I’m getting ready to shape a longboard and I have always wanted to put some cool printed cloth under the glass. Beyond being told to use Rayon cloth I can find no tips on-line as to what to expect when trying this. My only real question would be can you wrap the cloth over the rails? Will it bunch up and cause problems with the lap or will it lay down flat like fiberglass cloth? Also obviously I would like to hear any other tips or warnings about glassing printed cloth anyone has. Thank you!
Billy,
Rayon WILL melt if you are glassing with polyester resin. you must use 100% cotton, or silk, or a silk/cotton blend. I have no experience with epoxy resin. Perhaps Rayon will be compatible with epoxy resin. I'm sure someone on the forum knows the answer. The extended question is whether the print is color fast when exposed to the resin. Do some testing BEFORE you commit the cloth/board to contact with resin. It gets ugly, very quickly, if you have the wrong combination.
Billywillgo, Heres something that happened to me with a full deck fabric cover. I set the lam resin to hot and it put air bubbles all along the rail where it rolled over the rail. Maybe because the sauce was to hot or the fabric did not want to bend that way? Had to come back and slice each bubble and really squeggeeee! the glass down to flatten the bubbles. Still had bumps along the rail though. Turned out alright for my first cloth cover though. I would definitely do it again. There is such a variety of color and design when using cloth! Good luck, hope this helps. R
ps- do a sample test and pull from the center to the edge!
Some clothes will bend/conform to the rails without too much trouble, but I would not advise you to try it if it’s your first inlay experience. Start with a deck patch, using cotton or silk as Bill said. Not too opaque will help to see the masking tape under it for cutting cleanly. Here are a few I did:
All cotton fabric same on top and bottom done entirely with epoxy Tom
Thanks everyone for the advise.