What to use to glue up EPS blank with PVC stringer

General Discussion
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I glued up a 2# EPS blank yesterday using 1/8 pvc sheet foam for a stringer and epoxy resin for the glue. turns out that the epoxy does not adhere well to the pvc. the bond came loose when i was sanding back the tip, so i tried to use super glue to glue the tip back together and the super glue ate the foam! also i put color in the resin for a colored glue line and it seeped though the foam a good bit - probably a 1/4’’ on either side of the stringer. what do you use to glue up eps blanks with pvc stringers? i will try to post some pics on monday.

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GH-

Roo Glue will bond EPS to PVC stringer material.

Tomas

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Try Elmers Ultimate, foaming polyeurethane same as gorilla glue but cheaper. A word of caution… wear gloves and avoid any skin contact, I’m highly allergic to the stuff and any contact at all and I itch for weeks.

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here is the blank - it turned out pretty good. you can see in the second pic where the excess black epoxy bled through the foam from the stringer glue up and at the nose where the super glue ate away at some of the foam - but it did bond the stringer back to the glue line.

this is my first time using pvc and after realizing that it has a poor bond with epoxy during the glue up stage, it doesnt seem like the best material to be using. have any of you had problems with the stringer and lamination separating? I checked the archives and it seems that roo glue has a better bond for glue-up, but what about when you glass it?



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one more

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I have used Gorilla Glue twice with EPS and PVC stringers (parabolic). Worked great. Follow the instructions on the GG label and remember that the glue expands. Don’t overdo it. Just ask Stingray and Shipman.

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I’m not so happy with the gorilla glue but many here love the stuff. The whole expanding thing really screws me up. I see that your epoxy bled into your foam. We had the same problem with gorilla glue. What we did not do was to seal the EPS foam before gluing in the stringer. We have come to the conclusion that if we had sealed the EPS and not used too much glue that our glue ups would have been fine. Did you sand the stringer material before glue up.

Last month MarkSSD and I did a Balsa stringer using Five Minute Epoxy. Worked great. No clamps, no expansion. Very happy. Live and learn. Next we need to try Five minute epoxy with EPS foam and Komatex stringer !!!

I just scored some stringer material!!!

Who’s got foam!!!

Ray

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I have used gorilla glue with wood stringers - I like it a lot, I just wanted to use something that I could pigment. I did not want a brown glue line with a white stringer, although that might looks snazzy. Sealing the foam with clear resin first is a good idea for a colored glue line - i just need to mask off the blank so extra drips from the glue up process dont bleed through also. Sanding the pvc stringer material before glue up is another good idea - I thought about that too as soon as I realized that it did not have a strong bond. I will try that next time. Also plan to get some roo glue. Thanks for the tips guys!

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What type of stringer material do you have Ray? Where’d you get it? I’ve been thinking about adding a thin wood stringer to my next board but so far all I can find is door skin. I’ve got a block of 2 lbs EPS.

Does the epoxy glue-up make planing the stringer more difficult?

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The best material is going to be something that is flexible with the PVC and EPS, thats the whole reason for making the surfboard with those 2 materials. Epoxy for glue is too brittle, and elmers won’t stick. GG is kind of ugly and leaves voids. If it’s EPS to Wood then white elmers is fine. Stringer material should be 2-3mm PVC foam, it looks like a sheet of 4x8 wilsonart laminate, it even has a rough side and a clean side with plastic on it. If your looking for a ply stringer, the stuff is called bender ply, you can get it at frost hardwood. The HD door skin stuff works ok, but has too much grain running the wrong way, and will give you headaches with the planer.

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here are some pics of the finished board


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here are some pics of a perimeter stringer blank i am making with 2# EPS and 3mm pvc stringers.

i am using roo glue on this one and i sanded the pvc with some 40 grit so it should be a solid glue-up.

my ‘clamps’ are old bicycle inner tubes from the local bike shop - they work really well!



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5 min epoxy is great

its quick and you dont need much

just a thin smear

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