Inspired by Stingray’s Low Tech Lab thread. Thanks Stringray for sharing. I hope someone enjoys seeing my way.
Here I’m wetting out 44" wide 3.6 oz S cloth tinted with white pigment. The cool thing about this, I can be farily absuive with the fabric without ill affects. I can get the cloth completely wetted out with very little epoxy resin. Getting to the holy grail (pre-preg cloth to resin ratio).
Rolling the cloth on PVC thin wall pipe.
Notice the amount of resin pulled from the cloth after roll-up. Less weight. TIP: use black plastic, not clear. Better visiblity of the wetout.
Use the squeegee while unrolling. It’s very easy to lay the cloth wrinkle free and perfect. Should you get one stubborn wrinkle, just roll it back and unroll that spot again and you’ll get it perfect.
Deck lam before adding carbon patch. Zero drips on the floor. Super neat and clean for a hack like me. A fellow garage builder like me, stopped in to watch my way. After watching, he said he’s never pouring resin on the board again. My boards consistantly come out lighter than the local factory that wets on the board. Give it a try for grins and giggles.
Finished board. 2 layer 3.6 oz bottom and top, plus carbon deck patch for heel dents, with carbon tape. 1.5 lb EPS.
As a felIow hack garage builder, I like your approach. I have a question for you. Do you wet out both layers of cloth at the same time, then transfer to the blank, or do you wet out each layer individually and transfer to the blank?
By the way, your SUP looks great!. My last one built was 9’10 x 30 x 4 1/8 and I’m starting to get an itch to build a new one. I was thinking about something shorter , wider and thicker. How does that one of yours handle? Any problems in bigger surf(shoulder to head high)?
I live in KB also. Met Z one day while he was out riding his bike and I was fixing a popped bladder in my kite in my front yard. Need to hook up with you guys to go kite sometime. Usually only go out in the ocean on SE-NE but need to get dialed in on the Basin.
I’ve got some cork/bamboo vacuum bagged surfboards you might like also. Been riding stringerless epoxy boards for almost 10 years now.
Never really got into SUP, but may try and get/build a prone paddleboard for the summer.
I wet one layer at a time. My table is stacked laters. Layer of plastic, layer of glass, layer of plastic, layer of glass, etc. Plastic stapled down tight. I wet the cloth, roll and place on board. Tear plastic layer off table and next layer of cloth is already there and waiting for me to wet it. I can lam and hot coat the whole board in one day.
I don’t know much about it yet. The 8’5 is only two days old. My everyday SUP (over one year old) is 7’8 x 29.5 x 4.5. It rips. Over 12 copies made and sold by the Greenroom. I only build for the wife and I. I give my designs away to people who want copies.
So if I am getting this right Dwight, you saturate the cloth over black poly plastic; roll it up onto a short piece of PVC pipe; then roll the saturated cloth back out over the blank; and use a squeegee to smooth it out for final lamination? Do you add a second layer of cloth after the first layer is tack free?
If so, very interesting. More resin conservative than direct hand lam to foam but not quite as good as vac bagging. Any issues with cloth sticking to itself while unrolling it from the pipe? No problems with cloth bonding to foam?
im sure its been posted before but heres quite a good vid of laying up on a table.
i tried it on my last board and i have to admit i did worey if there was going to be isues having enuff resin to bond to the foam without the vacume bag process.
I admire the effort and the picture filled thread but this method makes no sense to me. Please explain why you would do it this way as opposed to traditional methods. Just looks like more mess and more risk for a screw up to me. Just my humble opinion. Perhaps I’m missing something.
I add the 2nd layer right away. No issues unrolling the 2nd layer over the slightly tacky first layer. I have waited until non tacky, but found no need to wait. The only issue comes up when the PVC pipe gets too tacky. If you wait too long and it does, I have a 2nd PVC pipe standing by.
Actually, I’ve proven that misconception wrong. I have vacuum bagged a lot of boards. I found the real weight savings coming from getting the cloth to resin ratio at pre-preg levels before bagging. Slopping resin on the board, and thinking the peel ply is pullng the same amount of resin out via vacuum pressure is wrong. At first my results baffled me, since everyone thinks otherwise. But then I met a highly respected expert on the subject, and he confirmed my results as fact. So now I only bag when I want added strength, like on big boards. Otherwise I always count of the wet out table for all real weight savings. If anyone proves me wrong, I’ll go back to being baffled.
The most obvious advantage appears to be no excess resin in the cloth – lighter glass job. No vacuum equipment required. Potentially no resin drip over rails for nice uniform rail saturation.
Trimming cloth around rails has potential to be messy.
You’re probably right for a single layer top and bottom shortboard. Where the weight savings really kicks in, is multiple layers. The inner layers have less resin loading that pouring it on the board. Look at how abusive I can be speading epoxy on the table. You can’t do that on the board. The cloth would be a mess. I’m using very little resin. Even more is left behind on the table.
It’s much simpler and less messy, once you see it done in person. Wetting on the board is actually harder for a less skilled laminator.
This is not new. Its been done for years. It’s just fast and easy to slop resin on the board, especially when its always been polester. Meanwhile windsurfers, always used epoxy and always wet on a table.
