Qustions left after epoxy 101...

General Discussion
1
Hi all,
First of all I wanna thank Greg for sharing his wisdom and helping clueless folks like me
Getting into the shaping world.
Thanks :)
Still , after ordering and watching both Epoxy shaping and glassing movies I have several
Unsolved questions.
I have shaped and glassed only one board till now ( my 10'2 longboard , it was before "epoxy glassing" came out) ,
Most of the knowlege I took from JC 101 movies which really helped me.
I treathed epoxy as it was PE and glassing went out quite fine.
The hotcoat , which wasn't too thick or too thin to my perception, went out good beside
Lots of Pinholes. Didn't use Additive F !
Now I have a shaped 6'2x19x2.5 , waiting for glassing and I want to make sure I'm doing all right.
It's a 1.9lb eps, using 2:1 epoxy system , viscosity- not very thin and not too thick....I believe it's good for the task.
Geltime ( not in the mixing cup of course) is about 4 hours.
Glass schedule is 6-6D and 6B.
Questions are:
1) what's the aprox amount of mixed resin for the deck glassing , same ques' for the bottom?
~cc\ foot of board
2) what are the aprox amounts for hotcoating ?
3) correct me if I'm wrong-
0.5% Additive F of mixed epoxy for the glassing
1% additive F for hotcoating...
4) what advices can you guys give me to prevent pinhols/fisheyes ?
room temp? Using fans on the board? Whatever's necessary....
5) should the hotcoat layer be thin or thick? ( speaking of "size" not resin viscosity)
6) after the hotcoat hardened and sanded... what is the best way to make a good "showroom" finished board
and seal the board perfectly?
a. Rubbing compound and car wax\ floor wax ( I can't get "Future" here in Israel).
b. some kind of clear coat ( maybe car 2part clear lacq)
c. glosscoat ( too heavy I think)
d. other suggestions...
.
Thanks , bless u all with endless barrels ;-)
Lee.
3

I hate to say “do a search.” But do it, there’s a thread that answers a lot of your questions (and maybe some you haven’t even thought of!). I think it’s called Epoxy Primer, or something to that effect. I think I did a search for “glassing with epoxy” and found it. Good luck, nice looking shape, by the way.

4

read the “EPS/Epoxy Primer” in the resources section…it should answer any and all of your lingering epoxy questions.

if memory serves…

maybe 18-20oz for the deck, and about 15oz for the bottom.

hotcoat takes slightly more than 1oz per foot.

additive f is 1cc per ounce of hardener in the lam, 2cc per ounce of hardener in the hotcoat.

heat the hotcoat resin prior to mixing in the hardener and additive f. i also give it a little splash of denatured alcohol. it lays out super flat, and doesn’t leave me with fisheyes/pinholes. i use slow hardener, and right after laying on the hotcoat, i use a heat gun on the board to bring any trapped air bubbles to the surface and they pop right away and smooth out. keep the room around 70-75 degrees fahrenheit (not sure what that is in celsius), and minimize humidity.

thin hotcoat. all you want to do is fill in the weave. of course, leave yourself enough room to sand everything flat. but an extra thick hotcoat just adds lots of dead weight. if you want it a little thicker for shine, you’re better off to do a gloss coat over the perfectly sanded hotcoat, rather than to just lay one on super thick.

you can spray a urethane clearcoat and get a nice finish (if you’ve got the right setup). otherwise, best way to get that showroom shine is a whole lotta elbow grease. lay on another thin coat of epoxy. fine sand to 1600#. and rub it out. you can bring out a very nice shine if you’ve got the patience.

sent you a PM on a completely unrelated matter. hope all is well in the Holy Land…

5

thanks guys, you’re good people…

anybody else wanna say somt’ before I begin with the big mess? :slight_smile:

6

[i posted a <span style=“text-decoration:underline”>link</span> to the primer in my last post]

just read the primer.

then, read it again.

and once you’ve done that, read it again.

glassing with epoxy is easy. the only thing that might be a bit of a pain is wetting out the laps. i like to fold the laps up onto the top side and pour some resin over them…then spread it around a bit and fold the laps back down after they’re already more or less saturated with resin. then finish wetting out the center of the board.

and don’t overwork the resin, or else it will get foamy.

if you’re doing a tint, mix up more resin than you think you’ll need.

and have fun…always.