Well, here’s some photos of the build process.
First, this is about 1/3 of the peel tests I did. I wanted no adhesion issues! I did different colors. I tried color, resin, then sanding off the resin to expose bare wood and then color and resin again. I tried putting resin over the color when it was still damp. I tried mixing the color directly into the resin. I tried resin over wood treated with veneer softener. I tried glass over foam and spackle. That was the one test where I decided I did not like the results. Spackle on foam peeled easier than just plain foam. Also, you can see the grey color. I didn’t like the color much, so I went with green and blue.
I don’t know if you can see AFOAF’s dual density blank work in the photo. The glue line was right where the edge of the flutes were and it was pretty hard to get the rail fair at the glue line.
What I did was glass the blank first with 2 oz on the bottom and then 4 oz on the deck. Then I bagged the veneer patches on. Good thing this was to be veneered because my color work was/is horrendous! Also the color came out much lighter than the blue dyed veneer test pieces, so I brushed on another coat of blue tinted resin on the rails. The color came out splotchy. I have new respect for all the work on the “Show you resin tints and swirls” thread!
The veneers did not lay perfectly flat. Both top and bottom had one seam that lifted, as well as some of the edges, thanks to a faulty vacuum bag? Both the top and the bottom veneers (bagged separately) had the loose seam in the same place. To fix them, I worked 5 minute epoxy under the edge with a painting palette knife and then pushed the seam down with my hand, 6 inches at a time. A less than perfect, time consuming fix.
I sanded the edges and seams as flat as possible. YOu can see the patches ghosting through. I sanded the edges of the patches to zero. They still ghost through even afgter 4oz, veneer/4oz and sand and gloss coats. I did that color test mentioned earlier to make sure that the color would go on the second time uniform. I knew that with figured veneer I’d have to do some sanding.
I did cheater/basting coats around the raised seams.
From there it was just standard glassing procedure, right? This is where I did most my mistakes. I had a couple of dry spots on the under side of my first lam. I figured I’d just saturate them when I did the top lam. That didn’t work. For some reason the resin wouldn’t saturate those spots. I have no idea why, but this was the result, in like three spots (white weave showing)-
Then, the epoxy foamed a bit and did this where it pooled at the veneer seams. The foam is also in the cloth. Trying to get it out with the squeegee only made it worse ( the whitish areas)-
Finally, and this is a totally rookie mistake, I didn’t blow/vacuum the sanded lap well enough and there was dust in the weave which resulted in this in a lot of areas-
So there, I’ve confessed all my sins. Oh no, wait, I put the leash loop on about a 1/4" off center. I must have been dazed and confused by that point. Dumb mistake.
After the lams the board felt heavy to me. I did the fill coats with 3 oz of epoxy, sanded, and then did a second fill/gloss coat with another 3 oz of epoxy. 6 oz total per side. I decided to glass on the (homemade bamboo) fins to save weight. I have to say that I’m not sure about Kwik Kick for the sand/gloss coats. I feel the epoxy kicked before the brush strokes could level. But all in all I love the Kwik Kick. And I hope Leohr’s claim of it being stronger is true.
I was kind of disappointed with the board. I had “ten” in mind and it came out a 7. But hey, llilibel likes the board and had me promise I wouldn’t sell it.
