Two Questions...

General Discussion
1

Ok…after sanding and grinding down all the bad spots on my first board (this is post lam stage - hot coat is next), it isnt looking that bad. I’m willing to bet with the pad covering the bottom air bubbles and maybe a couple stickers on top and a lot of wax, this board will actually look pretty sweet. the bottom looks good cept for the laps, but I’m hoping the hot coat helps with that.

I have a few questions.

  1. Im confused. Do I need syrene wax to do the hot coat or not? My thoughts were you mixed the qwax with the resin and catylyst and went to town. Do I not need wax? The thing is, I cant find that wax/sanding agent/styrene ANYWHERE near where I live. It seems a specialty item almost, all the hardware stores have nothing like that.

So can I do the hot coat w/o the wax? Or is there a common alternative?

  1. Is there a way to put in a leesh plug w/o using a “wooden jig”? On the glassing 101 video he makes it look REAL easy, but I do not have access to anything like that. I have the mini plug you can order for foam ez, if anyone can help me, I would appreciate it.

That’s basically it. If I can do the hot coat w/o the wax, I should have that step done and the fins and everything on the board tomorrow :smiley: Actually kinda excited :wink:

2

Bryan,

Use the KISS principle. I do. I just use the sanding resin right out of the can(UV). No wax. Glassing is an art in itself. If the board is nice and smooth and water tight, your stoked!

3

if you don´t got the possibileties to obtain hot coat resin or wax styrene, try with the lam resin but in the same method for the hot coat and then seal each side you do with cellophanne paper and pray…

if you dont´´ got a driller or jig or something , do it the hole in the lam stages with a razor…man be risky and you learn a lot

4

Bryan:

I use a hole saw that I modified to install leash plugs. Buy one that yields a hole about 1/8" larger than the diameter of your plug (I just use the same one that fits my FCS plugs). Grind down the bit so that it only extends slightly past the cutting teeth around the hole saw so you don’t shove the bit through the glass on the bottom of your board. You can pick out the foam and twist out the cut stringer or better yet use a Forstner bit to clean out the hole.

You can mail order the wax solution from www.surfsource.net and others like FoamEZ, Fiberglass Supply or Fiberglass Hawaii.

Tom S.

5

Nah… drop an extra dollar on the hole saw with the removable pilot. Use the hole saw with the pilot and drill just until you get through the glass, then use a flathead screwdriver to pop that little fibreglass circle out. Now you have a nice little “jig” all set up, remove the pilot from your drill and your set. Mark on the hole saw the depth of your plug and drill to that point. Use your screwdriver again to pop the foam out - if you centered it over the stringer its even easier, pops out real clean.

6

So its probably not a good idea to do the hot coat with lam resin?

I REALLY wanna get this board done by Saturday to surf it this weekend. I think I can figure out the leesh plug hole, but the hot coat is still presenting problems.

It sounds like a need styrene wax - and I just cant find any. Ordering really isnt an option either :((

7

Not to put too fine a point on it, Bryan, but you can’t do a hot coat with just laminating resin. You’ll notice how your laminations are a little less than completely hard? That’s gonna make sanding kinda tough.

Now, you mention you can’t get sanding addative, can’t order it, etc - though you may find that there’s a local fiberglass supplier ( not necessarily a surfboard resin and fiberglass supplier, sanding addative is sanding addative ) that will get it to ya in time - can you get sanding resin locally? If you can, use that.

hope that’s of use

doc…

8

THanks Doc. I’ll call the local marine shops and see if there is a place I can get sanding resin. If not, I’m gonna have to figure something out.

I got the impression from some of the posts that is was possible to do it with lam resin, so thanks for spelling that out for the newbie :wink:

9

Whoa there - don’t use standard boatyard-type resin on a surfboard, it tends to be an ugly brown color when it hardens, etc. Instead, call around to the marine shops and local guys who maybe do boat building with fiberglass - and I know there’s some in SC, and see if you can get a little of the sanding wax solution from them. I’m assuming you used clear, surfboard-type resin to do the laminations… if you didn’t , forget the above.

And if that fails, check Herb Spitzer’s post last week on the subject, he mentioned a method that will work in a pinch. A search for the terms ‘spitzer’ and ‘wax’ should find it.

hope that’s of use

doc…

10

Bryan,

I missed something above. I did not mean to imply you should hotdoat your board with lam resin. I assumed we were talking about sanding resin(hotcoat). Don’t hotcoat with lam resin. Listen to doc.

11

I used Bondo Resin for it. Not specifically surfboard resin, but it’s crystal clear cept for some of the lumps where I wasnt able to smooth it out on my board because it kicked on me. Guess I lucked out huh?

I’m going to call some boat repair shops in Santee SC and see if they have anything, that’s only 30 minutes away from me. Im also gonna try Graden City Surf shop and Barrier Island surf shops and see if I cant make a morning trip for some waves and pick some up.

12

The best Ive found is “clear surfboard sanding resin” - according to the lady at Ocean Surf Shop that is exactly whaty it says on the container - and it’s “Ding All”

Anyone know about this, and will it work?

I’m gonna drive down tomorrow to buy two quarts of the stuff. That should be enough for my hot coat, right?

13

That’s the stuff… and next time, you may want to use the laminating resin version for laminating.

Now, that was laminating resin you used with the glass cloth, right? Not just Bondo brand resin? 'Cos if that was the case, life may get a little interesting…

14

Uh oh! :x

The stuff I used was just all purpose fiberglass resin. Nothing specifically for laminating on it. As a matter of fact, the instructions tell me to sand this thing afterwards (on the back of the resin)

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15

That should be fine, you’ll most likely pay too much for it, but I’m sure you don’t care at this point. In the future get a bottle of SA when you get your supplies - whereever you’re getting blanks, fibreglass, leashplugs and whatnot will surely have some. A pint of the stuff will last you a dozen boards. Then you can buy the lam resin in bigger quantities.

Two quarts will cover it, and give you room for error. I use about 1/2 quart per side at 6’2 then just scale linearly up from there - with some fudge factor, a 7’6 usually has a wider nose and tail than a 6’2 so you put a bit extra than the calculated 121% in. For your first time go over and waste a bit - and TAKE NOTES. Soon you’ll have a book full of references with exactly how much resin, catalyst and SA to use, at any given temperature. I’d give you my figures but I don’t have my notebook here. I think you said a fish right? …maybe 3/4 quart per side to be safe, more if its a long fish. You’ll waste some, but better than being under.

16
Quote:

Uh oh! :x

The stuff I used was just all purpose fiberglass resin. Nothing specifically for laminating on it. As a matter of fact, the instructions tell me to sand this thing afterwards (on the back of the resin)

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Rut-roh… okay, skip the trip to get more resin. Use what you have, it’s for all intents and purposes sanding resin. No sense spending extra dough on the expensive stuff at this point. This board is just full of lessons learned for ya, isn’t it…

Though how you’re gonna get a good bond, hotcoat to lamination, is gonna be an interesting trick, without attacking your nice new lamination with a sander. See, the sanding resin you used, all purpose stuff that hardens right up? It has the sanding wax in there already and plenty of it. Now, that’s fine, except you now have this thin layer of wax on top of your resin…and it’s pretty close to the same stuff they use when they spray boat molds so that the resin and glass won’t stick to the mold.

Houston, we have a problem…

What I’d suggest, and I really, really hope somebody else chimes in on this one with a better idea, is to wash the glass you did with maybe some styrene or acetone, to dissolve and remove that wax film so your hotcoat will stick without kinda flaking off in spots.

17

Ok…I’m going tomorrow to do a little surfing ( I never get to during the week) and I’m gonna pick up the resin regardless. probably get a few quarts of it, as I’m shaping another shortboard soon as I get this monstrosity glassed.

So…with the hotcoat resin I’ll be getting, what should I do? And should I bother “re-glassing” the airbubbles I surformed out with the old resin, or just cover it up with the hotcoat? I’m going to do everything in my power to make this board floatable and hope that by covering it in wax it wont look so bad :wink:

18

So I was up late…or up real early…starting a bunch of soft racks for my rental fleet, the kind that you strap your board to your car with, and after getting to stage 1 I took a break… so, how we gonna fix this.

Okay, what you want to do is make this one watertight and reasonably strong and go from there… save your money for the next board, don’t get hosed on a couple of quarts of sanding resin from a surf shop - you’ll pay top dollar for it, a price that’d buy you a gallon of resin mailorder.

Use the resin you have been using to put more cloth on where you got the bubbles out, 'cos there’s no cloth there now, right? You really need glass everyplace on the board. I’d feather the edges of the patches a little with sandpaper, by hand , so you don’t have any abrupt edges where they overlap, ok? Don’t go overboard with that, just ease the edges some.

Also, use the resin you’ve been using for your hotcoat. And the gloss, why not. Thin it for gloss with just a little acetone or styrene so it’ll flow better but not too much, you’re shooting for something like the consistency of light cream.

Complete it, surf it, and for the next one I want you to promise me that you will use laminating resin for the laminating - and only for the laminating - then add wax to it for the hotcoat and add a little styrene and some wax to it for the gloss. And go easy on the catalyst when you’re doing it.

Get a gallon or so of laminating resin when you get your next blank, fins and cloth, with some sanding wax and some catalyst and mebbe a little styrene for thinner. There’s east coast and west coast and gulf coast suppliers for all that - if we don’t have a link page for those yet, we will soon. In the meantime, try http://www.lbifiberglass.com/lbiproducts/resins.html , http://www.fiberglasssupply.com/Product_Catalog/product_catalog.html - both of 'em have just about everything you’ll need, though LBI doesn’t carry blanks…

Okay? Good, now go finish that board, man.

doc…

19

Doc, Is there any preference for thinning. I am about to gloss coat my first board and have both styrene and acetone available. I was doing a fiberglass ramp for a restaurant entry a year or two ago and picked up a can of Dewaxer from the local marine supply, it smells more like kerosene than acetone. But could be the product to remove that wax from the lam coat.

20

Uhmm…good question; I have used exclusively acetone, just 'cos I keep plenty around and don’t keep styrene around - a very little acetone makes the stuff brush out nice and thin and level nicely. Another highly recommended trick is to heat the stuff up so it’ll flow better ( microwave or put the container in a water bath) , though I’d go light on the catalyst on account of the heat.

The de-waxer is quite likely chemically closer to kerosene or paint thinner, that’ll remove the waxes used in molding some fiberglass products, like boats or bathtubs. One particular parting wax - http://www.formulafive.com/pdf/MSDS/English/EMSDS_F5MRW.pdf - is carnauba and paraffins in a ‘light petroleum distillate’ vehicle - basicly, it’s probably very similar to paint thinner you get at the hardware store. And something similar to that is probably just the stuff to remove it. It might be that a little of that stuff, followed by something to remove any residue ( from the cleaner itself) like a citrus based cleaning solution and lots of water, will get the wax off, though I don’t know what that’ll do to the underlying glass. At this stage of the game, I’d probably give it a fast wash with the ol’ faithful acetone and hope for the best.

hope that’s of some small use

doc…