Well... I guess I really screwed the pooch this time

General Discussion
1

Let this be a cautionary tale for you:

Today, before work, I decided to start the bottom lam on my new board (Third full lam, second use of pigment ever). Now, a little background for you: up until this point I was working out of a nice, beautiful shop. We just moved last week so I'm back to doing my work in the backyard for a little while. To say there's an adjustment going from working in a clean, controlled shop to your backyard is an understatement. I had everything planned out and ready like I would in the shop. I poured three separate quarts of resin: one teal, one purple and one red. I used a lot of pigment to achieve an opaque effect, so I knew I needed a little extra catalyst. I used 14cc catalyst per quart per the mixing chart on the back of the resin jug. I mixed my colors together in a fourth bucket to get the swirl I wanted and everything looked great. I was letting the resin flood the deck, using lots of resin to get a nice, natural spread to the colors. Once it was all where I wanted I took my squeegie and started my passes. This was far more resin than I'm used to having on a board durring a lam but with every pass I revealed the cloth and the color was remarkable…

 

Then the unthinkable happened… after my 3rd or 4th pass, the squeegie began to leave chunks in it's wake! And there was still the rails and everything to do!! I had neglected to account for the fact that even in the shade, it was about 96* outside and what should have been a nice 8-10 minute working time turned into about 2-3 minutes. Unfortunately due to expenses and location ripping the glass off and starting over was not an option, so I raced to get the saturated laps tucked under and salvage the job. I was successful in getting everything tucked (and pretty impressively too, with only one spot having a wrinkle and a slight lift of the glass next to it that I'll need to grind and re-lam). But, the biggest dissapointment was that I was unable to clean the chunks off the rails and so I literally have about 30x more sanding to do before I can do the deck lam. 

You can see from the photos all the spots that pooled where I was unable to clean off the excess in time. But the worst damage is on the rails…

 

This is a bigger mess to clean up than the first board I ever did, and that thing was ugly. My largest concern though is that I'm not only going to need to spend the time grinding all this crap down before I can do my top lam, but that I'm going to be doing so next to exposed foam and I really don't want to risk nicking the board and having to deal with filling too. So, here's my question: What is the best way to approach this? Tape off the foam with a ton of blue tape to protect it? 

My idea was to tape off the rails and do a deck patch (I wanted to do a deck color anyway) first, to cover the exposed foam with SOMETHING. Then, after I razor the deck I could grind down the rails a little easier knowing that there is a little fiberglass covering the deck. 

 

I'm not sure what to do at this point, as there is no real "easy" way. I really want to save this lam because even with the muddy pooling spots, I think it came out beautifully (artistically speaking). 

2

eeek I like the swirl in the second shot . Personaly I'd probably hang it on the shop wall as a reminder/art.

3

Could you do a cut lap on the bottom and peel the glass off the rails?  I'm thinking that since the resin was going off, the bond between the lam and the rail might be bad enough you could peel it away with only minor damage.  Then you could wrap the deck glass over to the bottom and zipper it along your cut.  You could color any bare spots on the rails with colored resin (foam tint) before you wrap it with the deck lam.  Short of that, grind away and see what happens…

4

You know I kinda like this idea… basically turn it into a reverse-layup after the fact? this may work, but unfortunately I won't be home till later. I'm gonna have to dremel the rail glass off if I do this method since it will be too far cured to razor

5

Whoa, at that temp, and those quanities of resin, even a pro mat have had trouble getting that lam done in time. Most would have set that off at maybe 10cc. it is always safe to set off colder, and do a quick hot batch of clear to kick it.

For me, at 75 degrees, 1 Qt of resin, 10cc is 10 min working time. Clear board.

I would give up on making the rails look good. Take a grinder and sand away.There is probably many surprises within that lap. some of it may come off. Next time, (i hope for your sake there isn't one) don't try a lap that lumpy mess, let it hang and zipper it off with a razor blade. Make up for loss of cloth with a double lapped deck.

Sand flat and do a darker colored deck and rail. Maybe pick one of the darker colors from the bottom and do that on the deck.

Good luck.

6

all is not lost, it has happened to the best of us, my suggestion is, hotcoat the bottom and laps and sand it smooth, cap it with 4oz., you will open bubbles along the way, no big deal fill them and add the 4oz… It will be slightly heavier, the other choice is toss the whole mess, I say try to save it.

 

I had a sailboard lam go off on me in the 80's, everything as usual, not a hot day, catalyzed as normal, I was pulling off the 4th section of the bottom and it banged, had one rail up and only could get a small portion of the other rail. After it had set up I flipped it over, painted a coat of lam resin along the lap and onto the foam. The next day I got out a sleeve of 40 grit and a block and started smoothing out the mess, when I had the drips and bumps flattened, I patched in the missing part of the laps and lam'd the deck like nothing had happened.

7

… a …

8

96 degrees? I commend your bravery. That's a cool swirl though, hopefully you can save and shred it.

9

sand it…then see…looks like my first board back when i was 13.

herb

10

Yea I'm pretty shocked how this went. I thought I was past my absurd rookie mistakes but it's been nearly a year since I've had to work outside rather than in my nice air conditioned shop. Shockingly enough though, none of the leaves from the mango tree that provided my shade landed in my lam… guess it could've been worse. Love the swirl though, I really hope I'm able to save this one. thanks for all the advice guys, bought some 80, 100, and 120 sand paper today to start slaying those warlocks asap

11

one suggestion

 

 

EPOXY

 

 

your neihbors must just love you

 

12

Your FIRED !!!

13

one thing you also may want to consider is in all your pooling on the flats… you are probably floating the cloth in those sections, once that gets sanded flat you may run into even more issues.

14

Yeah there's gonna be some significant work involved, that's for sure, but I think it's worth saving even if I do need to make a ton of patches. My idea is to sand the rails down to just below where the current cut is, then dremel the rest off - this way I eliminate the risk of deforming the deck and only need worry about keeping my cutting wheel from going too deep (and it still looks like a normal cutlap after pinlines). Then, I'll lam the deck as I normally would. I put carbon fiber on all my boards where I press my hands to pop up anyway, so rather than just put a small patch of clear over the carbon fiber, I'll simply run a strip down the entire rail  to get back the strength I cut off. 

The entire glassing schedule is 6oz all the way through, plus some carbon. It's designed to be a "big wave" board that isn't a big board - you know, for those days at the bay where your 5'8" fish just doesn't cut it in tripple-overhead surf. That said, I want it to be as strong as possible. I'm sure I'll only ride it for one winter before I make myself another one but I still want it to last. 

15

I think you should stop shaping until you have a suitable place for it.

Do you think it will be a soil improvement and make the mangoes taste better when all the dust lands on the ground?

Let me guess: You are renting the place…

16

I think you should stop posting until you have something productive to say…

 

The board was shaped in my shop, then I moved, now I need to glass it before the blank twists. The ground is asphalt covered with stones and then covered again with a tarp there, the mango tree overhangs from the next yard over. All my tools are hooked up to a shop vac. Oh yeah… I should maybe mention I live in a boat yard, my landlord is the harbor master, my roomate runs his sreen company cutting metal and plastic right next to me, and every house on my street has some form of fiberglass repair going on in the yard at any given time. I doubt anyone is going to be upset with what my shop vac doesn't catch.

You know, swaylocks isn't exactly the best place to try to tell people their backyard isn't a "suitable place" to build a board. A good chunk of people on here are backyarders

17

I recently made the same mistake. Was trying to get a board done & the only day i had to do it, the temp was 90 & humid. Resin kicked right as I was starting to tuck the laps under. I was able to get them all tucked but had chuncks in the rail. I was so pissed i had to leave me shop for an hour to clear my head. This hadn't happened to me since my first board and after 60 some boards i thought everything was good. 

A friend told me once that you can spend all the time in the world shaping the perfect board, but it only takes a couple of secs to screw it all up when glassing. 

It's the measure twice cut once mentality. Take the time, don't rush, and think things through. The best glass jobs I have every done have taken a couple of days to complete. Doing each step thoroughly and making sure every detail is perfect. Unfortunately mistakes happen to the best of us, for me they are just another way of learning. 

18

…neat…

19

…

20

 

Sorry that I pissed you off a bit, you seem to be doing the right thing. Your shop vac probably cleans the air in your already highly polluted boat yard environment…HAHA! However, I don't think it's unproductive to remind people every now and then that they need to limit the mess they make. The asphalt underneath the rocks will not stop stormwater from washing everything into the ocean before too long.