Hey, I am looking for some clarification on the technique referred to elsewhere on Sways as ‘ziplapping’. My understanding is: you lay your cloth over the board, cut your relief cuts, pour your resin over the cloth, spread it around and pull off excess, but essentially leave the laps alone to hang as they will off the rail apex. Then ‘zip’ it off when it hits that magical E-Z-Slice cure point.
OK so all well and good but this breakdown I had relayed to me by my girlfriend (and glassing partner par excellence) who stumbled across it while browsing around Sways a while ago and skimmed through. Now we seem to be unable to find any information on it except one brief mention. Probably due to the old ‘three letter word’ search problem which makes me utter ‘four letter words’ on occassion.
SO… I was thinking about trying this technique out on one of my upcoming boards but since I usually spend hours reading about everything on Sways before doing anything about it I feel paralyzed with fear and ignorance and am hoping somebody will be able to describe:
A. any shortcomings in my understanding of the process.
B. Any issues and common problems with it.
And C. Does it work, or would to attempt it be the work of a raving lunatic covered in foam dust and poorly mixed, eternally semi-hardened Kwik Kick?
Hopefully this thread can clarify these things and by the combination of ‘zip’ and ‘lap’ into one glorious six-letter word make it easily searchable for future generations.
I have heard this explained a few times but have never done it myself. Basically (if I can remember correctly); You tape for a cutlap and use a die grinder along the edge of the tape to cut, grind or "zip" thru the tape edge after the lamination has set. Skills with a die grinder are developed over time and with practice. Better to tape and cut you laps or free-lap. You could really screw something up using this technique. Oh and you never just let your laps "hang". If "zipping" the rails was the hot technique, every glass shop in Calif. and Hawaii woulld be doing it that way. I've been in a few over the years and have yet to see a laminator use this technique.
I have done one because I had a tint go bad(ran completely out of resin!) so it came out blotchy, so I figured its a longboard won’t hurt to have wieght from an extra 4oz opaque to hide flaws on the bottom…I zipped it at the rail, and it worked…I’m sure you could just baste it with HC resin and sand/grind it off too.
OK --I've got it now. thanks for the link. I heard someone else mentiom the technique I described as well. I've cut carbon fiber on sailboard decks before at the bottom of the rail. So was I "zipping"?
this technique is used as kensurf described. when adding cloth layers to an already laminated board. usually to allow a novice glassier to concentrate on the color in the initial lam only having to wet out one layer of cloth.
if you attempted to zipper the first layer of cloth my guess is you will hack the $#!* out of your rail, can be done with a new razorblade and steady hand. I see this as cutting a corner as you will lose a lot of strength.
I just got through doing some zip lapped glass jobs. The boards are accurate reproductions of what I was doing in the early 70"s. Thick beak nosed single fins with 6 oz. glass. I didn’t even put leash plugs in.I was going for historical accuracy.Another place where zip laps come in handy is the extra 4 oz. bottom patch as used on high quality boards like Cooperfish. This where you lay down an extra layer of 4 ounce glass on the bottom of cut lapped boards. It makes for a super smooth bottom surface.The extra layer of glass gives depth and the polishes come out unreal.
For the average board I see no need to do zipped laps. It does save some time and resin but not much.
All right fantastic. Thanks to everyone for the clarification and the extra info, it sounds like it will work in the application I am thinking of. Specifically adding 4 oz. layers over tinted base layers… I can only imagine the rail havoc caused by trying to use this as a primary lam technique.
Chrisp, cheers for the info on using Google to search within swaylocks; I wasn’t aware of the code to make it sways specific… this might greatly help me in the future when I run into the three-letter limitation.
Ziplaps were standard during the seventies when one wanted to lay down a color in the lam, or a tint, and not scribe into the foam. What I recommend is laying down tape and paper first, about 1/4 inch away from where real tape line will be. So your taping off the board twice. That way when the resin reaches the “B-stage”, when you fold up the tape it forms a crease , and with your razor you zip where the tape ends and the laminate begins. Some people would bend the razor up a bit as to not mar the foam, because the whole point is not to dig into the foam. I say Mel Ross was the best in the business at it, but then he’s laminated more boards than about anyone.