I’ve been reading this board and diggin’ it for a while. Since Blank Monday there’s been tons of talk about using EPS and Epoxy. I haven’t seen anybody make a good resin swirl with epoxy.
What’s the deal? Is the system still too new to have evolved that far? Are people just not trying it while they’re learning the basics? Do swirls not work with epoxy?
I was planning to make a board with a resin swirl. Now I’m going to be making the board an EPS/EPOXY but I’m waiting to see how y’all experts handle the resin swirl in epoxy. If they can’t be made with the same beauty of the poly swirls, I might skip that plan.
Any good examples of epoxy swirls, or tips on epoxy swirls out there?
I watched Glenn Klugel do an epoxy swirl at the expo. It turned out amazing. The colors were dark blue green and white. He used a paste for the white and I forgot to ask what that was. He had an attention for detail but admitted it was in God’s hands. There was a method to what seemed like random madness. While he worked in the resins I thought it was going to mix up all the colors but it looked great. I think the different consistency of the white it what made it look so good, I don’t know what other tricks he used, maybe some small clumps of blue also. My art teacher Robert Rivers said that Jackson Pollock used a fine sabel brushes while working on his paintings, not that is relevant.
Sweet! I’d love to see some pics of good swirls with epoxy. The pics I’ve seen weren’t very impressive. Surfers are resourceful. I’m sure they’ll get the epoxy thing dialed in soon.
Any good examples of epoxy swirls, or tips on epoxy swirls out there?
The main problem with an epoxy swirl over EPS is getting the color even. It requires that you spackle or fill the EPS prior to glassing and sand it well. You need to use alot more epoxy than regular as you cannot push the excess resin around as much as you might want to do with a regular epoxy glass job. The extra epoxy usage adds to the cost. Short HowTo: Just mix the colors, stir once, pour it on, let it soak in for a little while and remove excess resin in a few long strokes. Don’t mess around. I think epoxy swirls have a tendency to be a bit more muddy than polyester swirls, but it might just be me. Be sure to mix ALOT of color paste into the resin to make the colors bright and clear.
I’ve done a couple, but they are hardly perfect. However, I think they are easier/better than doing a regular tint as the splash hides some imperfections. If the colors of a splash isn’t even it might as well be supposed to be that way… Also, you can only really see these imperfections when examining the boards up close. Opaque lams are easier to handle though. Anyway, I make boards for myself, splashes and swirls are fun to do and looks nice, even with little imperfections.
Tom Sterne who post here from time to time have done a few, like this one:
He’s done both epoxy and polyester swirls and told me there really wasn’t much difference. I don’t know how he did this one though, might be on the foam.
Haavard is right. I’ve done several, and you will use a bit more epoxy than with clear boards, but still way less than poly. Just use slow hardener and take your time. Practice in your mind before you do it. Rehearse the first one with a dry run.
Pay attention to the lap area. You shouldn’t do the “curtain of resin” method, so be sure the colors get applied well to the laps before lapping, or you will get muddy color there. Use clean gloved hands to back up the lap as you pull resin down.
Also, on your first one, don’t get too ambitious with the number of colors and complexity.
Think through all the mixing and different colors and when to mix the hardener and how many cups of colors, and where you are going to stage the cups and where is your box of gloves and can you get the resin soaked gloves off alone or do you need help and when should you change gloves, and where are the paper towels, and who is going to wipe your brow during the operation and since it is going to drip more than usual where do you stand and should you wrap plastic bags on your shoes, and … on and on.
If you own a chain saw, lock it away until you are through. Sometime they come out better than you think in the heat of the moment.
Think through all the mixing and different colors and when to mix the hardener and how many cups of colors, and where you are going to stage the cups and where is your box of gloves and can you get the resin soaked gloves off alone or do you need help and when should you change gloves, and where are the paper towels, and who is going to wipe your brow during the operation and since it is going to drip more than usual where do you stand and should you wrap plastic bags on your shoes, and … on and on.
Greg, you nailed it!
Try a couple of small panels on some scrap EPS before you try it on the board. It may save the day. Also, as Greg says, keeping some clean gloves ready, and a spare clean squeegee or two, something to wipe the squeegees with that does not leave dirt or floss or whatever is a must. You need a clean squeeguee to mess things up.
Tom Sterne is a great guy, I’ve visited him twice, very helpful and his boards are very, very nice.
Pay attention to the lap area. You shouldn’t do the “curtain of resin” method, so be sure the colors get applied well to the laps before lapping, or you will get muddy color there. Use clean gloved hands to back up the lap as you pull resin down.
i have yet to do an epoxy swirl, but i’ve done it a few times in my mind. anyhow, i’ve given a lot of consideration to how to get good, crisp color on the laps. i decided the best way would be to pour a healthy line of swirled resin on the board, and then fold the lap up onto it…so that as the resin soaks down into the board without mudding, it also soaks up into the lap glass…without the need for squeegeeing.
It’s hard to really see how good they look but this one turned out alright. My only problem with doing epoxy swirls is the amount of waste you have. Epoxy is expensive. With that Said I offer swirls on my epoxy boards for an extra 50$ per side. Covers material cost and not much else.
I’ve done three swirls and one tint on my first four boards (might at well get right in there, no?).
I’ve actually formulated my own pigments, not trusting that the ones I could buy locally were formulated for epoxy (said they were okay, but I KNOW they were meant for polyester). Bought raw artist pigments for paintmaking from Kroma Colour and danielsmith.com; groud them in to epoxy resin (not hardener) with mortar and pestle. Great colours available.
For tints, you want solvent dyes, which again, are available…dyes aren’t necessarily all that colourfast though.
The cheat on the tint, as far as getting it uniform, is to wet your glass out on a wet-out table with a 1:1 ratio, before applying it to the blank. If this is done so that there is little excess and your blank is well sealed pre-lam, then you shouldn’t have problems with pooling and the colour will turn out pretty uniform…though not as nice as say a watermans guild or moonlight job (though that’s most likely my lack of experience).
Get creative…you can add more pigments in your gloss coat to achieve different effects…and plan your swirls carefully as the resin is, yes, more expesinve and you won’t want to waste as much as people typically do when they do a poly swirl. Having done a tint, I’ll be going back to pigments…much easier to use…
Also, if you want uniform colour, you’re probably best to airbrush the blank with a thinned acrylic; perfectly uniform, good bond to the epoxy…I’d imagine some of the slob jobs posted above aren’t actually resin swirls, unless they’ve been done straight on to the foam…would YOU do a cutlap patch in the middle of your deck?
Lot’s of good info and pics of boards. It seems that things are looking up for epoxy swirls.
A couple things stand out to me so far. Soulstice made a comment about how the epoxy soaking into the cloth might be the reason for the muddy colors. That makes sense. I haven’t worked with epoxy yet but if it soaks differently I can imagine a bleed effect. Then — spoke about how — was working the resin into the board at the show. He expected a blurry mess, as would I, but then it turned out great. To me that’s a little confusing. Maybe it’s in the application or something to do with how the field is covered after the swirls and details are put in. Hmmm?
As far as needing to use more resin goes, I guess if that comes with the territory, so be it. I’m really looking for clean, bright, beautiful swirls, and how to do them. Some of these pics look pretty good. Better than the epoxy swirls I’ve seen before.
I sent the Swirl Master Austin a message to ask if he’d done any swirls in epoxy. If I hear anything I’ll update this thread.
Keep the info rolling. It seems the biggest hurdle for getting epoxy to where poly is, is in the area of color. Progress is good.
Learn to shape the foam well, paint the blanks for uv protection, have strong boards and don’t worry about all the ego stuff that cramps your style. It will all come together when it’s time
I don’t get it. Why don’t you just do a paint swirl? Every one of those I’ve seen looked great! I understand the rootsy thing, but if it’s not working out how you want, there’s other ways to do 'em. Hey, that sounds familiar.
The color is mostly in the cloth and generally speaking the first color to hit the cloth is what you get. If you drag a bunch of pigmented resin around, it mixes up before it hits the dry cloth and will give you a muddy look.
In Austin’s vid clip, he applies his stripes and fills in the surrounding dry areas with his background color before he starts squeegeeing. He also has an assistant who helps when striping those rail areas.
On splash or swirl laminations, a common sight is drips or muddy color along the rail overlaps… someone mentioned a “resin curtain” - if the laps are fully saturated with color of your choice, they won’t absorb a muddy mix or drips as you do your overlapping. It wastes a lot of resin but that’s how the clean rails are done on the splashes.
A foam stain can be done by masking off your color area and applying drips and splashes before squeegeeing. Clark foam readily accepts colored resin - not sure about sealed EPS though. A clear lamination can be done over the foam stain.
Easy: tape area, mix paint just like pigged resin, squeegie, dry with hair drier, lam.
I know someone who’s gonna kill me for that one, but it’s really easy and looks tight. Not as tight as a moonlight, Kane Garden, Cooper…but pretty tight. I don’t do 'em, I still like the 1996 paint pen job
