How To - From a Foam Mold for Vacuum Bagging to a Finished Board

[Loki440]

Im Reposting an older post and aptly naming it so people can find it when searching for information, as lately i have gotten ALOT of people asking me questions on how to build boards, when things like this old thread were hiding in plain sight.



ok here we go, first off i realized i didn't have a nice mould to work from, as my older 48" mould was ratched, so i decided to make a new one.



So Pic 1 (11:05pm) , in this pic i show what i used to make my mould, i glued two sheets of 1.5" lower grade foam together to give me a 3" thickness using the 3M super 77 spray adhesive (go with the pink or blue foam if you can as its alot more dense and hold up better for repeated use).

Also in the picture is two different sized hot wire knifes i built awhile ago (a 26" one and a 50"), an old old manx's train transformer i got of ebay, to act as the transformer to heat my hot wire knife wire's.

And also two pairs of guides one for cutting concave, one for camber, i made these for another mould (dancer mould) but they worked for this application through some simple extension of the concave templates as they were only 10" wide where as this mould would be 12", and the camber i just flip on center to get symmetrical camber front to back, the camber templates are about 32" long, but i only needed to use 24" of them for this mould.





Pic 2 (11:13pm) here i have cutout the camber of the mould on the bottom side



Pic 3 (11:23pm) here i have flipped the mould taking the piece i already cutout fro the camber and putting it back to make it a square block again, i then attach my concave templates (at this time i had to modify my existing ones, thus it took me a couple mins).

But once you flip it over you will want to weight the top of the mould with something so it wont go anywhere, i used an old board (the turd) thats gonna become firewood soon, and then i switched to my long 50" hot wire knife and proceeded to cut my concave, making sure to go as evenly as possible.



Pic 4 (11:29pm) This pic show the three pieces of foam you will end up with, the two on the right are garbage, but in order from left to right you have your mould with concave and camber, the camber piece you cut out, and then the concave piece you cut out.



Pic 5 (11:34pm) I put the cut out concave piece back under the center, then sanded the mould with 80grit sandpaper, on a sanding block to level out all the imperfections caused by not being a robot (ie perfect) with the hotwire knife. This step makes a mess, im warning you, now if you wanted to make your mould more durable, this is the stage at which you would want to fiberglass your mould for strength.



Pic 6 and 7 (11:38pm) Here is a pic of the completed mould with a bit of weight on it to show you how the mould will be when it's in a vacuum bag, note the tasty beverage, mmmmmmm good




Pic 8 (11:45pm) In this pic i have gathered all the equipment and supplies i need to make a deck, first we got the mould which i previously made, a sheet of 3/4" plywood which is used as my backer sheet for my mould, so only the wood your pressing will flex not your mould while the wood your pressing remains flat, for ease of use you can glue your foam molds onto a thick plywood backer, and then fiberglass the whole thing, which will give you a mould that doesn't flex, and will retain its shape, plus if you make a nice rack you can easily store all your mould's, instead of worrying about the straight foam breaking or getting tweaked or damaged by accidents.

Then i have my vacuum pump, vacuum bag, breather cloth (in this case felt cloth from a fabric store, as i find the hard plastic mesh netting dents the wood, which brings in more problems down the road when it comes to trying to get a smooth finish, so i use felt as it doesn't dent the wood.

And then we have 4 sheets (48"x12" long grain) of 1/8" thick Baltic Birch, and also some titebond 3 and a roller to spread the glue.



Pic 9 and 10 (12:05am) Here is the 4 sheets of Baltic birch glued together and in my press being pressed together with a vacuum of 24" of mercury (ie. one Bar, or atmospheric pressure, 14.3psi roughly)

When you are sucking out the air in the vacuum bag make sure to pull on the sides of the bag,so that it doesn't get tucked up, under and between the mould and the wood when pressing, as this can mess your concave right up

Note the concave looks a bit weird in the pic10, when if fact it is not, the camera angle and how the whole mould was located in my vacuum bag, makes it look a little off.




Pic 11 (12:30am) Heading back into the house, i assembled my board template designing tools, which consist of 12" wide Brown masking paper (used as the template, it comes int 300' rools for 2-3dollers), some tape (to hold it down on my desk while im drawing it up), a long straight edge, a set of French Curves, my 36" adjustable curve (neat tool for doing long curves), my favorite pencil, a eraser, a exacto knife, and the all mighty Zippo tape measure i pilfered from my farther a good 8 years back.

Also some snacks, chocolate chip, Reese piece's bran muffins i made a few days back for when i was trying to leave for kelowna (but the road is still blocked gerrrrr), and a Arizona Ice Tea (cant go wrong for $1canadain a 700ml can, and they have ingredients you can read ie, our premium brewed tea using filtered water, glucose-fructose, citric acid, natural lemon flavor, and that its) plus there darn tasty



Pic 12 (1:48am) finally came up with a shape i likes after going off some measurement i decided for the board (25cm wide, 112cm long, 12cm nose, 20cm tail which will be adjustable, but base wheelbase of 80cm) then i went from there, i also drew in some wheel wells, for if i want to do them, or when the time comes to do a composite version of this board.

But anyways came up with half the shape then took a picture, and edited it in photoshop to give me an idea of how it will look when the other side is there.




Pic 13 (1:50am) Happy with the shape, i cut along the edge of the board shape then continue off the center line to give me a reference point for flipping it when i trace it onto the blank, so now i have a completed template, ready to be transfered






Well done all the editing and uploading and verbiage as much as i can do for tonight (its now 3:20am), so im off to bed.

[Loki440]

Well Got up this morning and made myself some morning juice (hot good hostess icetea, yes weird but mmm mmm good)

Pic 14 and 15 (9:10am) So after taking my board out of the press, having been in for roughly 8.5hrs, it was pressed enough, now i had a bit of spring back for the camber, but this was expected cause im not really taking my time and allowing a board 12+ hours in a press, and your times can be different due to temperature, humidity, and type of glue, myself i will be trying that multibond sk8 glue, just because it offers a faster curing time, so i might be able to reduce my pressing times by 1/2 to 2/3 the normal time, but this i have to test out.

But the pics show how the blank looks fresh out of the mould, note i have already drawn a center line down the board and transfered on my boards shape by tracing the edge of my template, then flipping it over and doing it on the other side.

Oh also when pressing i find that concave you experience very very little to almost no spring back, where as with camber you will get some, so pressing either longer on your mould for a full cure, or making you mould's have more camber in them then the final blank will be to compensate for the spring back.




Pic 16 (9:24am) Well i headed back out to the garage to rough cut out my board, so use your method of choice for that, for me i used my POS ryobi Bandsaw (i dont recommend getting one, unless your hardup for cash at can afford a real one, but get a better larger blade and setup your guides properly if you do get one). Now shown in this picture is my Rotary buffer, with a 9" hookit (velcro) sanding pad with a 60grit disk attached, i then use this to even up my edges to make them all uniform, and flowing. Now you have to watch out using this method, as i have a decent sized scar (hard to notice now) from late last year, from the buffer bouncing and deciding that sanding the back of my thumb with 60grit was a better choice then the deck i was working on( note i was using only one hand on the buffer and holding the deck with my other hand quite close to the sanding disk, bad move on my part.

Anyways i smooth out all the curves with the buffer, and then come back in with a sanding block with some 80grit sandpaper and run it along the edges to smooth them out even more, as im not perfect with the buffer, and i damn near impossible to do so (but im getting darn good at it), But yeah you run that down the edges to even out all the high and low spots, to make it uniform, this will be easy to see due to having left over vertical sanding marks from the buffer being in the low spots, and the highspots wont have any because you have sanded them away.



pic 17 (10:10am) after finishing up the finer shaping, i went in the house to print off some bolt hole templates, in which i made off of brian's templates he has so generously shared, but not having a multiple bolt hole template for the back, i had to make one up, so took a bit to get everything peachy.

Note always check your bolt hole templates to be correct size before you start drilling

Anyways i took the templates i printed out, and misted the back of them with a spray adhesive (3m super77 from before), and then aligned and attached them to the board, i then center point all the holes, by using a small pointy philips head screw driver to dent the board ( i also spin the screw driver so it digs in more), but by doing this you give your drill bit a starting point, and this will avoid it wandering when first starting to drill (basically the same effect as a counter drilling, ie using a smaller drill bit before hand, to get it aligned).

Also remember to use sharp drill bits and to put a backing piece of wood behind the bolt holes your drill, as this prevents breakout, and the sharp drill bit prevents wandering (mine is rather dull at the moment, i need to resharpen it, but dont have access to a grinder at the moment)


Edit: forgot to add, right after i drill the holes, i usually mount some hardware to it, give it a flex/strength test (jumping up and down on it) then not being able to fight the urge, i usually take it out for a ride, to see how it is, cause common why wouldn't you want to ride your own creation even if its going to someone in a different town or country



Pic 18 (10:15 or 10:20am or so) here im showing you a close up of the slight waves in the wood, that are cause from when the birch is cut, this you will want to sand smooth, cause any high/low spots will show up in you finish down the road (Your finishing job is only as good as your prep work)

But i sanded these waves flat with some 120grit, on an orbital sander.



Pic 19 (10:35am) I finished all the sanding, removing the waves and making the board smooth, at the same time i also went over the edges and rounded them just slightly with the orbital sander and 120grit, i prefer squarer edges that circular ones as i find it fits your hand a bit better, but thats just my preference, if you wanted to round the edges more than what i do this would be the time to do it.





Now its onto finishing, but im gonna go pick up some sushi for lunch and some dye, as i dont have the color i want for the stain (a darker purple im thinking) but we will see.

Well after i got back from a longboard over (about 8km round trip) to get some dye, some purple pearl powder, a couple things, and the 18pc lunch sushi special over at BBQ Sushi Inn for 8 bucks, i then proceeded to stuff my self full of sushi.

Pic 20 (1:15pm) So while i was stuffing myself, i noticed a couple low and high spots on the one edge of the board and marked them out (arrows pointign towards the edge as high and ones away as being low), then i also decided i was gonna do some wheel wells (well actually decided that back at the art store).

So i used some transfer paper and my template to draw them on the board (you can just cover the back side along where you want to trace in pencil as when you flip it over and trace on top of it, it acts just like transfer/graphite paper, just a little bit weaker.





Pic 21 and 22 (1:45pm) Well after a half an hour, i got my wheel wells and my one edge to a point i liked, i used my rotary buffer with 120grit for the wells, so here a couple pics of that, i also sanded it a bit more with the 120grit on the orbital sander as i noticed a couple flaws i missed/caused.

[Loki440]

pic 23 (3:00pm) Well worked out a color combination that i want to use, i first tested it and a bunch of other dyes on one of my junk pieces of cross grain BB( tried the other two dyes i bought today, but didnt end up using them as i wanted a vibrant purple), but in order to achieve the color i wanted i had one of two options, mix a straight purple to the color i want, or do a fade job, i picked the fade job even though i was originally gonna do stripes, the reason why i picked the fade job is because there has been enough interest in how i do it that i might as well show how.

So materials, i have a water based pre-stain wood condition that i brushed on the board, and let dry, i then proceeded to sand the board with 220 grit to get rid of the raised grain fuzz that the conditioner caused. Next i have my dyes turquoise from the proicon mx fiber reactive dyes, and a violet from another line of dyes that i highly don't recommend as there colors are way way off and actually some change color when mixed too strong or weak, or when washed with water, very very deceptive. Also have two containers, two foam brushes and Three rags(soak the rags before hand and ring them out, so there damp).

CAUTION: wear gloves, and shitty clothes as these dyes are ment to dye fabric, and they dye skin very easily, don't want to have blue hands for a week or two do yeh



Pic 24 (3:10pm) here is the board with its first coat of the turquoise dye drying on it, i used a foam brush to initially put it on then came back with one of the damp rags and wiped the board down, this picks up all the excess dye that didn't get absorbed, and shows the grain a bit better, now put that rag beside that color dye container, or in it so you dont get it mixed up later, note im cheating by using my t-shirt silk screening flash dryer to speed up the drying time considerably.




Pic 25 (4:10pm) I then proceeded with a different method than above to make the grain/figure of the wood appear more so than it normally would, but im not gonna get into that, (gotta keep some secrets ), after my second or so coat of the turquoise dye was dried i then proceeded to put on the violet stain starting from the nose and going only about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way back then coming right in with a different wet rag and wiping up the excess,(note, think about the colors that will occur when colors overlap and mix, when picking color combos, you wont want to get a ugly brown in a red to green transition, also in this case i needed to put the violet over top of the turquoise to get the color i wanted, my 2 day dancer build did not need that, so i only died one side of the board each color instead of doing the board one whole color then coming back in with a second color to do the fade) now with the third rag i pour a bit of the turquoise and a bit of the violet onto it, thus creating a rag that basically has a dye color saturated in it in between the two colors your using.

Now this is where some experience comes into play (just fool around on some scraps till you figure out some tricks), but there are a bunch of little things you will pick up doing a fade job, and it will be different for everyone, but for me, its to start with the light color using a rag to apply it and go a little over half way, and immediate come in with your second darker color from the other tip while the other side is still wet, and go a little over half way again creating a transition point, now take that third rag, make sure its not dripping with the mixed color dye but has enough to both pick up excess dye and lay some down at the same time, and then you rub this in the center portion to create your fade.
Some times you will need to come back in with your lighter color then darker color ect just to even everything out, but when rubbing it on, i suggest going from dark to light and or tips to center when doing the fades because by the time you get to the transition point most of the dye in the cloth has already soaked into the wood near the tips, thus your rag was a weaker concentration in it, allowing the fad job to go smoother

You will have to wait till i clear this board to get a true perception of what the colors will look like.


Edit : Forgot to add, make sure you dye your edges of your board also, unless you don't want them dyed, then i would suggest sealing just the edge with a bit of clear first, or sanding the stain off latter



Pic 26 (5:45pm) Now comes time for the most important part for any custom builder, and thats, info and your logo, by info i mean your signature, board number, and anything else you want to put on there such as dimensions like lbl, i use a fine tip sharpie for that, as i haven't come across a clear yet than makes it smudge or react.

Now for the logo, (top and bottom) i decided to put it 1/3 (37cm from the nose) of the way down the board, as ill probably griptape this so i didn't want my logo under neath my front foot without any grip, plus its a good placement in my eye, anyways i taped of that section then printed off my company/hobby's name in a font i liked, i then used some spray adhesive on the back of the printout and stuck it to the tape, this way i don't have to trace anything onto the masking tape, i just print, spray, and stick. Note i have a aligment center line drawn on the tape, how did i do this without having any previous line drawn you might wonder as the one center line was sanded off awhile ago. What i do is take two small piece of tape and put them between the front and back truck mounting holes, then measure a center point off of them and use a straight edge to draw a center line on teh masking tape in the center.



Pic 27 (6:40pm) after i cut out the stencil/masking for my logo with a sharp exacto (always use a sharp exacto, you don't want to come back and do it all over again due to a dull blade) but after it was cut out i then masked the rest of the board, being out of brown masking paper i used some white printer paper.

Now on a normal build before all of this you should of first sealed the board with a coat of clear so that your paint/graphic wont bleed into the wood, and then ruffed it up with a scotchbrite pad, or some 400-600 or so grit sandpaper just enough so the paint has a rough surface to stick to.

But i decided to due my logo in a pearlescent white just to contrast the darker purple color, but due to me not having any pearl white on hand, i had to lay down some white basecoat, and then mix a bit of white pearl into a transparent binder, or clear, and shoot that over top to get my pearlescent white, i used my airbrush to do this just cause it was on hand, and it has a heck of alot better atomization than my paint gun.

So i sprayed all that and while still slightly wet i removed the masking tape as the paint i was using hear has a tendency to lift with the tape once it is dry, but different paints do different things so test first, anyways after that i let it dry, (ok cooked it under my flash dryer to speed things along)




Pic (28) (6:50pm), here it is with all the tape removed and dried, just waiting for some clear

oh yeah i did the logo on both sides if you didnt notice the difference in pics of ones being the top and others the bottom



Ok time for some clear.

Pic 29 (7:03pm) Gathered up all the stuff i would be using for a picture, except my respirator, ALWAY WEAR A RESPIRATOR WHEN SPRAYING PAINT IT CAN KILL YOU IF YOU DONT.

anyways lecture over, i have my clear (ppg omni au mc161 with a mh167 hardener) its an automotive refinishing clear, and acts like epoxy in the sense that once you mix it you have to use it or it will cure.

My 3oz bathroom cups i use for mixing, the two types of flake ill be adding to this board, and some purple pearl powder, and some iridescent blue pearl powder.

[Loki440]

pic 30 (7:08pm) Here im just showing you how much flake i am using for this board, your looking at roughly 1/8 to 1/16th of a teaspoon worth for each color. (very little), the reason why im using so little (even though its way more than enough is just to put a very light sparkle on the board so you wont see the flake but can see the wood grain, but at the same time get a light sparkle at the right angles, its a nice little added wow factor you can add in, anyways i mixed each color of flake in some small batches of clear, and sprayed the blue over the blue, and the magenta over the purple, i let that tack up for a couple mins (my clear drys fast when its warm out, i love it) then i came back in with another batch of clear but with some of the purple and blue pearl mixed in (about 1/20 of a teaspoon worth of pearl powder in total, as a little goes a very long way, and i wanted a subtle hue, nothing over powering), and came back and shot that over the entire board, so the purple and blue sections of the board will get a subtle purplish-blue pearlescent sheen to it. It should turn out very minimal but very nice once i bury it in clear and wetsand and polish it.




pic 31 (7:23pm) Heres a pic of it right after i sprayed the above mentioned coat of clear/pearl/flake



i uploaded a video, this one shows the slight sparkle a bit better, either way it the amount i wanted and am happy with the results



ok i didn't do basically anything on the board yesterday, other than a coat or two of clear.

Pic (32) this was taken part way through the wetsanding process just so i could show you guys all a tip, when sanding through your various grades of sandpaper, alternate the direction you sand with each different grit of sand paper, as in lets say your sanding with 400grit in a nose to tail fashion, when you go to your next grit up, change the direction you sand to something else like diagonally to the left, then next grit higher diagonally to the right, so on and so on. What this does is act as a telling tool for weather or not you have sanded enough, because if you haven't there will still be scratch marks going in a direction that your not currently sanding, thus making it easy to spot the coarse grit scratches and you know that you need to sand more, as you will be working from one grade up to the next, then to the next, removing all the scratch marks from the previous grade, because if you dont they will show up in your final finish.

Pic (33) Ok this is right before i started sanding at this point the board had roughly 5-7 coats of clear on, most of this will be sanded off, effectively bringing it down to roughly 3-4 coats worth, but im showing you this to give you an idea of what my boards look like (orange peel and all) before i start sanding, as this is where most people just say its good, but this is where i start. oh i have sanded the board once or twice with 220grit in between coats just to level things out a bit more for this stage.


Pic32


Pic33


Ok now im starting to sand, (oh forgot to add, i first plug up all my bolt holes with wood putty just to prevent water going in them, because if it does and it soaks into the wood, the wood will swell and it might look find at first put once it dries you will have these 4 point stars that are low points coming from the bolt holes, if you proceeded to wetsand with the wood being not sealed, you can also pour some clear down there or use some glue to prevent this also)

Anyways this board needed me to start out with some 220grit just cause there were some low spot that i previously didn't take out when i was still clear coating it, so normally i don't start with an aggressive grit (normally i start at 320-400), ok so i first start sanding it with 220 till its all nice and level (pic34), after than i come back in with my 400grit (just started wetsanding now) and sand in a different direction than i was before so i can remove all the lower grit scratches, then i bump up to 600grit, then 800grit(pic35), then 1000, then 1500 (pic 36, might be 1000grit stage in the photo thoe, as i cant remember and they look very similar)

But after that is all done i come back in and polish the board with a polishing compound, i didn't have the right stuff or the stuff i wanted to use and ended up using some metal polish i had on hand from when i redid a set of Starsharks for my Toyota corolla a few years back.

Now im not gonna say what i used just cause its the wrong stuff to use, and everyone has their own preferences, for me all my finishing products (polishing compounds, waxs ect) i go with meguiar's, as well they make some awesome products and its a company full of car guys, not corporate that are only trying to sell a product , basically the only 3 i would go with if i had to choose is meguiar's being first, then mother's and 3M. But thats just my personal preference, find what works for you.

but in these pics you can see the board getting progressively shinier.








ok heres a final pic ill go out and try and get a bit picture cause the purple is alot more vibrant in person,

should also mention because i did this so quick, the finishing that is, a little bit of wood grain will show up in the next day, but very very little, if i waited another day for my clear to harden up, then i wouldn't have this problem

[Blub]

Aww yeah, I look at this all the time for inspiration and information.. Love ya

[Zap]

one of the most useful board building posts I have seen, thanks! makes me tempted to bring ourt my vacuum bags again.

[V.B]

Thank you so much for this!

[scratch]

I'm trying to give you some green-button props for this but, it does not seem to be functioning... I remember these from when you originally posted them and they were a great read and a great process to watch! They should be read & archived by all in case of another fish meltdown.

[Crappysurfer]

my brains the burger and my hearts the charcoal

[Ted]

Really sweet post Loki.

Ted

[TIMORNE]

Outstanding work
Also nice to see a clean & clear work area

[Sleeveless]

Thanks for reposting this. Your builds are always very inspiring.

[Loki440]

Outstanding work
Also nice to see a clean & clear work area

you should see the area im working out of now, its roughly 2/5 the size and im build Alot more boards, so it gets messy as i dont have any shelfs up or it in a efficient manor

[hoch92000]

It is posts like these and posters like you that allow mere mortals like me learn that which is so elusive. Thank you. The foam mold shaping technique is brilliant. It looks like the concave and camber curves are on opposite sides and the foam is pressed with the camber side face down to create the double curve, no? If so, would it be difficult to create the curve for a kicktail?

[animal]

i love loki

[Loki440]

It is posts like these and posters like you that allow mere mortals like me learn that which is so elusive. Thank you. The foam mold shaping technique is brilliant. It looks like the concave and camber curves are on opposite sides and the foam is pressed with the camber side face down to create the double curve, no? If so, would it be difficult to create the curve for a kicktail?

correct and it is easy to make a kicktail, except you would cut from the concave side instead of the camber side if you did so, or just make a separate kicktail foam block and glue that on the end of your mold and then shape it to match the transition between the two point

[Shimotakimas]

Epic win. Stickied

[jspats40]

will you marry me?

[hoch92000]

I came across a nice illustrated depiction of the foam shaping technique. It is from Ivan "Toothless" Vandewalle's web site.

Main web page: Toothless: Longboard Construction

Foam mold instruction page: Toothless: Longboard Construction: Foam molds

Not trying to upstage you, Loki, but the illustrations were nice.

There is some other helpful stuff from his website.

Here he is folks:

[kingducttape]

Awesome tutorial! Just got a roarockit bag and will be starting the process myself tomorrow.