I was attempting my first longboard today and the bottom lam went well for the most part. It lapped well on one side and then half of the other. If I wouldve had maybe a minute more working time this may have been avoided, but when I got to the last quarter of the rails, it lapped… but in the process of trying to smooth the excess resin out it gummed up on the topside of the board. Is there something I could do to get the resin off or smooth without messing up the top layer of foam? I reckon the obvious answer would be to try to sand it, but I feel it will scuff the surrounding foam up, I tried to peel one resin drip off but foam came with it. Any Ideas or tricks?
I used to do free laps but got tired of messing up the foam trying to clean up the laps when sanding.Now I do a cutlap,the extra steps of taping off the deck save me alot of sanding time and it looks better when its finished.
the only possible fix I can come up with - add a small amount of SA to some lam resin and brush a layer over the whole area. take your sander with a hard pad + 100 grit and carefully bring the tops of those boogers down flush as possible. make sure the brushed resin area is thouroghly sanded so your deck lam will stick.
I would use 100 grit on a sanding block and very carefully sand those bugers down without touching the foam. Get them as close to the foam as you can then brush on a ‘basting’ coat to fill the gaps. Again, sand until smooth as possible without touching the foam. Just don’t try to pick them off. You’ll tear out chunks of foam. Then lam the deck. mike
If you use a sanding block and paper you will most likly knock some of those drips off and they will take foam with them, leaving a hole. Your best bet is to use a sander as referanced above. I would only add that you could easily(but carefully) knock down the drips with a right angle die grinder and a 50 grit 3M "diskit" sanding disk. Just remember to lower the disk onto each area flattening out the drips but stopping before you hit the foam. Next time;----- Use your squeegy to take the excess off the the deck as you go, even if you haven't gotten to the end of your lap. Work from the middle toward the nose and then from the middle toward the tail. Smooth out the excess onto the deck as you go. If you have a dry area that you haven't got to yet; you can wet it with fresh resin. Better to mix another batch and wet out an area you haven't got to yet, that to have to deal with hardened drips. Usually if you can get the rail wet out in a timely manner you can then toss your Thalco squeege into the acetone bucket and use a hard plastic squeege to smooth out the excess on the deck. Remember; Even if you think you have plenty of time-------- Work Fast! If you work fast and get it done with time to spare you will have time to look everything over and make sure it's right.
Howzit whitelightning, You got some pretty chunky goop there.I would get a wall paper seam roller and just press them into the foam which should do the trick. You should have used UV resin since it takes a while to lam a board the first couple of times when you are new at it. When you do the deck use a little less catalyst so you have more time to complete the job. You also might go with a cut lap lamination also so you don't have to deal with the glass strands for now and when you get more comforable glassing then try free lapping glass jobs. Aloha,Kokua
