Back when I was living in San Diego I spent a fair amount of time in the Low-tech Lab observing Ray work his magic with epoxy and color. I definitely caught the bug from him. Four boards later and I have not done a single clear lamination since. My latest project is a 9’3" x 23" x 3" longboard. I copied this template from Bill Thrailkill at one of his previous surfboard design workshops. The blank is 1.5 lb. EPS from US Blanks.
Glassing log:
The night before glassing I mixed up a couple of pigment colors with resin and taped-up the bottom of the board.
The next morning…
10:25 AM – Board is all taped up, fiberglass (double layered 6 oz) is in position and all cut.
11:32 – The first color (green) goes down onto the cloth. Oh crap – I didn’t mix enough resin. Take a deep breath… Don’t panic… I just made a relief cut in the lap where the color ran out. Then I focused on folding over the laps that were already wet. Luckily I had a little bit of green resin that wasn’t mixed-up yet. I made another small batch and finished off the lap.
12:01 AM – The green side is done. Next up is the orange.
12:52 PM – The orange side is done. It’s time for a beer. After standing back to look at the board I decided that I don’t really like the green and orange color combination. I think it would have been better to have done a white instead of orange. The board would be fine if I was trying to make a Florida Gators theme, or an Irish flag board. Neither of those were my initial intent. Oh well… I don’t hate it.
1:57 PM – I flipped the board and cut the laps just outside of my tape lines. I am suck a cheap SOB. I have been told many times to not use cheap tape. Did I listen? No… I got what I paid for which a bunch of foam torn-out. I’m not using the cheap stuff ever again. In order to fix the problem I filled-in the holes in the foam with some light weight spackle and sanded it down.
3:00 PM --Off to the beach for some surfing. I paddled out at a spot on the West-side with two other surfers in the water. They paddled in a short while later and I was left to surf for the next two hours by myself. The interval between sets was pretty long but when the waves came in it was a lot of fun. Being alone it was hard to not think a little bit about the men in gray suits. A couple of otters were having a snack about forty feet away which gave me some piece of mind. I figured that if anything came around then they would beat it right away and would probably make some noise.
I think I’m going to leave the center line raw. I kind of like it that way. I will do pinlines on the perimeters. I have never done pinlines or watched anyone else do them. I’m sure there is a ton of info in the archives about how to do pinline, but let me bounce this off of you all while you are reading.
For epoxy pinlines, I should…
apply thin tape to the perimeter where I want the lines,
apply more tape around the edges of the original tape line,
pull up the original tape in the center,
mix a batch of epoxy and add black pigment,
apply the black epoxy with a small brush,
let it set and then pull the tape,
wait until hard and then lightly sand the edges, and finally
apply a final clear coat of expoxy over the whole board.
Does this sound about right, or is there an easier way to do it?
As you can see, in my picture above, I started using clear plastic buckets with no measurement lines. Remember, I said I’m cheap. They work well but now I can’t measure out my resin by volume. I had to use a scale. The density of the resin is different from the hardener and then you can’t count the weight of the pigment. As you can imagine there were a lot of calculations to make. I scrolled all of mine on the side of a fiberglass box.
I would love to go back to volumetric measurement. Does anyone in the Bay Area have a cheap source for resin buckets?
I used the same technique to glass the deck of the board as I did on the bottom. It is much less stressful to do one-half of the board at a time.
All of the crazy calculations in the previous picture were because I mixed the color into a single big batch of resin. I determined that 2% of the resin mixture by weight was pigment. I then divided the mixture in half – or as close to one-half as one could come while pouring through a paint filter. After dividing the resin color mixture in two I realized that I didn’t have enough. I proceeded to add 40 additional grams of clear resin to each bucket. Apparently my calculations were correct, since my resin hardened on schedule.
Here are some shots of the board after lamination and application of the clear sanding coat. I haven’t done any sanding yet.
I like the time line....So,,,, you did the first color....and then you did the second color. Why is it so hard to explain that to someone that wants colored panels going the other way ??????
Great stuff Swied. I'm sure a few people will get it! The photos and times help. The mixing cups for volume measurments come from AutoBody Repair Supply stores.......Fender benders.........when you crash your car the new paint job is done with mixing cups not scales...........Fun Stuff........
I've had problems with beads pulling out no matter what tape I used. The 1.5 lb beads pull out easier than 2lb or 2.5 lb. The 'better' tapes seems to pull them out worse. Others may disagree but I think it's likely the foam not the tape.
I am rushing to get this board ready before heading down to Plaskett Creek. I installed a 10" fin-box a leash cup, and a couple of FCS plugs – one on the front, and one at the tail – for attaching a Go Pro.
Here is my setup for grinding down the leash cup and an FCS plug.
Been a couple months since this thread was opened… Have to ask though , I Haven’t tried laminating one side at a time yet… Have a paddleboard to do … Do you wrap rails on side 1, then proceed to side 2?? Then touch up and babysit ? Sounds like a better way for big boards and sups
Hi Bill. I’m glad you noticed! I have made liberal usage of the templates that you generously provided to me. The board in this thread rides and turns great.
Here is another one that I constructed from my stash of Thrailkill templates. I took it out in some big Santa Cruz surf and it was solid. It is easy to paddle into waves and it can handle a verticle drop without pearling.
Here you can see my application of your “no fillet” method of attaching a single fin. There is no way that this thing is going to break off.
