“im thinking of way’s that use less space and one person can do everything”
Less space, but more resin. I mean if u have to have enough resin in the trough to dip a roll of cloth in, and expect it to wet out the whole roll I would think you’d have to have more resin than the table method? Maybe if you did it like a wallpaper-hanger pulls his paper through the trough rolling it up at the same time… (I guess they “fold” it, more than actually roll it up, but you get the idea)
And I’m pretty sure Dwight’s method is a one-man operation as well.
But the space - Yeah, I see that. You have to have room for glassing two boards to do Dwight’s method. Or set the roll aside while you clean up the table and take it out, then replace it with the board on a glassing stand - which seems like a bit of a hassle.
Plus, it seems like squeegeeing the cloth against the hard flat surface is what keeps the resin content of the cloth to a minimum, and keeps the saturation level fairly uniform throughout. You wouldn’t have that option running a roll through a trough.
Why don't you just get a horse trough and fill it with resin. Throw the whole roll in there and just pull it out like toilet paper as you need it. If you used UV it wouldn't get hard provided you threw a towel over it. Another good thinking man's thread gone to $#!t on Sways.
so your not as open minded on here as i thought ? i will have to withdraw to my usual state of - on my own - doing everything on my own, with trial and error ! and keep my thoughts to myself
Here is a follow-up on things I'm learning. With some prompting here, I was motivated to get back into bagging.
Comparing my recent bagged board, to an identical board non-bagged,
The hot coat step was easier on the bagged board. It took less resin to fill, and I had fewer pin air spots needing one more drop of resin, after rubbing the board real good with epoxy using my home depot fuzzy paint spreader. Man I love hot coating with that spreader!
Would be great to watch you wrap the rails too. That’s the part that worries me the most about your technique. Not enough saturation to tack the rails cleanly. I’ll guess you don’t baste the rails with resin first.
Wrap your pipe in shrink wrap. Then you can re-use it. No cleaning, just take off the shrink wrap.
After you pour out the epoxy, cover the cloth with a layer of 1 mil painters plastic, clear. You can squeegee on top of the plastic, get no frothing, since no air, and when you lift off the top clear plastic, it removes even more excess epoxy. Also, under the top plastic, you are less likely to drag the cloth around.
I do mine multiple layers, and pre-cut to size. Also I always vacuum bag, since such a lean wet out wont stick well to the foam unless mechanically pressured during cure.
thx Dwight. good to see your technique. Mark has offered some gems too. I think with Mark’s method you have to vac bag otherwise you’ll end up putting a lot of resin back on the board to fill the weave.Vac bagging will significantly reduce the weave filling needed.
Yeah , standard for most production boats these days…essential when you got a 40ft hull to do…all hands on deck, and wet up full rolls at a time , then load another roll…then close up the shed (oven) and cook her overnight !..(lol)…in Japan , the old hand cranked washing machine rollers were being commonly used even before suncures were available…with suncured poly , it would make a very nifty and efficient system…
I do reuse my rollers. I have several and just set them aside. I let the epoxy cure on it. Lightly sand when needed and keep using them. This appeared to be the way the Nelson Factory was doing it, so it became my way.
The resin tackyness is just right, at the point I’m doing the rails. The laps go down like a dream. Better than if laps are too wet and you’re waiting for them to stick. The cloth is not dry, it sticks.
Nothing.
Cloth is rolled out on black polyethylene plastic (taped over a flat plywood or glass surface), saturated/squeegeed with resin, rolled up on PVC pipe, rolled back out over deck or bottom of shaped blank and then squeegeed smooth over blank.
I was using this technique today with 1200 (12 oz/ sqyd stitched biaxial glass) 4 inch (100mm) wide tape. I could not find my roll of clear polyethylene so I sacrificed a black plastic garbage bag. Pieces ranged from 15" to 82" (.4m to 2.1 m).
The target was the outside edges of an upside-down plywood boat. The plywood was marked for tape placement, ‘buttered’ with plain epoxy, and holes pre-filled with epoxy, glass spheres, and fumed silica. The cut-to-length tape was weighed and resin was mixed to match the weight of the tape. It worked out to 3 batches approx 108 grams (4oz) each mixed. The last long piece I mixed the batch short to use up the resin on the layup table ( a plank across two sawhorses, covered with the garbage bag.)
I did not roll the tape, just carried it over to the boat. I have done the roll-up method on a big SUP …but without having a table that big, I was working on the floor and did not enjoy the wetting out process as much as when doing it on smaller items.
