On my 14th board right now and still having issues with scratches and swirles from sanding. Still getting little pinholes everywhere even when lam coat is completely dust free. easily sanding down to the cloth on the rails all the time even when hand sanding. Usually doing a second hot coat at least on the rails because of this. I feel like I have a good grasp on the process by now and feel comfortable doing everything but after I get into sanding I get completely humbled. Working out of a shed on the east coast of the USA so temperature and humidity fluctuates a lot but because of that I do most of my glassing early in the morning.
Can you post pics??
Stuff you are describing sounds pretty normal, the things we all struggle with. Pics of your process showing lam, hot coat, sanding setup, closeups of the finish at each step, etc, all are helpful.
Anyway, I’m just a backyarder, maybe double your board count, but spread over 15 years of doing this, so I only do a few boards a year, at best.
If your boards are turning out well in the end, that’s the main thing.
Hello,
one thing that works is ask for help to someone more experienced, if you can watch, help and make questions to someone that is a good shaper / glasser its very good for the learning process.
i hope i can help, i have the same issues and correcting them was hard.
First and most important if you use a grinder or a sander get one that works at low r.p.m and use a soft pad (a soft pad spinning very fast becomes harder)
For lamination everything changed for me after watching the video on youtube
Surfboard Glassing: How to do a Freelap Bottom Lam with Chris Bauer
i had issues with room temperature so i got a portable air conditioning machine that also de-humifys (makes lot of noise but gets the room at a stable 21 deegrees celsius and dry.)
I always catalise resin pe at 1%
i sand very carefully the laps before the new layers of cloth and i put 5% wax on the resin for the hot coat.
i only sand with the sanding machine top and bottom with white sand paper 120 grt, after i switch for a rotary hand sander 200grt, after 400grt and then wetsand the rest by hand up to 1200grt.
someone here on swaylocks (a patient man for sure) wrote that he would even wetsand the board and let dry betwenn changing the grt of the sanding paper.
i had lots of trouble before i made something looking nice.
i ruined blanks with experiments and etc… also i stick to the freelap method and mainly white boards.
Cheers and good waves