Hey Sways,
Experimenting with laying out a thin walnut veneer sheet (3-5 mm) and want to have a clean edge along the rails/tail/nose with no visible step. Was thinking I could thin out the foam along the edges a bit and do a type of inlay? Last board I did had too much of a step or sharp angle that I sanded thru the glass in a few spots. Ended up using the polycrylic method to seal it up as this was experiment #1.
Any other of you mad scientists have a better method?
here is the thread describing the build process
This is a little different situation because this is retro work on an older surfboard, adding the wood deck to remedy a crushed deck problem that occurs frequently on my boards, in the same spot, due to foot pressure.
But I went back and looked at the thread of the other board with wood deck, posted above, and I noticed that while I prepped the board and the wood before glassing, I didn’t actually inlay the wood until after the first coat of glass. I couldn’t remember until I looked at the thread. But makes sense, because clamping wood to raw foam, or shaping wood next to raw foam, is much more difficult and risky. Once the foam has a layer of glass, the process is more straightforward.
In both cases, I inlaid the wood deck with fiberglass and thickened resin. So the wood has fiberglass between it and the blank, in addition to the fiberglass on top. And in both cases, it was clamped down, although vacuuming would definitely be a good option if you have the equipment and know-how. The wood itself is not thick, probably around 1/8" (3 mm) after sanding.
