I am relatively new to shaping (3 boards done) but on the last board I did a cut lap on a clear glass job in anticipation of doing some pigment work. All went well but I noticed triangular gaps on the laps where I made relief cuts. This was fine for the clear glass job but I am concerned if I do this with pigmented lamination I am going to end up with pretty strange looking laps. Am I making too larger relief cuts or should the relief cuts extend over the cut-lap tape to be cut off? Some advice on how this avoided would be great! I plan on doing a coloured bottom and clear deck with a black pinline.
Got pics? I’d like to see where you’re doing your relief cuts.
Other than that… minimize the use of relief cuts. I try to only do them on the corners and tips, so my issues are dark overlapping noses and swallows, not V shaped voids. You can usually bend the cloth to accommodate most curves.
Nopain;
Don't know your shape you are talking about, but in doing
regular thrusters, your reliefs should be in the nose and in the
tail only. (depending on tail shape, one or more) I always cut
a few bow-tie patches to lam out and a little uncatalized resin from
the main batch to even out the color in tints only for the relief cuts.
Orange and yellow tints are the best colors to start with, blue last.
A light green looks good and is pretty easy to match up too. I would
suggest that you do a straight volan (no tint) glass job (with cut-laps) first
before trying a color. Then yellow, orange, etc...... just my 2c.....
The board is a Mini Mal I am making for a friend so the nose is pretty round. She wants a very light purple tint, kind of lilac so it won’t be dark. Going to go for it tonight so fingers crossed. I will try not cut any triangles out unless they are needed, instead I will just make cuts in the glass, hopefully the overlaps won’t be too much darker than the rest!
Howzit pain, Relief cuts can be a real pain but there is always an answer or 2. One way is to make clean relief cuts and after you lam the board you can cut off the overlap top part to meet the bottom relief cut edge but it has to be exact or so close you can take off the excess with a surform or razor blade and never undercut so there is a space. The other way is to use the surform and take off the excess till you get to the bottom layer but the first way is easier and does a better job in my book and much easier than trying to make exact cuts before laminating since if you cut it wrong it is a done deal. Cut my teeth on tints in days of yore..Aloha,Kokua
Yep… I do a combination of both methods. Tuck one side of the relief cut, then just before I tuck the other, I trim the tab so it just overlaps. When It’s cured solid, I hit it with 60 grit on a small hard block until the color matches… or gets close enough. My tints are never perfect. There always seems to be a “shadow” on the corners.
All tint boards will have dark overlaps at the corners....Look at all the best boards in the world..they all have darker corners.
Your going to scratch your eyes out doing violet. I saw some guy at Magic Island the other day with a 10 ft Brewer fun gun shape.....Hand shaped by Brewer, Glassed by Jack Reeves, Best of the best right, well it was a light, light, violet tint. Holy Shite! it was showing a bash where Reeves slammed the blank into the wall, It was showing planer marks in the foam where Brewer :I guess" got lazy, it was showing foam tears along the stringer........and last but not unexpected it was showing double dark corner laps around the tip and tail. Needless to say, every sin showed up in that color.
Net net any dark color that is trying to be a light color...i.e., Lt Blue, Violet, Pink tints will be a complete PITA. Do a Opaque Violet and save your soul.
I appreciate the feedback and the guidance with regards to colours but I think I am going to proceed with light purple tint and hope for the best! The final recipient of the board is a good friend of mine and even if there are a few imperfections she knows the risks and that its my first tint but sometimes when there mind is made up there is no changing. I am of course striving for perfection and I will keep my fingers crossed on this one. At least when I ordered the pigments I took heed of other earlier advice on Sways and purchased yellow, orange and lime green for my own boards; I feel a swirl coming on! I will post photos of the results later tonight or tommorrow, wish me luck!
I only do relief cuts on corners. I wrap all of the arcs and round parts. I wrap the tails on round tailed boards. If a longboard has no tip at all in the nose I wrap those, too. You just have to be patient and start working the smaller radius turns before you get to them.
Obviously, it’s a lot easier to do that with narrower laps and lightweight cloths so I generally opt for using more layers of lightweight cloths as opposed to fewer layers of heavier cloths. That’s okay for me, though, because I think that more layers of liteweight cloth is stronger than fewer layers of heavy cloth.
Hey NPNG,
I just did a board for my daughter, she wanted the same, lilac purple. I started with a white pigment added blue pig and then titrated in red "tint." The color turned out great, if you like lilac. The only reason I mention this is because I had good lap results and I think it was because the white really helped the blend, overlaps barely noticeable.
Have fun!
So I did it! Bu I must admit the whole process didn’t exactly go as planned, not that it didn’t turn out well. Firstly the colour, now I read in a couple of places pigment should be added in small quantities so I started small just 3%, turns out 3% is plenty when you are using pigment paste! So colour turned out very strong and not as light as planned! Still I pressed on and started laminating, which went well and I was careful to ensure I got full and even coverage! I had made up a large batch of resin so I thought I couldn’t run out! Turns out I had been so absorbed with ensuring the bottom got an even coverage I didn’t catch any dripping resin in my bucket, big mistake! Not only did I not have enough resin to easily do the laps but I had a lot to clear off the floor! The resin gelled a lot quicker than I thought as well (temp in the UK is a lot warmer than the last few lams I did and although I reduced the catalyst to 1.1% it went very quick. I managed to scrape enough resin together to get the laps down but it wasn’t pretty! I fear there could be some inconsistency in the shade on the rails! The relief cuts went pretty well so thanks for the input, just a bit of a bulky nose wrap to sand down! So all happy I survived but a bit gutted I went back to making rookie mistakes I thought I was past. I have just noticed a small but quite pronounced air bubble on one of the laps, any thoughts on the best way to sort this? Willpost some pictures of my effort when I can get the damn photos to upload!
Last time I was on Maui, I saw a board shaped and glassed by a local guy on the south shore near Lahaina. I tried to find him but couldn’t. The board I saw was an orange bottom tint longboard that a local girl had. It was superb. I was blown away by the workmanship on the laps and overlaps with the orange. I have a feeling he checks in here, but I don’t know his name. anyone know who I am talking about?
when working with colored resin ,,, allways save a little bit on the side ,uncatylized. for touch ups
trim any overlaps so they are miniscule, then sand them flush, the color will even up.
have fun, you get props for trying!
I have added a couple of links below, one to show how it came out and the other to highlight my bubble problem!
I have realised i may be left with a couple of light or dark patches on the laps, or gaps where i have to cut out the air bubble(s). That got me thinking, is it possible to do resin patterns on the laps the same way you do pinlines?
The friend who this board is for wanted hawaiian flowers on the deck so could i use a stencil and use resin? This way i might be able to cover up some of the mistakes on the laps!
Has anyone done this before? If so which stage do you do it? What do you apply the resin with to get the best result?
Thanks for all the input so far.
Stencil work is best done with paint on a flat surface… like on a smooth, sanded fill coat, or on the foam. So yea… you can still do it over the rails. I like to use the “dab” technique best… either with a short, stiff bristle artist brush or a sponge, and very little paint. You can dab on different colors within the same pattern and get all sorts of cool effects. You can also spray it on.
Looks good NoPain. Sounded like my first resin tint. I was disappointed with some of the mistakes I made. I used a wide deck lap and the laps were taking long to wet so I got some uneven color there. I had a bubble on the rail like that also. Taking the advice here I sliced it open from one side (top) and filled it with clear resin. I used uv so I mushed it down with squeegee until it kicked. Worked well. I have to get up close to see any traces of it in the finished board. Post some more pics when you get done.
Thanks guys useful input. Think I will try slicing and flattening the bubble as you described but will also do some stencil work over the top to using a sponge. I will try and get some paint to do it but may end up using pigmented resin depending on time etc. I think based on tour advice a sponge will probably be best for application, also cheaper! Its amazing how many times I have to go to the shop to buy paint brushes! Even after bulk buying them from supplier! I’ve just ordered a sdanding drum attachment for my drill so doing the laps should be a lot easier this time! Worst part the process in my opinion is hand sanding the laps, takes me ages! Guess my cutlaps aren’t quite good enough yet!
This time around I kept my hot coat brush in acetone. I just shake it out right before I start. I also made my last board with a sander. Saved hours. I recommend getting one even if it is a budget sander. That and switching to UV resin saved me so much time expense and headaches.