Everyone wants to save time, but don’t neglect this important step. The hotcoat is fairly thick and can make you lose your original shape by “rounding it out”. You really need to tune up the rails and sand down any brush marks. Also, the gloss coat will be extremely thin and won’t cover up irregularities or mistakes. Some glassers will spray a thin coat of acrylic over the hotcoat after sanding. It makes a lighter board, but doesn’t add strength. Sanding out the hotcoat is one of the most important steps in creating a surfboard, because it gives you the chance to really fine-tune the piece of functional sculpture you’re making. Get into it and enjoy it. Doug Schuch
Doug, Thanks for the advice! Any insights on gloss coat substances that are user friendly?
Hey Chris: Welcome to the wonderful world of glassing. Doug’s right, hotcoat is one of the most important steps, and if your anything like me (a rookie glasser) it’s a good step, with lots of opportunity to fix errors (e.g. bad laps, bumps, strands, wrinkles, etc.). Don’t even think about doing without Wax, use sanding resin or add proper amounts of SA. Lay it on thick like Doug said – I even put an extra layer of lam resin on the rails to thicken it up… just throw it on and mix up your sanding batch while it kicks, you can put it on as soon as it starts to gel. Then I sand the @#&$* out of it… you fine tune it and lighten it up a lot. I take it down until I start hitting glass (if you can do it without hitting it all the better), now you just throw on a gloss coat. Gloss is thin, it goes on easy, and once you get the hang of it – if you’ve done a good job sanding your hotcoat – you hardly have to sand the gloss at all, but you’ll polish until your arms are dead. I really think this is the easiest for rookie style glassing… it almost makes it fool proof. The downside is it involves more sanding and you have to gloss coat, but if your going to spend time on painting I think it looks better and is worth a little extra weight.
A hot coat isn’t an option, it is necessary. A hot coat wouldn’t be a hot coat if it didn’t have additives. If you didn’t have additives it would be laminating resin.