Was going to use Epoxy, then read this...

General Discussion
1

To work with Epoxy Resin, one needs an oven for the lamination process to be carried out at temperatures under 25º C (77 F) because the molecules do not aggregate properly, thus causing the surfboard to be fragile, rubbery and soft, being too flexible for surfing.

The curing process is too slow and has low productivity, taking 7 to 10 days to complete all the processes. The finish is damaged because the resin is opaque, milky and dim. It is rubbery, thus rendering the sanding process difficult.

The Epoxy Resin and the hardener are divided into pieces that cannot be changed, differently from the Polyester resin, which can be changed to compensate the low temperature.

At low temperatures, the curing process is slow, generating the decantation of the Epoxy resin, which results in micropores and, as a consequence, in infiltrations.

The lamination process usually occurs at closed environments, being damaged when the room is heated because there is discharge of the humidity that was deposited during the night. In the presence of high relative humidity, there is no correct fusion between the different lamination layers.

FROM THE KEAHANA WEBSITE

I don’t have an oven so can I use epoxy to laminate my board?

 

2

This must be a The “Anti Epoxy Resin Thread.”

And I respect your concerns especially as you’ve been a member for a whole 32 minutes.

3

Well I’ve been riding the same epoxy board that was glassed in my less than 25degrees Canadian shed for about four years now. No dings, no spider cracks, no dents in the bottom. With surfboards there is often a very large difference between optimal engineering specs and performance. Epoxy away my friend.

4

 I am all for epoxy

and I don’t understand the epoxy hater’s argument, that, somehow, polyester resin and e-cloth just happens to have the perfect combination of weight, strength and flex that a surfboard could ever have.

5

123, The short answer is yes you can. That’s a nice little piece of propaganda you posted. Check out Stingray’s laminating with epoxy thread.  Maybe someone that knows how can post the link. Mike

6

Yes you can epoxy lam without an oven.  That article is probably from th 1970’s.  it depends on what brand of epoxy you use. Please use Resin research, or some other brand specifically designed for surfboards.    Don’t just go buy some junk at the hardware store

7

 That post from the Keahana website might have been relevant 25 years ago. But times and resins change.  The only advantage that i see with ploy is aesthetics. The masters that use ploy can make a board a work of art. Epoxy just doesn’t produce that jewel like color and gloss that you get with ploy resin.  

8

You can heat treat an epoxy board without an oven.    You can make an oven with a cardboard box and a couple of incandescent light fixtures and fan.  

 

 

 

9

And shatters, dings, cracks, scratches.  

S cloth is better than E cloth and epoxy is better than poly.  

10

Thanks for all your answers so far.

I need some help glassing my board.

As far as I’ve learnt, there are two ways.

 1. Do both lams and hotcoats while the epoxy is still gelled or uncured all in 24 hours with no sanding in between (chemical bond theory)

  1. Wait for each lam and each hot coat to fully cure and sand the overlaps, in between lams, for a good physical bond.

How long for is it for each lam to fully cure before you can sand the overlaps for the next lam?

Anyway. **If I lam the bottom and then go to lam the deck while it’s all still in the gel/chemical bond stage, DO I SAND THE RAIL LAPS AND IF SO HOW BECAUSE THE EPOXY WOULD STILL BE RUBBERY. **

If I lam the bottom and then, while still in gel stage, flip and lam the  deck, do I sand the laps in between?

 

 

 

11

where are you located 123?

imo, epoxy is better than poly in ALL ways except:

  • ease of polish

  • speed

here’s how i do it with Resin Research epoxy:

I usually work in a shed or tent and have a space heater (if necessary) to keep temps between 50F and 85F. Since you’re a beginner, you’re gonna want temps under 75F. Any hotter than that and things start moving pretty quickly. Lam side A, wait until it’s not sticky (usually 2-3 hours), flip and lam side B. Wait until it’s not sticky, flip, and hotcoat side A. Wait until it’s not sticky, flip, and hotcoat side B… If it’s summertime and the temps are up, I will set aside a night and do the whole process starting when the sun has gone down and finishing in the early morning. After all the lamming and hotcoating is done, I usually leave the board in a warm place (inside the house works) for a few days before I sand…

Stingray’s post on this thread is GOLD for you: http://www.swaylocks.com/forums/first-epoxy-glass-job-s

that’s the post that helped me out the most regarding glassing with epoxy.

12

CHRIS Thanks you gave me a good plan. I’ve already read that thread…thanks. I’m located Maroubra, NSW Australia

Do you sand at all in between…like to fix the laps.

Do you use “wax in styrene” with EPOXY to make a hotcoat? Here in Aus we have a laminating resin and a filler(hot coat)resin available. The guy emailed me saying “The good thing is that the resin can be used as a lam and a filler. It was only last year we came out with a Filler Epoxy System.” he was refering to the 110 laminating resin. But it’s all unclear to me. If you can use one resin as a lam and a filler, why are there two seperate products.

How do you guys make hotcoat with your Resin Research epoxy.

These are some of the basics I’m trying to get my head around but the info is not obvious. They want to sell you all these products but not enough info about them. Its frustrating.

 
13

There are a couple other reasons to consider using epoxy:

Clean-up doesn’t use acetone - vinegar works fine and it’s a lot cheaper than acetone.  

By comparison to polyester resins the epoxies emit just a small fraction of the VOCs (those noxious fumes).  Your neighbors won’t even know you’re glassing with epoxy whereas if you use polyester resins they’re all going to hate you for at least a week.  Those fumes linger.  

If you heat the glass jobs up for a couple hours prior to sanding (like stick it in your car out in the sun for a few hours) then that’s about as strong and hard as it’s going to get - you don’t need to wait for a couple weeks for the hard cure the way you do when you’re using catalyzed PE resins.  

 

Don’t worry about trying to do all your glassing in one day and definitely don’t rush it as a means of emulating the pros.  That’s not the only way to glass - it works great for them but maybe not so great for the less-skilled.    Keahana’s program is specifically geared toward production in the professional environment by experienced glassers.  Most of us backyard guys don’t work that fast, we’re not working in the dedicated glassing rooms and we make mistakes.  Epoxy is an excellent adhesive (way better than PE) and it will adhere to itself quite well.  So it’s okay to do one side per day and take your time cleaning up lap lines and prepping and taping for your next set of resin.  Just scuff the contact areas a little prior to glassing and go.   

Surfboard epoxies sets hard enough to sand - it’s not tacky like polyester laminating  resin and once it actually sets up it won’t gum up your sandpaper.  You can add surfacing agents to it or thin it to your fill coats to make it flow better or you can just use it straight and it will still fill and it will still be sandable.  Where the thinners and surfacing agents can help is in reducing bubbles in your fill coat that turn into pinholes.  But half of that is just working clean in a reasonably clean room where there isn’t a lot of dust floating around.  and not contaminating your laminations by handling it with your bare hands (the oils in your skin can contaminate the surface).  

Lastly, get a digital scale and mix your resin by weight.  I use a squeeze bottle for my hardener and meaure to the gram - you can’t get that kind of accuracy when measuring by volume.    If you measure by weight you can accurately mix even tiny amounts of epoxy and you can completely skip using hte more expensive marked measuring cups.  Reusing cups for repairs or patches or whatnot is no problem.  By mixing small batches when those come up you can reduce your waste to almost nothing - and that’s another form of conservation.    Honestly, a cheap digital kitchen scale will pay for itself in reducing your waste over just a couple boards once you figure out how to measure out only what you’re using.  

 

 

14

yes, you must prep your laps.

one thing i have learned with surfboard building is to get EACH step as close to perfect as you can before moving on.

don’t think for a minute that you can fix it in the next step.

and, GDaddy is right. you should NOT be using acetone. due to health reasons, NEVER NEVER NEVER use acetone with epoxy… EVER!

besides, simple white vinegar works great and is CHEAP!

i don’t know what kind of epoxy you have available to you. I’ve only used Resin Research and I LOVE the stuff.

I don’t do anything differently with my lam resin vs my hotcoat resin. they are the same… some folks use styrene/wax aka “additive F”. I haven’t used it in a while and don’t see myself going back.

15

Been there, done that with the epoxy resins.  Sure there are benefits…just not enough of them.  The pitfalls and horror stories of epoxy are well documented.  I never ran into the pitfalls that others have and my boards came out well with epoxy but even still I don’t like the stuff compared to good old Poly.  I had quite a bit of epoxy experience before I ever tried it with surfboards so I knew how to avoid issues.  To me UV Poly is by far the best way to go particularly for the back yard builder.

16

You forgot:

  • the risk of contamination.....bumps from dust in the air.
  • The risk of contamination......craters in the resin from oils from hands, containors and mystery substances in the air.
  • Gummed up sandpaper.
  • Boards that look 5 years old in 6-months cause they turned yellow.
  • Color work
  • Risk that your mix could be off by a fraction of a hair and the resin doesn't harden all the way.
  • Risk that the temperature or humidity isn't ideal and the resin doesn't harden.
  • Long drying times increasing the risk of contamination.
  • The whole process just takes longer.

Sure I probably missed a few pitfalls but you get the idea.

 

17

Mako most of what you said is also true for ploy resins. Mix is too much catalyst and you can make the board brittle. Full cure can be weeks if you don’t use enough catalyst 
The less then full cured board feels fine and looks good but the pressure dings start to show fast. I use to have boards made at least 30 days in advance before trip to Mexico or Hawaii. Yellowing is a thing of the past with the better epoxy resins out now on the market. look at some of the Boards Patagonia put out that are ten years old. Some look like with a buff and polish they would look almost new. Wish I knew what resins they are using. Ploy is better for production You can do a much faster turn over with volume production. Besides for big volume builders weak boards means more turn over and more sales. Ploy is much better if you are doing show boards you get a much better finish. I have friends in Calif that won’t work with Epoxy. Others doing production work have an epoxy room, so they can do both.
for performance and better weight to straight. Epoxy has poly beat. You also don’t need harsh chemicals to work with epoxy. Acetone builds up in your system and very hard on the liver. Ad some alcohol to it and you are headed for an early grave. a few people I knew from the Boat and Yacht business died from Liver damage all were heavy drinkers but also working with a lot of toxic chemicals.

18

I’ve never had anymore problems with epoxy than poly resin.   it’s not that big of a deal.   I’ve got a board that I surf every other day in epoxy…its looks fresh as a daisy.  I’ll bring it to Plaskett, I had it there the last time I was there…err, like 3 years ago.   Anyhow if you play by the rules epoxy wont bite you, if you go off the reservation, then it’s your fault, not the epoxy’s fault.

There are very basic simple rules to follow. yes a few more than poly rules (which poly really has none). So what if it works a bit slower…like my pappy says, “what’s time to a hog”

 

In my opinion a good epoxy boards surf way better than a good poly board…but then I’m different, I like a fast loose surfboard that turns well.  Poly boards are pigs…ouch, did i really say that…sorry

19

the durability was the first thing i noticed about my epoxy boards after spending years on poly.

dings decreased dramatically.

i don’t see myself going back.

20

You should still heat cure your epoxy if you can

every professional industrial production operation doing epoxy eepsecially with carbon fiber inlaid molds 

cures their epoxied components in an autoclave

granted these are usually high performance bost, plane or auto parts but the theory is still valid

Bert used to precure his epoxied balsa sheets in an home made autoclave

all it takes is a dark bag made from black vinyls sheets or a couple of extra large garbage bags and the sun

some build curing oven boxes out of XPS foam or wood with a lightbulb and a fan like TaylorO

some guys just throw it in the car in the hot sun and let it cure for a while

I was also told that you should let it sit for at least 48-96 hours before sanding

but that works out if you can only work on the weekends

some others say you need to sand before 24 hours to prevent build ups on your paper

production shops have had issues when epoxy and PU glassing are done right next to each other in the same room, some type of cross contamination

so some glassing shops have specific areas for glassing epoxy and other isolated areas for PU glassing

as far as glassing

you can’t beat UV PU glassing no matter what anyone says

there’s nothing that comes close in comparison 

regarding ease of use, efficiency and cost.

Epoxy is more about fume reduction and added strength not ease of use.

But sometimes that added strength is coming from using a lighter core like EPS/XPS and more layers of epoxied fiberglass.

If you use the same glassing schedule on a PU blank with epoxy you’ll get a heavy board albeit stronger

Also some epoxies don’t like some PU blanks and you end up with a spongy result versus a strong, flexible one that you would get with EPS/XPS core…

so in the end heat curing and waiting to sand your epoxy board is no biggie

having to scrub down the aluzine build up with soap and water (remember those days?) before glossing used to be a big deal years ago but you do not have to do do that anymore.

If I was glassing in PU only I would only use UV PU like Kokua did back on kauai

Also doesn’t XTR have a proprietay process using a heated needle roller to penetrate the glass to allow for breathing or the XPS to prevent delams like Petey used to do that here in Hawaii for XTR.

or is that outdated already?