on some foam, the pressure necessary to push the veneer to get it flush also leaves some nice damage on the veneer itself. bummer.
I’d forget about your wrinkles in the tail, you’re going to go over that with the EVA foam anyways.
for the deck wrinkles, in the past, I have sliced them open, filled with resin and folded one side over the other and then sanded flush.
I had that problem with all the compound curves on the simmons bottom.
you are moving fast!
I word: INNEGRA!
hi. i made something similar a few years back , balsa compsand 0.8mm wood on the deck to conform to the scoop, it was more flexable than the other balsa copsands i had made but still too stiff for what i wanted, pete
Nice looking board Pete. How thin was it? Fin system or glass ons?
Also, .8mm is pretty thin timber. What was the rest of the glass schedule? How did it hold to abuse?
On the 7-1 bonzer I only mixed 6 oz of resin to get both sides on, with some left over. On the 6-2 I mixed 4.5 oz for both sides and used it all. Inspired by the light weights CJ3 gets, I’m trying to get me resin use to the minimum.
As far as the fix…I think I’m going to just grind the bubbles out and patch in pieces of veneer near the nose. I don’t think the structural integrity will be totally compromised as it still gets the outer 4 oz lam. I can’t cut and rebag as resinhead suggested because there’s the 4 oz glass backing and the bubbles are pretty solid.
Wood ogre, great info. That goes in my file. thx
damn pete
what is the tickness profile like exactly, and what kind of core is inside? and the laminate?
cheers
wouter
hi, the scoop depth was just as thick as the fin plugs, i used a resin loop for the leash, i used 4 oz under the wood ,6 over plus a front foot patch,1 lb eps as the core, it was for my son , he used it for a few surfs but it was stiffer than what we were trying to achieve ,
i am doing something along the same lines at the moment but may not continue on because it will come out on the heavy side , its basically 4mm ply as the bottom with no glass just resin sealed. the rails are rail off cuts from a longboard blank,
the deck foam is 1 lb eps again but it stops 2 ft from the tail,
the theory is the bottom wood is thick enough to bend and flex and i am hoping to run strips of glass or carbon from the deck foam on to the cut out , i am hoping to be able to tailor the tail flex to what i want and then glue in some eva foam or foam from a cheap body board to reform the tail , pete
Great experiments Pete. I’m wondering though if the absence of volume negatively affects the float and paddle ability? Also, did it feel uncomfortable having the hump under the chest on the first one, or standing on two levels on the second one? I liked Steve Pendarvis idea because he back fills the void with the EVA foam, maintaining volume and the hydrodynamic shape (no bumps). Although I’m not exactly sure how I’ll do that yet…
hi, there is a bit of volume drop but you can compensate for it , the tail of this last one will be built up with eva foam or from a body board to raize the height to the deck so it should feel the same under foot, i think the weight will be 6 lb plus so heavier than what i would aim for but it stil mybe a valid experiment if i can get the tail to flex to what i want,pete
Here’s an update.
Chopped the tail down for the tail block. It always seems that no matter how thin I try to make things, they always come out thicker than planned. When I scooped the tail the stringer at the end was 1/4" thick. Thin! I cut it back about 3/4" and cut back for the diamond and it looked really thick again. Mind you, it is partly an illusion because I cut the diamond at about 30 degrees off vertical. I put the tail blocks on with 5 minute epoxy. You can see where I just ground out the veneer “bubbles” in the scoop. The “bubbles” near the nose required a different approach. You can see in the second pic where I kicked the rocker a bit after the back fins.
I’ve had problems in the past with the inlays/overlays not being flat. When I went to sand the hot coat I’d always hit weave. This time I tried the wax paper trick. It seems to have worked.
Now my biggest concern is this- I went to sand the laps on my deck lam. I always do free laps when not working with color. You know how there’s always a few strands hanging and you can either cut them or push them down with the squeegee? Also, I always make a pass under the board with a brush when I’m all done to knock down any drips forming.
Well, I go to sand the laps this morning and the little strands and resin brushed past the lap just start popping off. It’s like they were put down on wax paper. As I sand I realize that I could easliy put a knife under the lap and just peel it off. WTF? I’ve never had issues like this before. I think I got “bachi” (that’s Japanese for karma) for teasing Stingray about throwing away his mixing cups, while I use them for dozens of boards. Contamination? Maybe. I’m using Resin Research 2020 CE epoxy. First time with the CE (blue color). Do you need to key a lam before lamming on top of it? I didn’t think so. It’s not like oily hand contamination because it’s everywhere. I was thinking maybe oil leeched out of the wood? But it never happened on the other wood boards I’ve made.
Anyways, I was thinking what to do. I wasn’t about to peel all the glass off the rails. And I’m pretty sure it’s adhered to the wood. So I sanded off as much residue as possible without pulling up the rail laps. Then keyed the whole board with 150. Wiped down with denatured alcohol. And hotcoated (using the double dose of Add F as per Greg’s instructions). Hope the hot coat doesn’t pop off!!!
I think my first compsand was the only one I’ve made that didn’t have some kind of issues. Seems like surfboards are like women…
When useing a veneer softener it is SOP to seal it afterwards with D-waxed shellac because the gliserin can cause a bonding problem with some finishes (polyurethane is one) but not all. I spray 2 light coats of D-waxed shellac allways and don't sand after .Then I spray my finish. This is for furniture makeing but it is possible that the gliserin is the problem. A note of interest is if I spray shellac on balsa then glass it with cloth and epoxy I would be able to peel the cloth off the next day but after a full cure there is no way to peel it off. When a finish feels dry dosent mean it is cured. Full cure for shellac is I think about 6 days and if my memory serves me right epoxy (Westsystems) is something like 12 days. So my conclussion is you are probably going to be OK !
Thanks Wood. I really should have researched alittle more before using the softener. But that is defintely not the problem. I only used softener in the scoop and at the nose. No adhesion issues there. I lammed the bottom. And then the deck. The problem is where the rails overlap. So there’s no wood in contact with anything. At it is happening on the rails where no softener was used.
Sometimes we just cant figure it out ! One thought I had about veneering the scoop. When you use softener you are makeing the veener more flexible but when you do the scoop your stretching the veneer . If I were doing it I would have veneered in 2 steps. First a veneer cut just a little bigger than the concave and vacumed that down. Then cut the second veneer to the shape so it would just lap 1/4 inch into the concave and vac that down. Then scrape down the edje with a cabinet scraper. Better yet use contrasting veneers, maybe a dark veneer for the concave and a lighter veneer for the rest of the board and then maybe a white or black highlight inlay (or pin line) to devide the 2 veneers.If you were to try that you want to use paper templates. Make them over size ,vac them to shape then trim them exact. double check them in the vac and then use them to cut your veneers. From looking at your work I would say you have the skill leval to do that.
Thanks Wood Ogre, I’ll keep that in mind. I was just looking at the board and thinking about what to do next and I realized- damn! I was supposed to glass on the bonzer runners before hotcoating. Where is my mind?
I think I’ve figured it out. My wife put a curse on these boards. See, I’ve contracted with a new art gallery and was promised an exhibition in a year. My wife keeps telling me I’ve got to stop playing around with the surfboards and start working on paintings. Right about when she started harping on me, things started going wrong.
Basically I’m fucked (pardon my French).
After noticing the adhesion issues while sanding laps, before putting down the hot coat I sanded with 120 and a foam block.
I wiped down with denatured alcohol. Then hot coated. This morning while sanding down the tape lines, this started happening.
What to do? Soldier on I say.
Then I noticed air bubbles. or rather the lam popping off the rail. I sanded them open-
I hot coated. While hot coating, I began to see these-
So basically, my rails are delamming just by looking at them.
Llilibel does not approve!
I’m thinking the problem is only on the rails.
What’s different on these builds than my past ones? The paint. I’ve always used balsa rails in the past. I searched the archive before painting and used liquitex acrylic, brushed on. Then, after bagging the skinsthe tape pulled the paint and I had the ridge of the veneer edge, so I spackled and the repainted. Somewhere in that process something was foul. Even though Liquitex was recommended and people use spackle with epoxy every day. The 2020 CE resin? Afoaf bought with me and I haven’t heard of him having issues. Plus no delam issues over the wood.
I swear it’s the wife’s curse.
Well, like my old boss said, "You can fix anything."
Time for fixing.
What I have in mind is pretty drastic. Basically, saw off the rails and add balsa. Glass tape after. Maybe I should have stuck to what always worked for me.
I better do a few paintings first, and my paintings better be pretty good... or the better half might curse them further!
Thanks for posting warts and all. I learnt heaps. Gives me some courage to set forth on numbers 3 and 4.
What’s your glassing/cure temperature? The only time I’ve had epoxy adhesion issues in a glass job was when the temps got below 50. Since you’re doing it inside your house, it likely isn’t the culprit. Did you set it outside while it cured?
So Cal weather the past week has been highs in the low 70’s, lows in the low 50’s. I’m working inside, no heat, windows open (add F), so maybe in the 60’s (50’s overnight as it cures). Afoaf, same batch of resin, has been working in his garage, no heat, with no reported problems.
I was thinking it can’t be the paint or spackle, unless the paint can leech through the cloth, because the adhesion problem is resin on resin (lam laps on lam, and hotcoat on lam), not the lam on paint. No adhesion issues over the wood treated with softener. Lams were sanded and wiped down before hotcoating. It wasn’t contamination from mixing cups, because contrary to what I said about Stingray I used new cups on these boards. And still…
I did refill my hardener bottle. ??
Wife’s curse? Any of you ever had a board cursed by your wife?
Or maybe like Wood Ogre says, sometimes you just don’t know…
If in fact it is a temperature related issue, will it help adhesion to post cure the board with some heat?
what did you do to the rails that you did not do anywhere else?
have you tried flexing/twisting the board to see if the rest of the lam releases elsewhere?
Ok, so I finished a painting. The gallery moved up the date of the show to April.
Kind of OT but here’s it is.
Hope that lifts the wife’s curse. Now I can finish the boards…
sanded down both to 150 in prep for the second hotcoat )hoping it won’t pop off…heating up the room…new add F…
