OK, here are the promised pics, I am currently waiting for the garage to come up to temp so I can gloss the top, so I dug up the pics…
First is the block of foam and the rocker templates screwed on and the cut made…
A very nice cut this time…
And glued in the stringer and clamped it up…I use Elmer’s glue…
Since I make my stringers with a flush-trimming bit on the router table using the rocker template, and I hotwire cut using bobbins on the hotwire, I end up with foam just a little bigger than the stringer. So, I drill holes through the stringer and use round toothpicks broken in half as ‘nails’ to fit the stringer to one side of the foam, and then put it on the foam block and clamp. I am then left with a stringer about 1/16" below the foam surface all the way around. That way, I can plane the hotwire crust off the foam without having to plane into the stringer. I get the thickness exactly as dialed in by my rocker template…
I’m sure by now you’ve noticed that with htis method, how good the board is so far is only due to how good you can make templates…I’d much rather make mistakes on a piece of MDF/hardboard/masonite than on a piece of foam that has already gone through many steps…
Here is a pic showing all 4 top rail bands, you can see my pencil marks for each one, there are over 200 points I mark on the board to get them right and symmetrical side-to-side. I use Excel to help me with the calculations. The sidelights were still being built, this was just a test pic…
Here is a look at one of the rail bands with the completed sidelights:
Now sealing and painting (I had to paint because of the shaping marks I left behind due to my overaggressive pencil technique). Sealed with Dap Fast’n’Final thinned with DI water. Paint was FolkArt white artists pigment thinned with water and Future (but more thick than the paint used for graphics), shot through a $9 Harbor Freight jamb/pint gun with a 1.6mm tip and 40 psi…You can still see paint drying in one of these shots…
After paint was dry, glass the bottom with 6/4, logos between the layers.
Temp was not that great, but it’ll have to do…also got more zits and waviness due to a space heater and fan to circulate the heat, it is actually 50 deg outside…
All in all, I really like this product. Due to the temperature situation, I had to use more material (about 25 oz per side) but there is a solid 3/64" of epoxy to wetsand and polish when the time comes, and I fell better about not hitting the paint now because of it. To sum it up:
Pros:
No fisheyes/separations, NONE.
Incredible flow-out
Thick gloss for polishing and protecting paint on hotcoat (could be temp related)
Very clear
Good price point
Cons:
Fumes (unless you have really good ventilation, you will need a respirator)
Temp sensitivity (I wish I could have done this at 75 degrees F)
Had to thin 2% with DNA (but this is temp related)
Have to use a bit more due to thickness/viscosity (this is also related to temp)
Basically, I will use this gloss from now on if I do artwork on the hotcoat, or if I want a very pretty board. I still need to try it at a higher temp, to see if it behaves the same way, but something tells me it will just be better, and not require thinning with DNA.
The fume deal for me is a wash since I use AddF in RR epoxy (the only other one I have ever used), and I use a respirator when using AddF…
Max, someone as talented as you should be required by law to post a detailed build thread for every board. Only 9 boards and it looks like a pro handled every step of it.
I say next time take us through your super-double-secret-decoder-ring rail banding and blending technique!
beautiful job. this quote from one of your texts made me think of a simple trick i could share to help make things easier…
“.but I think that a thick coat will help prevent sanding into the paint when wetsanding/polishing, especially on the rails to get rid of the tape apron line…”
my trick is don’t try to sand the “tape apron line” away. instead take a brand new razor blade and use it like a scraper and scrape the ridge away. you have amazing control with the razor blade as opposed to the sander and you won’t get the sandthroughs that come with trying to knock the ridge down with sandpaper. it is the first thing i do when i go to polish a board. scrape the ridge away and then sand…
Thanks! But I wouldn’t call it talent. The people on here that can make a board by just looking at a blank and going to town with a planer are the talented ones. I have to plan every single step carefully with tons of measurements…although I have gotten pretty good at glassing/finishing…
Funny thing is I have mentioned the rail banding method several times here and not too many seemed interested. It is tedious, but it almost guarantees you get the rails you want, and symmetrical to boot. The reason I came up with the method was that I wanted to get things as right as I could at first, not building like 50 boards before I finally got what I wanted in the first place…you only get one chance to get rails right, just like cutting hair…
Here’s a word document that I wrote for a Sways member concerning the technique…lemme know if you have questions…
