I give the board a good scrub after I throw down the cloth. 80 grit soft pad. Does everyone scrub the board completely this hard? I know the hotcoat goes on cleaner when the cloth is scrubbed good, but I hope Im not going overkill and reducing the strength.
What are some other good preparating before the hotcoat goes down? Just sorta food for thought type stuff.
No need to scrub the lam. Filler your overlap, sand flush then squegee more resin over the whole bottom to seal the pinholes. Then Hotcoat as normal.
Are you using epoxy or poly? A lot of guys will hit the lap line on an epoxy after the board has been fully laminated since you can’t use styrene to help the lap lay flat. Others just grind the lap first, like normal, and then laminate the deck. Anytime you sand the cloth you are reducing the strength. By how much? Well that depends on how much you sand. Another thing to keep in mind is that your tensile strength is in the lap and rail curves so by sanding off fiberglass you’re creating “weak” spots.
How does styrene help your laps lay flat? I only use it to help blend damaged/dry fibers…
No need to hit it at all. Tight lamination and good tape job on the hotcoat will cover your lap .
Greg Loehr’s RR epoxy, he recommends putting a little additive F (the wax solution) in with lam coat. Check out his video if you dont believe me. I started doing that and I had my hotcoat come out bochy because I didnt sand the deck and bottom on the lam coat. This was a couple years ago. Now I sand the whole thing as mentioned and when I lay the hot coat down, it goes on very smoothly.
Quite frankly, Im not so against this method for now. I only sand enough to blend the laps as well as take off the wax coat on the top and bottom of the lam. It gives me virtually minimal sanding on the hot coat which was naturally nice. Guess I was just wondering if anyone did this method.
tgpliny thats how it do it
i use 40 or 60 grit and hard or medium pad
I always prep my lamination glass to accept the hot coat. I flatten boogers, I blend lap lines. When I lay down my hot coats, and they kick…they come out like a gloss coat. I can pull the tape and go surfing. But I sand the hot coats because they weigh too much, and my goal is light and strong.
so scrubbing with 80 grit, yeah if you don’t do it before, then you are doing it after. Just don’t sand through the strength.
On a poly- how do you keep form getting crude (ie fingerprints) on the board if you’re sanding everything before hotcoat? I get blending the laps between bottom/deck, but doing a thorough sanding? I like the idea of smoother hotcoat but I’m afrad of prints or sanding dust getting under the hotcoat. I get doing it with a well cured epoxy lam, but even the most cured poly is a little tacky.
And that separates the men from the boys. That is where I could show you, but telling would sound condescending. But it can be done with care and attention to detail.
dont sand poly before hotcoat
with epoxy, it seems like the less I sand before hotcoat, the less fisheyes I get.
maybe I’m not blowing the board off well enough after sanding?