Veneer one side w/o rocker table?

[jrandy]

Hello Swaypeople,

I have a wakesurf that I am trying to complete. I made the blank out of leftover 1# EPS (16kg/m3) and it has twin 3/8" (9mm) pine stringers about 6" (150mm) apart. A buddy gave me a stack of veneers, 1/32" (.8mm) pine,maple, mahogany, walnut, and a couple mystery pieces. Some are flat, some are wavy, and some looks corrugated to the point that pressure might not flatten it.

So I am thinking about covering the bottom of the ragtag, glued-up, knot and spackle-ridden, overly stiff lil’ buggar with veneer between glass and resin. The mahogany is about 4"(100mm) and edges are trued. The other pieces are larger and need trimming. If I run a mahogany piece midpoint rail-to-rail and then midline nose-to-tail, I can fill in the remaining quadrants with a single piece each of the pine or maple. These pieces are flat but do not drape flat to the board.

Assets: blank, epoxy resin, veneer, glass E-cloth in1.4, 4, and 6 oz/yd (50,135,200 g/sm), simple vac bagging setup and comsumables, and no expectations other than hoping to learn something and complete something

Liabilities: no rocker table, no experience with skinning or bagging surfboards

Current idea it to true the veneers, glue the edges carefully with Titebond III, and cut out the veneer as an insert maybe 1 1/2" (60mm) in from the outline of the board. Then I would do the deck lams first as a free lap onto the bottom, baste and sand flat to bottom, and set up the bottom as a cut lap of the top layer of bottom glass onto the rail with the veener stopping short and the inside layer of bottom glass ending up past the veneer but short of the cut lap.

I am open to other ideas but want to use the materials on-hand.

Questions, based on the current materials and plan:

1. How much oz of glass to use on the bottom under and over the 1/32" veneer?

2. Would lamming/curing the deck first allow me to vac bag the bottom without damage (no rocker table)?

3.Would it be better to vac bag the bottom as free lap foam-glass-veneer, and then do the outer glass as a cut lap hand layup?

Pics of stuff enclosed. I told myself that this and the Blake (done except for vent hardware) need to get finished before I start another. Thanks, J

[gdaddy]

Lots of people have bagged veneers over unglassed single-stringered blanks without a problem.  You have a double stringered blank.  Better to glass the other side and rails, but even without glass you’d probably be okay.  

[everysurfer]

Better than fiberglass under the veneer is Cerex N-Fusion. It is lighter weight, and absorbs a more uniform coating of your epoxy. You can buy it from Graphite Masters. They relabel it as Skinz. Or contact Cerex direct for larger quantities at half the price of Skinz.

[paulcannon]

hey bro this might not mean much to you but i stuck on a layer of core cork to a deck ( glass over the top) with contact adhesive. ( no solvent one) and that has not delaminated in 2 years of hard surfing and my heavy foot. the right contact  glue could be used in surfboard composite. also i think pressure sensitive glues have potential. expensive experiments however i have found poyurethane glues eventuall delaminate when flexed. but thats just me. i would never use gorilla glue or its ilk again it has failed every time i used it. the conact was too easy. i thought there must be a catch here it will delaminate as it went together in literally 10 minutes. but no it has stayed together strong as hell

[jrandy]

Gdaddy, thanks for the info. I was concerned about ‘flattening’ this one by bagging it on a stand. I am leaning towards doing the top first as you suggested.

ES, thanks for the Cerex suggestion.  If I was going stringerless / more flexible, would the Cerex make more of a difference? If you had to ‘cook’ with the ingredients I have, how would you do it?

PaulCannon, the solvent free contact cement sounds interesting, thanks.  I think the epoxy would give me more chances to adjust and flatten the veneer before it sets.

-J

[oneula]

believe me

it won’t work

been there done that

veneer has to go on the outside of a substrate 

PU maybe definitely eps is too soft

plus you can’t sand it

[everysurfer]

J, regarding flex. Two 3/8" stringers will be plenty stiff. As for how I’d cook it, this is all I have for you from the different builds I’ve done.

1. purely stringerless is too flexing. You will loose the acceleration out of a bottom turn.
2. corecell on two sides like Bert’s thread, with high density corecell rails are too stiff. Unless you really thin it out, and sacrifice floatation, that board will be light weight, but feel like it is 6" to a foot longer than it would feel as a standard board.
3. I really like corecell on the deck, but I haven’t tried a wood skin yet. It will be stiffer than without the corecell, but still, will loose something on the bottom turn.
4. a single layer of carbon on the rails is good, but additional layers in certain spots is better.
5. additional layers of carbon can be added later, after you have surfed it. Just like a ding repair. That’s how I dialed in my boards.
6. Unidirectional carbon doesn’t stiffen as much as woven carbon. It takes more layers of uni to get the same effect as woven.
   7). If you want to try the Cerex, p.m. me, and I can sell you a few yards. The stuff is cheap. The shipping costs more than the fabric.

[paulcannon]

check it out i built it three years ago and surf it all the time was the last board i built cuz it worked for me so well and is lasting for ever… and is marko blown eps i think it was marko . it has holes on and doesnt suck water cuz the blown eps shits on everything else. i glassed the bottom first and did cut laps then spray contacted the deck and the skin and just draped it over  and rubbed it down with my hand. i glassed a layer of 5 oz over i think. application time of cork was about 10 minutes NO bag. i literally have thrashed the shit out of this board and it will not die. im sure the contact would work with veneers

[jrandy]

Paul- thanks for the pic, that cork board looks great. I am going to log that idea for future use.

Mark, thanks for your recipes and thoughts. I could see trying some of the higher-tech stuff in the future on a board that isn’t so cobbled together from scraps. I appreciate your sample offer on the Cerex.

Bernie- if I understand you right, you are saying that if I did the veneer pieces direct to EPS ( the way Paul did his cork board) then I would get seams that cannot be easily sanded. That makes sense- soft foam, flexible adhesive, springy veneer…how to get it lined up and nice? That’s where I thought making a veneer panel and bagging it between glass would work, let the glass curve around the rails and let the veneer just follow the rocker and roll but stop short of the hard stuff (rail apex and tuck)

For a bottom, how much glass below the veneer and how much on top? Bag it in one shot (3 layers) or bag the veneer to the glass to the board, sand, and then hand lam the outer layer?

Thanks, J

 

[oneula]

here’s some examples of pass lessons doing this over the years

we’ve changed and gone back like Charlie taught us to, with the thicker balsa, wiliwili, palownia, cedar, bamboo weave or corecork at 1/16"-1/8" to 10 mil instead of going for the fancy but super 1/42" thin purpleheart, curly koa, tineo, cherry, walnut veneers. We tried covering the 1lb homedepot eps with the woven bamboo first to build a substrate and then veneer it with the Koa. I still have tons of veneer to play with once we get the system down. I vac bagged the veneers over cheap basswood boxes to make fancy jewelry boxes for present years ago which came out nicer than the boards. I think even Drew was glassing his boards first before applying his core cork. As a deck insert like Greg Loehr does makes sense, as a structural skin it doesn’t make sense unless its the core of a sandwich bagged all at the same time. Again if you have a denser core it’ll cork the denser the core the better.

In any case best of luck cause they are pretty when done

[gdaddy]

Cork almost certainly handles water better than wood veneers.    I made the mistake of rawdogging a wood veneer over EPS exactly one time.  I did it on the bottom of a dual density blank (EPS core + HD PU rails) and got a leak at one of the seams of the rail - water got in and made a mess of things.  I’ve seen the same think happen to other people’s veneer-over-EPS boards, too. 

That was my first veneer-over EPS, so I took my lesson from that and frpm then on I have sandwiched the veneer between layers of fiberglass on the bottom as well as the deck.  Greg Loehr showed us to spritz a little spray adhesive to the core side of the blank, trim it to the edge and wet it out with a roller to just barely wet the fiberglass out, then bag it to the blank.  

In that application the fiberglass serves as a moisture barrier and protects the veneer in the event some water gets into the core.  If you’re using one of the light density PU blanks (like Huie and others do with their wood plank decks) that basically becomes a moot point.  I’ve done a bunch of veneers over PU and never had a problem with moisture getting to them.  Veneers make a great deck patch over PU.  

 

If/when I do a veneer over EPS again (not sure I will)  I’m going to try using the really light non-woven veil (Like Cerex or Skinz) as my moisture barrier instead of fiberglass, and limit my use of fiberglass under the contact area of the deck to better support the veneer in the high traffic areas.  That should be slightly lighter and hopefully a little less stiff overall.  I think that should work.  

 

[paulcannon]

heres a thought to join veneers cleanly.  try do all the seams precut first ona cutting board. use a metal ruler and overlap veneers where you want the seam then double cut with a good quality craft knife with japanese blades . tajima i recomend. the seams should be close to perfect 

[hans]

Sorry, I haven’t read the entire thread so I may have missed some clues.

About the rocker table: In the windsurfing industry, a piece of MDF is regularly used instead of a massive rocker table.

 

More pics: http://www.nelsonfactory.com/an-inside-look-at-how-boards-are-made/

[paulcannon]

cool man but surely there could be a twist in it if density varies perhaps

[gdaddy]

One time I cleaned up the bottom of a stringerless EPS blank (24" wide sled cut) , cut in a little vee for the tail and bagged the veneer onto the blank prior to cutting out the template or doing any other shaping.  That worked.  

[jrandy]

Thanks for all the ideas, pictures, and links everyone! I am hoping to get after it this week. -J

[newschoolblue]

Just want to say it’s nice to see Paul Cannon posting.  Been a while.  Hope you’re well.

[paulcannon]

mhwa hahahahahaha

[paulcannon]

anyway if i had some veneer i would try this stuff with eps. looks potential

also for fast rail glue ups to eps

 

http://www.bostik.co.nz/productDetails.aspx?p=817&c=120&t=i

[paulcannon]

im well newschoolblue. are you all good ?