Using Probox for the first try, only used center boxes and glass ons before. Everything going well, referring to a good thread by Afoaf, ‘How I Probox’. Everthing routed nicely. Used one ounce and basted in a perfect lining of six ounce cloth and let that set up. Prepped my boxes with clay and tape. Mixed another 1 1/2 ounces, divided among the four holes. Then i remembered I wanted to use roving…i have some, might as well. So i wrapped them one at a time and put them in, first two slide into the template notches just fine. Wrap the third, feels kinda tight, well maybe the template got tacked down askew i thought. Wrap the fourth one and try to put it in, sonofabitch this wont go down! Wtf is going on here. I check the third one, its an eighth inch high on one side. Grab a stick and poke down there, dammitt its kinda hard. Feels pretty warm on the deck side under the holes…oh no…run the board ouside to the cold air, able to pop the last box and save it because the pool was so hard by then that the box was just glued by the bottom. Box 1 and 2 are good. box 3 no good. I decided to peel off the template, carefully saw off the box flush with the board, and reapply the template. With the box back below the template i SHOULD be able to router the box out, and also route the solid pool out of hole number 4. At least the foam looks intact. Done all stages of glassing in this hot room, maybe 85f, but too warm for KK to sit in a quarter inch puddle while dicking around with roving strand after the pour! Do you think i need to stack templates and all that, hows it like trying to router into a solid pool of resin? Shards fly and stick into your face? or just go real easy and plow through the box and the other puddle at the original depth setting? I think i handled this very calmy…there was no one around to hear me so all the mthrfuckn was all in my head, haha. Will order one more box and reroute the holes tomorrow, at least i can finish the first two!
Fiberglass Hawaii has the best epoxy for setting fins. They have a three minute, with very little exotherm. It turns to rubber in three minutes, and then takes the next six hours to fully harden. Do little micro batches, and one fin at a time if you must. Wait ten minutes or so and trim the excess with a razor blade, still like soft rubber. Wait till morning, and it’s hard enough to sand down.
IMO temp is what got you… 85f degrees is great for lamming but not for boxes.
i do my Proboxes with RR fast one pour but, i do it in the evening so the temp is around 60f plus or minus a little…
regarding routing out the resin take it really slowly. when you drop the router in to the dried resin, set one side of your router on the Probox Jig and “hinge” the router bit down into the resin. GO SLOWLY and, hold TIGHT with 2 hands! once the bit is as far down as it’s going to go and the router is flat against the Jig, start SLOWLY moving the router around in small then gradually larger circles until the bearing finally contacts the Probox Jig. just remember that you want to just gradually shave the resin until it’s gone…
another way to do it is to set your router bit depth much higher than the 3/4" Probox depth and just shave the top off of the dried resin. you will have to eyeball it so you don’t route into your Jig because the bearing will, most likely, be too high. once you’ve gone all the way around inside the Jig shaving the top of the resin, adjust your router depth down about an 1/8" and do it all again, then again, etc. until you make the full pass at the corrrect depth.
these 2 methods worked for me when replacing existing Proboxes on a board that i repaired.
good luck
http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/probox-removal
here’s a link to my original post from when it was fresh in my mind
Did you use scales?
Been there.......
http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1028598
Today I line the hole with 6oz and do three pours. Slow, simple, safe....I'm not a pro, no hurry , no worry.
Why not put a collet in the router, that way you can slowly drop to the depth you want, you’ll be left with a rim of resin so switch back to your bearing guided cutter for that last little bit.
All’s well. I read stingray and chrisps threads dealing with this, at least i didnt have foam melt as in stingray’s case…thanks to chrisps experience i did the box removal at graduated depths, i was gonna go whole hog on it, glad i didnt try that. So now its just a minor setback, wait for the box to come. The final depth of the removal cut left the glass in the bottom of the well intact, so i’ll just line the sides lapping down a hair and carry on. I have some black and white easter hay sprayed onto the side of the house and yard outside the back door to clean up. d
If your foam didn’t melt then what was the problem?I thought exotherm causing foam to melt and the box to wobble in the hole was grounds for a reinstall.
excellent recovery.
fast setting epoxy on a hot day means you gotta prewrap your roving and move quickly!
the FGH reference from everysurfer sounds quite promising.
might have an opportunity to make another board soon…I miss the smell of routing out the fin boxes…love that foam, glass, resin (and bamboo) aroma!
LARRY, WHERE’S MY TWINZERS! I KNOW YOU"RE READING THIS!!!1
Yeah what a relief, got back on track without making the problem worse. Jesus, that box was an eighth high in the front of the box AND on the rail side. I did consider just correcting it with different inserts, but i think i wouldve ended up grinding the box down too much, and the angle would be off…i couldnt just 'live with it…few more bucks for a box and fix it right, not often i can fix something so you dont even know what went wrong.
Ahh now I understand,thanks for clearing that up.