It was a dark as stormy night, and I was alone in my laboratory contemplating, with every lightening bolt, …
Actually, I was sealing a couple of board with DAP and realized that the stuff had gone hard on me. No problem. I poured a cup of water on it and began to mix.
The towns people below in the valley were getting very wary of my experiments, and I knew it was but a matter of time before…
I figured out pretty quick that the reason it was hard and dry was that the water had all settle to the bottom leaving a 2 inch hard layer at the top. The water I had just added and the water already on the bottom made it a soupy mess. About the consistancy of thick milk. And it was too late for a HD run. My first reaction was to pull out the compressor and spray it on. But too late at night for the noise.
Peasants with torches and pitch forks at the door, I bid for more time…
So I rolled it on with one of those small paint rollers. Maybe an inch in diameter and 6 inches long. Agghhhhh. Another mess. Textured surface. Oh, the sanding I was in for. Or so I thought. I pulled out my sqeegee and pretended I was laminating. A minute later it looked better than any sealing job I had done to date.
BF’ing D, you may say. I don’t think so. And here is why.
I got the stuff on far more evenly that by just sqeegeeing in chunks,
the rails were a piece of cake, no more scapping the curves,
I got none it of it on the floor to step on (which is why I dread the job) and my flip flops don’t have chunks on the bottom,
It obviously is sealed way better as the soup mix soaked into the interstices (look it up)
the board will therefore be lighter
the board looks way better with virtually no more sanding after the roll /squeegee job,
That is the way I have always done it. I use fast and final spackle and thin it to a milk like consistancy. I just pour it on and use a squeege to spread it around. It will kind of puff up like cake frosting as it starts to dry. I apply the rails with my hands and rub it in between the cells. I use a squeege again while it is gel like to pull off the excess. After It drys I use a foam pad an a screen to finish it. When complete it is a smooth as a PU blank. I then shoot it with a coat of white to seal it and even the color. The spackle will yellow in the sun pretty quick so the paint evens it out.
There’s a video snippet at the Sfoam site from their DVD that shows basting using a squeegee.
But yes I always though you did it this way so you can press the mixture into the EPS gaps and then pull off any excess.
I still think resin, Qcell mixture may be a better sealer because of the water evaporation/penetration of the DAP sealer into the EPS. But there must be something better out there than both of these options
Its all good. I just thought that rolling a thin liquid on the board was easier than spreading a thick paste. Particularly on the curves. Let it soak, and then squeegee the excess onto a paper towel and you’re done.
Seems to me that if you pour it on, it will drip to the floor, you’ll step in it, your wife will scream when you track it in the house, your dog will start to pee the rug, and you see where this is going.
Spackle has a chalky texture too, nothing can stick very well to that.
Except for a fluid like, say epoxy, for the sake of argument, that kind of penetrate into it. However, if you are using EPS in the first place you are likely going to get a better bonding than the strength of the EPS anyway.
You got it oneula, the vinyl spackle doesn’t get a bond on the foam the way using and epoxy mixture does. Now when finish sanding my eps blanks, I sweep the dust into a wide mouthed canister and keep it to make a spackle to sqeegee onto the blank, easy to sand.
I mix it with my resin, at first I left the blank with the dust on it, but I have so much wood dust in my room that it was neccesary to blow the blanks off. I tried some micro balloons, but liked what I got from the styro dust better.
Purple, You’ll have to sand ito ff. Hopefully, it isn’t too thick. Use a dry wall screen underneath a foam pad and see how it goes. Next time get it as smooth and thin as possible before it dries.
Jim, I agree that resin bonding to the vinyl spackle could be an issue, but what I thought was good about the soupy roller method was that instead of a shell of spackle of a couple of milimeters thick, you instead had the soup seeping into the voids between the foam balls. With light sanding you then exposed the foam for bonding purposes while retaining the sealing effect. And the water evaporated leaving the lightest possible coating.
With your resin and foam dust method you are adding weight (albeit only 3 oz of resin per side) as the resin seeps into the foam. There is something to be said for the resin strengthening the foam which doesn’t happen with soupy spackle. Maybe I’m splitting hairs. But I am really jazzed about making the lightest board possible so long as it is still durable.
Chip, where do you come up with all those pictures? What a hoot.
Guys, I’m on thin ice arguing with the master on a topic for which he is the guru’s guru, but consider this and I’ll shut up.
It is 3 oz per side, per Jim’s instructions. I tried it and found it difficult. I’m sure I could get better. As for the weight of the soup, it’s all water and it evaporates leaving a very light material behind. All you are trying to do is move the material into the pores and block the subsquent layers of resin from seeping in the foam.
But, hey, how many Sways does it take to screw in light buldb? Do what works for you, and share what you know. cheers.
