What is the consensus on how long you should wait before riding a freshly glassed epoxy board? I'm working with epoxy over poliester blanks.
depends on whether or not you post cure it. if you post cure i think you can sand/ride next day. on the boards i’ve done that i didn’t really post cure, i would leave them in my car in the sun for a couple days and wait about a week or 10 days.
We are expecting a good swell on Sunday and I want to try my most recent board. I laminated it last Saturday and put the final gloss coat on yesterday. I may rig up a heat box to post cure it a bit.
Ive surfed double over head a few times with new boards in the 6’6’’ range and 2 1/3’’ thick where the hotcoat barely solidified 3 hours before I took it out. Nothing happened any of the times, took some heavy spills too where I though I could have broken some bones if I landed wrong. But the board’s were glassed with 6oz and double 6 top.
I’m using Rev chem epoxy with PU blanks. With the temperatures now (30-50 F), it take about 3 days before I can even sand the hotcoat without gumming. I know this epoxy kicks pretty slow, so I would assume 3-4 days after you laminated would be pretty solid, at least 90% of its final strength after fully kicking. I’m no production guy, but Ive done at least 50 boards with epoxy and most of the time I think it takes about a week for the board to reach 95% full strength, and another week or 2 for the last 5%.
hope that helps.
Postcure if you can. Makes the boards much stronger and last longer. Surf 'em sooner too.
~Brian