Just finished shaping what will be my first five fin setup with Futures boxes so I will have the option of riding it as a quad or thruster. In the past I have laid down football patches on each box under the botton lam on thrusters. I was thinking about doing a larger butterfly patch this time. Can it be laminated before the whole bottom of the board, and if so would I tape off the area like you would for a cutlap? I’ve had bubbles around the boxes in the past and I’m trying to avoid it happening again, maybe it would be easier to squeegee out the bubbles from one layer of 4 oz. than from two and then lam the whole bottom as a second step. Is anyone doing it a different way?
I have been doing a few futures installs lately and was doing the patch method as well, I think doing one patch (butterfly) would work quite well. When I do deck laminations i.e two layers of 4 ounce cloth I have found that its lots easier to laminate one at a time, its easier to wet out one layer and then roll the next one over so I guess the same would be true for a fin patch.
Another thing I discovered was when doing futures I had the same problem with bubbles around the boxes, obviously squeeging as much as possible to get them out is one way but I found that if you just drop a small amount of extra resin in the area of the small bubble and flood it out it can work quite well, hope that helps…
Whether you use the butterfly patch or football patches just lam, lap etc like you would normally. Then take a sharp razor blade and make slits at the bottom edges of the raised portion of the box. This will allow you to work the bubbles out and get the glass flatter over the flange of the box. Use your gloved finger or the corner of a squegee and maybe baste with some leftover or fresh resin.
regards,
Dave D
Thanks for the responses guys. Dave, I assume you cut the glass at the raised edge of the box while it's wet right? So really if you are laying up the butterfly patch and the bottom lam at the same time you need to cut through two layers of glass. I still can't decide whether to tape off and lay up the patch first or to laminate both layers at once.
With a new razor blade 2 layers will be no problem.
Dave