The response to your post blaming cold weather is dead on. I had the exact thing happen to me on not one, but three boards. I glassed all three during the same cold snap, not realizing that the coldness affected the bond. Did everything prepwise that I was supposed to, went to pull off the hanging lap strings and pulled the lap right off!
I even went so far as to blame the resin manufacturer (who sent me another batch at no charge). Found out later that the cold was to blame. Had I only known, all I needed to do was turn on a space heater, would have saved much heartache and grief!
What I did to fix the mess was remove all the undbonding epoxy, sanded lightly with 50 grit, and reapplied, still not realizing the cold weather had affected the bond. Luckily, the weather had warmed sufficiently for the resin to adhere. Good luck…
I think you have a number of possibilities. Professionally I would not rule out the compressor contamination. That can be an all over event probablilty. Without a water separator and clean paint quality inline air filter at the end of the hose you could very easily contaminate the entire job surface.
As for the weather being cold I have not had much experience with epoxy in cold. It’s a bad idea. That which I have had was very slow curing. I repaired my garage door last month with RR, but I would not attempt to use epoxy paints or glass a board in that freezing weather. But I had to fix the door with an impending blizzard on the way. RR did a beautiful job and saved me thou$ands. One panel I did in the cold doorless garage. But because the blizzard was a day away I had to do the other panel in the house. I did it in the den. Built a fire in the wood stove set up the saw horses and it was cured by the afternoon. NO odor whatsever. Was back in business by 5pm. Props to Greg for saving me a lot of money.
I have seen cold damp weather ruin vinylester and polyester layup on industrial waste treatment plant tanks constructed on huge mandrels. So epoxy could be subject to the same problems concerning temperature and humidity as are polyester and vinylester. I have never been responsible for those kinds of problems. I would rather wait weeks or months than ruin a job. When the issue is someone’s wants v nature I side with nature. But here again the cold damp air can really cause contamination from the compressor.
Working with professional grade materials means bringing a high level of knowledge to the task. I don’t see that here.
That is the real problem. NO offense. I’m sure you are a highly qualified computer techie, but that does not qualify as a coatings techie.
Now quid pro quo, my hard drive made a not so funny noise last night and this morning…How much longer do I have?
I’m VERY suspicious of your compressor. Have you drained the tank lately? They accumulate a lot of water, oil, whatever goes in, plus lubricant from the pistons. If you used your air without any filter(s), near certainly this is the problem. It’s supported by the fact that the hot coat blew off the entire surface - if you had a touch contamination issue, then only the areas touched would have blown off. But you used air all over the board.
That said, I have a cheapo compressor that I use for airbrush work, and I don’t use a filter. But I do use PU/PE, though that may have to change.
Well, live and learn.
Know that good compressors for SCUBA tanks are water lubricated, so they don’t throw oil into the tank. Even those are provided with filters. You want pure air, that’s where I’d go. Water lubricate compressors have to be used every day, or else.
A coatings techie? No. But this is my 14th board so I have a pretty good idea of what I’m doing. I can see everyone’s concern using the air compressor, but I have a cheapo airbrush compressor and I drain it at the end of the day to make sure it doesn’t rust the interior. Yeah, the air coming out of the nozzle is full of water vapor but the weather was already very humid. On top of that, I used the air compressor for my first epoxy board and experienced no problems at all, granted that board was glassed in much warmer weather.
When I say cold, I really mean COLD. I started the glass job around 4 PM and the temp went below freezing over the night (my garage is also doorless). After the fact, I doubt any preparation could save an epoxy job in that kind of weather, outside of just heating up the room.
As far as the hard drive goes… just buy a new one. It could crap out tomorrow, or it could be years. Mine started doing that a few months ago and died about a month after it started.
Howzit robrhyne,Not all compressors use oil, there are a lot of oilless compressors on the market and even if you have a oil compressor you should use a filter/ catch system to prevent any oil from getting to the sprayer, that’s what I use with mine. Most of those airbrush compressors that people use are the small ones and I’ve seen them tried and they didn’t put out enough pressure to use on boards.I think I agree that it was the temperature that caused the problem. Aloha,Kokua
The temp sounds good to me Kokua. I think it’s a valid point though, that if oil is a potential issue with bonding, you don’t want to be spraying a board off with a compressor that could be spitting oil all over it.
Have you guys been airdropped supplies yet, or is your road working?
Howzit Losos, Try using a shop vac with a home vac brush to clean the blanks, they work a lot better. When you blow off a blank with air the air goes into the airspace and resettles back on the blank, when I saw this happening that's when I started useing the shop vac and get a lot better results as far as tape sicking to the blank.I attach a hose to the exhaust and run it out a hole I made in one of my shop doors,that way even any dust from the exhaust goes outside.Try it, it is by far better.Aloha,Kokua
Hoezit robrhyne, No air drops needed they have opened 1 lane of the hwy so things are back to normal as far as supplies go. We are just wondring when the rain will stop, it’s raining pretty hard as I write this and the waterfall behind my house is going off.Aloha,Kokua
IMHO the reason for the delam is that you handled the board. Your body oils did you in.
Now that spring is escaping the claws of winter I’m finally setting up to do some fin panels. IMHO, up 'till now it has simply been too cold and too humid to invest cloth and resin. I simply can’t afford to foil junk panels.
Having done six boards with R.R. epoxy, many fin panels and a little ding work on my own custom epoxy boards I’ve learned a few things about the nature of epoxy.
It will blush away from body grease. It simply will not bond to any place you touch the board with your hands. Never touch the board with your bare hands.
(always use rubber gloves, always, always.)
Light sanding is a good idea between steps. It gives a better mechanical bond and makes for a uniform lamination layer because the under surface is more true. It only takes a few minutes, so why not?
(Only handle the board with rubber gloves)
Humidity (water) retards bonding and curing. All resins work best in dry air conditions.
(Alcohol is your friend. Because it is miscible with water it dries things up. You can even wipe an area that is blushing during an epoxy coating process and it will almost always eliminate the problem)
The quality of an epoxy lamination and coating has as much to do with how you use temperature to effect it as anything else. Desending temperature during glass lamination and post curing by moderately elevating the temperature for a few hours make for a superior finished product.
Additive “F” works. I find no reason to use it during the laminating process but for coating processes it’s mandatory.
It makes the material skin out beautfully.
IMHO Resin Research doesnt’ suck, rather it blows the doors off of everything else. Strech, M-10, Mark Goin, Vince Broglio and more and more of the Santa Cruz boyz are using the stuff. It must have some good merits.
so now that it has been established that it was user error with the epoxy resin are you still reluctant to use epoxy?
This thread is unbelievable. The initial poster should be apologizing to all those who use epoxy the correct way. It’s not complicated except when common sense is not used.
Have you ever seen a delaminated polyester board or one that snapped with a crappy/wrong schedule glass job on it’s maiden voyage? I have, but with a polyester board it’s bragging rights and a badge of honor on how macho the surfer is in the waves. The broken polyester board photo means “wow, you’re so cool” and a broken surftech says “told you so… epoxy sucks”.
How many years until the ignorance and plain stupidity surrounding epoxy will be gone?
I would necessarily even blame the temp. The deck shape looks uneven and like a roller coaster ride and I suspect the amount of fiberglass used made it sucky also.
I am glad more stupidity is highlighted at the cost of giving epoxy resin a black eye.
This is a blush issue. The cold humid weather is what did this. I try to keep the temps above 70 during the curing when I’m going to recoat. 45 is way out of bounds here. Blush isn’t as much a problem with Additive F but in this case you really pushed the limits. Sorry to see this problem and I wish I could say I’ve never had it happen to me but I have. But I only had this happen once. Hope you have the same luck.
I have had a similar problem a couple times. Don’t think it’s the compressor because I empty it religiously. My guess is my oil on my hands. My own retarded fault.
I did run into a problem recently when I started to sand my buddys new epoxy. I remember running low on epoxy and waiting for every last drop to hit the bucket then trying to mix it properly. I know I put in the right amount of additive F and it gelled properly so I dont think my resin-hardener mix was that off…but for some reason sanding the belly of this board is a hassle. I would like to go ahead and just brush on another coat of properly mixed resin on top and then sand it…but will it adhere if I dont rough up the surface? I’m betting not. So what’s my best option. Keep fighting it with my sander?..
Well, if your compressed air is oil free. And if the surface of the board was dry. Then cold may be the source. Epoxy does not cure in freezing cold. But it will cure if just very cold.
I’ve been freezing and refrigerating and plastic bagging paint brushes for 35 years, but never thought about freezing an epoxy brush till Roy mentioned it a couple months ago. So when I did my garage door I gave it a try. Darned if it didn’t stop the reaction dead in it’s tracks. But next day after I reused it I decided to see if it would finish curing, so I didn’t clean it or refreeze it, just let it go and it turned to stone. This was with a second batch use on top of the first. It became one solid mass. So I have to admit I’m a little stumped about your delam. That’s a shame though. I wish I could offer more help. It’s obviously an intercoat adhesion problem, but my best guess was the contaminated air or next best surface moisture. If you can honestly rule out those possibilities we are back at cold. In which case I defer to Greg’s recommendations about temperature and humidity. Also, there have been several good suggestions regarding surface prep. Light sanding etc. I’m sure you can salvage it. You sound like you have enough experience and being logical is also helpful.
You might try blowing some compressed air on a clean piece of printer paper and look for anything resembling oil. just to be sure. Give it a good solid shot under the same conditions as the night you did your board.
Thanks for the HD warning. The noise stopped and hasn’t come back tonight yet, but I appreciate the good sense warning.
Guess I should back up to the Neptune and start using that again. I’m no computer techie for sure.
Looks to me like you sanded the laps too deep, the part that came off looks very thin. Combine that with the oil off your hands as you feel how smooth everything is has caused the implosion.
Howzit OTAY, No,I stay away from epoxy,don’t like working with it except when using it for wood work as a glue which it is excellant for. After reading posts for the last 3+ months about it, there seems to be a lot of variables that can make for headaches during the building process. Epoxy will make more inroads in the manufacuring of boards but there will still be die hards like myself who prefer poly over epoxy and with more people getting into the blank making business there will be better foam and lots of it in the near future so poly will still be a big factor. Right after the Clark closing I asked Greg L about some body setting up a factory in Az. His reply was basically, why would anyone invest in a dying industry. Well it seems that there are quite a few people are and willing to do just that and I think that we will see a glut of blanks when things are up and running. Do you think Walker and Just Foam would ramp up production if they didn’t think there was still a market for polyurethane blanks. These 2 companies are making as many blanks as they possibly can at the moment and still can’t keep up with the orders, so this says something about what people want. I was in the process of downsizing my board building before the blank blast so I am in no hurry to start up doing another building process. I have blanks in stock and will just use them when I want to. Yes I have seen poly boards delam and break but those were usaully green boards that hadn’t cured or was the result of bad lams jobs. After over 40 years working with poly I have the lamination down and I see a lot of my boards still in use and that shows me I’m doing it right. I ahve a good reputation for building strong boards, maybe not the lightest but that’s due to a good lamination process that bonds the glass to the foam which requies a little more resin in the lam job.
Now for the kicker, I got an e-mail from a fellow swaylockian who is very involved with board building on a large scale this morning about one of the big Ca factories that has switched to R.R. and their production is down 50% and are having problems since switching over.One of their main glassers broke out with a full body rash from it and they have had to evacuate the factory twice in 2 weeks due to dizzieness from the fumes when the stuff kicks off. It seems that the other glassers there are very concerned and may not come back to work because of it. He also told me that a lot of glassers prefer the Fiberglass Hi epoxy over the R.R. epoxy. This person is not a flake with a grudge but a very well known person who has posted here for years and I’m sure most of us have replied to his posts at one time or another. He asked me not to mention his name and I will respect his wishes so don’t even ask. I know R.R. is supposed to be non-toxic but some thing is wrong that would cause this to happen. I don’t tell any body to use poly so please don’t ask me to use epoxy, it’s up to the builder to use what they want or prefer to use. Another thing is your qoute about broken boards and bragging rights, this maybe something that happens where you are but I can say I’ve never seen anybody come out of the water with 1/2 a board saying " hey guys look at this I broke my board isn’t that cool". They are always bummed when their boards break, especially if it’s a magic or a favorite one or the only board they have. I don’t care what a person rides, at least they are surfing and hopefully having fun on what ever kind of board they ride. After over 40 years working with poly it’s in my blood and I don’t want or need a transfusion.Aloha,Kokua
That’s too bad Kokua. What the epoxy world needs is what you can deliver. A good quality lamination job by a top notch craftsman. It’s not the type or brand of resin, it’s the craftsman doing the work. FGH or RR, you would master either one quickly. And I am not out to sell epoxy here either. I am just thinking on who gets deprived in your surfing community if the move to epoxy and EPS is a reality and you aren’t willing to be a part of it due to b.s. you read on this site.
The only people I have seen claiming epoxy reactions seemed to be more interested in surfing than working to begin with. I think your friend should report what happened to the authorities of OSHA and get it all out in the open. Even if he isn’t a flake, let the whole world know if it’s a problem and health issue. Until then I call BS on it. Those few poor individuals who are sensitized due to improper personal protection then have a reaction to epoxy with subsequent exposure need to find other work. If you are allergic to strawberry’s, don’t work in the strawberry patch. The days of no gloves and dipping your hands in acetone are over.
The production has alot to do with orders also. If peeps aint ordering epoxy why stock the racks with them?
Stepping up PU foam production? To be honest, I hope it gets back to the good old days of of urethane blanks. They certainly are doing it to meet a need and make money. In the meantime if EPS fills the void for a time and maybe takes a greater bite of the market, so be it. My concern is that those who make their livelyhood making and selling surfboards should have all options available. Those unwilling to adapt or change are making that choice. I am still amazed though at the same old b.s. urban legends beign thrown around about epoxy.
Lucky you don’t need to worry about 45 degree conditions in your shop