Tips For A Flatter Glass Job?

General Discussion
1

I can think of one to get laps edges flatter when glassing and that is to use 4oz instead of 6oz. Makes for less grinding in my experience. Glass jobs seem to come out flatter in general too with 4oz. Are hard squeegees better for getting a glass job flat as well? I’m leaning towards hard tools for getting pre shapes and fill coats flatter, but both of those steps involve removing material, not adding it. Does this mean I should use soft tools for adding material to a surfboard instead of taking it away? I’m using a softer plastic squeegee myself as I am an epoxy user.

Is there something in particular that I should be looking for when I am drawing epoxy across the board and when I am removing the excess? I do this in two different steps not as one motion as some of you poly users might do? Epoxy needs to be drawn across the entire board and left a little bit high above the weaves in my experience so there is something to soak into the flats. After a couple of minutes the drawing off begins.

So I don’t push the resin into the weaves for epoxy. I would still like to hear from some of you long time poly users though. There may be something you do when it comes to drawing the resin out to make the glass sit as flat as possible that I could apply to epoxy. Or maybe not.

2

Sorry not much time to address your question in full, but for epoxy you really need a stiff spreader/squeege with a hard edge, from what you’ve written is sounds like you are using too much resin for the lamination, you don’t want any resin sitting over the weave, this will just cause the cloth to float up on the resin.

Do cut laps and to get a flatter first lap try mashing it in to the foam with a roller used for pressing down the edges of wall paper. On the second lap really fair it in well.

Try not to use mare releive cuts than you have to, on a fuller shape you relay only need them on the tail and nose

Hope that helps.

3

I’m with Woody on using stiffer tools.

Other than that, the technique I use to get a good, flat, tight lamination is to move the spreader at an angle. Very unconventional… but here’s how I do it:

Fold back the hanging lap and wet the rail. Fold back down the flap, and spread out the remaining resin on the flats. Give it a minute to soak in, then pull off the resin from the flats and tuck the lap in one motion, perpendicular to the stringer, starting from the middle and working to the ends, like you do with poly. Then I come back and do one tight pull parallel to the stringer from the middle to the ends over the stringer. This gets the cloth down tight over the entire stringer and keeps it from sliding around. Then I start pulling from the stringer to the rail, again starting at the middle, but at about a 45 degree angle, wiping the spreader clean after each pull. On these pulls, I just roll the spreader around the rail in one motion, at an angle, and when I go under to pull the lap tight, I do it more parallel to the lap line. Because each pull is at an angle, each pull covers more cloth, and you actually do fewer pulls. Plus, pulling the excess out of the lap at an angle, and more parallel to the lap line, minimizes thread pullout - you know… those strings you have to deal with later that worm their way across the flats on the other side. Any strings that do pull out, I’ll use my finger or corner of the spreader, and pull them down so they hang. Once cured (at this point I affectionately call them stalactites), I just cut them off with a razor blade.

This method works for me. It gives me a tight, flat lam, with a clean lap edge that has little to no excess resin that keeps the rail true to form. As for the lap grinding, most of the time, I’ll just smooth out that little edge with the hard block and a sheet of used 80 grit. If your lap is clean and on the curve of the rail, you can get it pretty damn flat and fair without hitting the foam. No die grinder needed. When you lam the deck, the lap line can be hit lightly with the surform or hand sanded with 80 grit.

4

I got yer stiff tool right here…

The more you work epoxy the crappier the frothy bubbly glass job is going to be. Not a big deal when you make a white board…yea right. Try it on a dark blue board.

When you pour out your epoxy, pour it all over the board.tip, tail, side to side, just not in a line down the middle stringer. Also fold your laps up on the deck and pour a line of epoxy down that, let that soak in too…now, lightly…and slowly. move the epoxy around…just move it around to fill in the dry spots. Walk away for a bit, let it wet out. Now come back do your glassing thing, now you can make it all frothy and bubbly.

Epoxy will not be forced into the cloth, it needs to soak in. Poly can be forced in, and does not need to soak in.

5

Man, haven’t see so much misinformation all at once.

It sounds like an aversion to work, if you get thick laps, sand them down to height, but to prevent this, lightly tuck the center of the rail and then slide the squeegee lengthwise with pressure, this keeps from pulling out strands of glass, keeps excess resin off the flats and leaves a nice sealed area to file or sand the laps down cleanly.

Initially, I make a pour a few inches away from the lap edge, epoxy does NOT flow watery off the edges like polyester, this is where the most waste happens with poly and epoxy. I save the micro wave tubs that Marie Callender meals come in, they are black thermo plastic, low sided, resist melting by any solvents I have used and are great for wetting out laps. I used to flip up laps for wet out , but found that this caused the lap edges to unravel, moved the bias around and was generally much messier. This is why I like the tubs, they are big enough to get under the lap with the back edge, where you can then paint the bottom edge of the cloth with a 1" paint brush, this is where the least amount of resin winds up when the board is lam’d “waterfall” style. Only a very little resin is needed to do the flats, much less than the hanging cloth of the lap, like Resin head says, float out the flats, then from the center of the flats with an autobody hard plastic squeegee, pull of the resin into the plastic tub, leaving the board next to dried out, epoxy doesn’t drain, re-fill the weave with the recaptured resin and pull off with less pressure, the tops of the weave don’t need to be submerged, just the windows in between.

The flats are clean and it is go to the rails for the tuck under and final clean up running lengthwise also, the result will be a very tidy lamination, that is not resin rich and the laps will be much easier to sand down and keep clean.

Remember, no one has time to do it right, but time to do it over, do it right and tight the first time, everytime.

Everything I have learned, I learned from someone better than me, I got tired off all those teeth marks in my ass

6

That reminds me, I’ve had very good results from just folding the cloth up arounf the rail and painting on a band of resin with a 4" brush then rolling the cloth back down and folding the lap over the the same brush (with out andding any extra resin to the brush) then pulling any excess out of the flats.

I fine with epoxy getting just the right anount of resin so its not too dry is the key to a good lam, then you dont need to be working it too mush pulling off excess resin.

Off course thats an extra $ for a brush but us save $$ on resin that doesn’t end up on the floor, are unusable in the buckeck coz its gone frothy.

Basically it all comes down to improving technique to allow you to use less resin.

less resin = lighter/stronger(tight ass lam)/cheaper board.

7

Please identify the misinformation… guys like me need to know!

8

Jim, I also use the microwave tubs for this and other shop purposes except mine are Stouffers (too cheap for Callendar’s). The resin spreads out in these containers and cures slower than in a cup or pail. I use a 3" brush and you dab the resin on, not brush it so it doesn’t pull the cloth. Use the squeegee for that. I was glad to hear that somebody else also eats that unhealthy stuff. I’m ashamed to even say what I prefer. This was a natural progression since in pre-micro days I would use the cans from the crap food for resin.