Here is my first attempt at a compsand. If you remember a few months ago my HWS that ended up a table, well, you spend way too much time here. But that was the funding for this beast (ha, you’ll see).
Vacuum: Had to set the shed up for compsands. Saw a mini-fridge in a trash pile, pulled the compressor, mounted to a board, and off we go. Did some vac bag experiments, most were unsuccessful. I had to have 100% confidence that I could pull a vac. Completely rebuilt the bag. 6 mil painters tarp from Lowes, 2" masking tape, and a pointy ketchup bottle top for the valve stem. Bubble wrap breather full length, towel at the valve.
This all looks rather ingenious, (not to mention reasonably cheap) more details please dude.
Love the vac pump… looks a lot like mine.
Bring on the photo thread!
Foam: Theboys told me a local hardware store stocks 1# EPS foam for contractors building docks (he actually helped me more than just that). 16’ long x 24" wide x 12" deep. $72 US. I bought half of one for $36 or so. I can get at least 2 boards out of it, more like 3. Kinda depends on the rocker bed needed for bagging.
Hotwire: Made a profile set from some door skin left over from the HWS. I measured and ran a batten through my points, cut out, faired, and mounted to the foam block. Tried a guitar string in the hotwire bow, hooked to a large lawnmower battery. Couldn’t get my battery charger to heat the wire at all. The guitar wire broke after about 1’ of cutting. I think I was moving too fast. Changed to stainless steel fishing leader, went very slow and cut the blank and rocker bed. The rocker bed is a deck off cut. Someone on Sways suggested that and it made sense to me.
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Fin Supports: Next, put in some ¼" foam for fin supports. This was a free sample someone sent me awhile back. The rest of it will become a compsand in place of the balsa. 5# density. I don’t have a router so had to trace my support shape and use my 4" grinder and 7" sander to recess. Scary. It worked ok, next time I will (have a router or) trace my 7" pad to create the kidney shapes for a better fit. Lightweight spackle sealer.
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Balsa: Got the balsa from http://www.solarbo.com/index.php. 1/16" x 3" x 36" 100 Pack (INCLUDING DOMESTIC S&H) NO ADDITIONAL DISCOUNT ALLOWED
$44. 1/16" means a lot of stacking for rails, but with that price, I have more time than money. This pack was enough for 1 and ¼ boards. Plus I had more waste that I wanted. Someone else could get it down to minimum waste.
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Skins: Built a big table for shaping and pressing from scrap. Separated the balsa in to 3 stacks, A grade (straight), B grade (pretty straight), C grade (warped). Spot taped the balsa then spot glued the joints. Should not have done this on the appearance side. Used the A grade. Trimmed rough to shape.
I misunderstood one of Bert’s posts. Weighed my cloth, mixed RR to same weight, tried to saturate the cloth in the bucket with the plan to trim excess while wet, prior to bagging.
Lucky to have my 11 year old son helping. Unrolled, a half sloppy wet, half dry 4 oz sheet. Quick to mix some more RR, lam normally, place the balsa skin, into the bag, pull 7-8 hg overnight. Begin breathing again.
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More from the bottom press…
My hair was brown before I started vacuum bagging. ha ha.
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Rails: Rough cut rail bands so I wouldn’t waste too much balsa. Made a hand held hotwire cutter. I like this thing. When the wire gets hot, just squeeze your hand for the tension you want.
Used Elmers version of GG to glue the first balsa sheet on. Titebond 3 for the rest of the stack. Waterproof just incase. Rail offcuts to hold first balsa sheet rail in place. I ended up using tape clamps. Aiming for ½" rails so 8 pieces to stack. Ouch. Started off trying to conserve balsa, went very slow and had gaps at ¼" thick. Put the board in the bag for a few hours because the glue was starting to go off. Pulled most of the gaps out. Switched my glue up methods a bit. I need an even better method, if you have one for me. The way that worked best for me was to tape the balsa strip longitudinally at both ends, being mindful to keep the rocker covered. Then remove one end of tape and lay glue in under the balsa strip, retape both ends, rough trim the balsa length wise to rail thickness, tape clamp in about 3 more places. Grab the next piece of balsa and overlap previous a bit. The scarp joint was always some weird angle, so I used the razor to put a small notch in the balsa strip, on both the deck side and bottom side. Then cut with the razor through the notches. This would match close enough for me. Could always be better, but the glue kinda looks cool, and the epoxy fills the gaps during lamination. Glued the rest of the rails on, and in the bag for a few hours.
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Still more from the rails. Did I say this was the worse part?
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Fins: Made some plywood fins that I didn’t like. So I made some from the ¼" foam and planned on vac bagging them compsand style. Here you can see the mark from the guitar wire breaking. Had a couple of bobbles hotwiring the rail bands. Glued in some scrapes of foam just to bridge them. Had a gap in the nose area. Maybe should have stopped short? Planned on nose and tail blocks anyway.
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Train Show: Father-in-law came to town for a model train show. Helped glue up the deck skin. I went with him to the train show and what did I find? Transformers, transformers, transformers. Most were in the $35 neighborhood. There was a box full for $15 each, another box full for $20 each. I bought one of the larger ones for $5. It needs the power cord reattached, but for $5 I’ll roll the dice. Oh check out the guy I bought it off of. “Happy Trees”. That was the best part. I walked around talking to all the train guys and could fell the stoke beaming off of them. They’re all about trains the way we’re all about surfboards.
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More from the train show…
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Happy Trains (Lets paint some happy trees…)
Deck: Vac bagged the deck skin. This time I just laminated the deck normally and laid the balsa on top. One thing that surprised me, on the bottom skin, 3" strips (x) 7 wide = 21". Covered the bottom width perfectly, slight overhang to hand trim. On the deck, with the concave and rails I had to go 8 wide. Almost got me. Ends up having a butt-joint seam where a stringer would normally be on the deck. 3" strip centered up on the bottom.
Did the flat side of the fins in the bag with the deck skin. Bag should hold a 9’ board, about the biggest I’d plan on making.
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Blank: Out of the bag and…Cavity near the nose. It just didn’t wrap all the way or maybe was too dry? Next time I am going to finish shape the rails prior the deck bagging. This time I was thinking that shaping the 1/16" deck skin would help in turning the final rail. I was at about 95%, don’t think this hurt, but next time will be different. Cut nose and tail off for blocks. Scary. Hand planned down to shape.
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