I learned to glass from an old-school glasser. I’ve just been mimicking him – here’s the problem with a mimic. On the last 3 boards I’ve done I sanded the hot-coat smooth. I carefully applied the finish as I’ve seen, brushing out any lines. After the coat setup I found grooves (places where the glass ran or something) in the resin. It looks kind of like a large turtle’s shell. Anyone have any idea what happened? Is it poor catalyst mixing??? Temp? jer
yep all of those temp and those other environmental inconsistancies,welcome to the learning curve…orange peel? fissures? stretch marks I’m familular weeth turtle shell? hmmm new discriptive tell more…does it polish out?
yep i know what your talking about, its temp related, you need to warm up your gloss room or your resin in winter . its more pronounced on the deck and near the roll of the rails isnt it. the resin sags as its nearing gel time. we have had it happen on the area closest to the draft created by the cooler air coming in thru the door or heading to the extraction system. http://www.feraldave.com
Thanks Man. Yeah they’re stretch marks that happen especailly on the deck on the rail blend sections. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Sorry about not knowing the name.
You nailed it man. That’s exactly it. I glass in San Diego and it’s summer. I am glassing in my garage so I’ve got the door open and a fan on to keep the fumes from killing me. Should I turn the fan off and close the door and only glass during the heat of the day? I’m afraid I’ll blow the place up if I use a heater. Do I need to mix the catalyst better or make a really fast batch? Is there any way I can know before the resin sets that this is happening and combat the sag? It won’t polish out – you have to sand back to the hot coat.
Hey Jer, I glass in San Diego too. You have to wear a mask unless you want your brain to turn into an exact copy of a well known ding repair man in Bay Park. Go buy a good orgainc 3M mask, fresh cartridges, change them every few months and wear it. Wear it even for small ding jobs, remember “The Mind Is A Terrible Thing” The key is a warm non circulating room. Close the garage door, get a thermometer. Only gloss when its about 73 degrees, I like the late afternoon. Turn the pilot light off on the hot water heater. Sweep and wet down the floor, you don’t get any bugs,dog hairs or dirt specs. Put mask on, Mix gloss and apply, make sure you work the gloss on to the board really good, i.e, cross wise once, tip to tail twice. Once it’s set up don’t touch it any more, just let it gell out. If you touch up the rails or a spot you will wipe off the wax and get little spots that don’t kick off. Open garage door just a crack so you can run out and close. When it kicks off in about 15, open door and pull tape. You shouldn’t have any problems, and you shouldn’t have to polish much, just 600 to 800 and then machine polish with fine polish. -Jay
Wear rubber gloves during the final sanding and while you press the tape apron down. This avoids sleazy, slimey, greasy, grimy, grungy finger prints that can cause fish eyes and seperation problems with your gloss. Strain or filter the resin through one of those paint filters. Keep a couple of razor blades or tweezers handy to pick out brush hairs, bugs, etc. Also all the other stuff already mentioned.
Howzit Jer, I have just the opposite problem sometimes. My shop gets to hot and the surface of the board gets hot also. This causes a problem since the gloss resin wants to kick faster where it touches the board, plays havoc with the finish. I have to water down the roof ( galv. tin )and sides of the shop to cool things down. If that doesn’t work I just wait til about 6 pm when it’s cooler. Aloha, Kokua
Mahalo for keeping it all in perspective Kokua.
thanks for the advice resin head. glassing is so scientific it’s kind of a bummer. where’s the zen? i kinda like the glass high but it sounds like i need to live wihout it if i plan on such complicated tasks as tieing my own shoes in a couple years…
Thanks for the tips John. You sound like a perfectionist. I’d be happy if my boards didn’t look like saggy turtles. This explains a lot of the other issues I’ve seen though. I’m crackin open a beer in celebration when I’m good enough to worry about details like this. I admire you discipline.
these guys are great…a wealth of insight…now do 50 gloss coats 10 will be an inspiration 5 you will sand and redo the rest will be ok 1 you may scrape off before it hardens then comes the zen rail to rail brush strokes , in our garage culture petri dish patois =side slap full length strokes… resin floated with the brush not scraped. thin resin application on those critical"shoulders" on the rails compound the risk of seperation aka stretch marks… turtle shell …cool metaphor run an application pattern that you become comfortable with dont let anyone talk to you while you do the steps dont deviate from your pattern you should become better…work hot work fast and WALK AWAY …dont fiddle arround… ZEN aloha from waipouli ambrose