Fiberglassing without a bag 101

[tgaydos]

pine is a wet, large grains soft wood, while BB is a dry fine grained hardwood. see the difference.

pine will work, but dont bother making anything nice with it. make a proto shape board if you want with pine, but be prepared for a sloppy deck that will break faster. its hard to evenly sand pine. i have built a couple rockerd decks from two 3/8s glued together, but i would hardly call them something nice to look at. fun to thrash, but bad looking.

also i believe that pine is harder to bend as it doesn't come in as thin panels as BB Mahogany, maple or hardwoods.

moral of the story, use a hardwood, not a soft wood.

that's what i thought but just wanted to make sure. cause i threw together a slop deck to try out my new sidewinders on but it broke before i put any real weight on it. oh well live and learn right? i can't wait for school to start so i can get into the shop and make a few decks.

[Pmose16]

Alright, so after reading the last posts, I am even a tad more worried.
I have a dropthrough that I've got mostly sanded, shaped, droped, holed (?), and what not. But it's too flexy. So does anyone have any methods for glassing a dropthrough? Not sure how to go about keeping the epox out of the cuts. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

[SoloRider]

Alright, so after reading the last posts, I am even a tad more worried.
I have a dropthrough that I've got mostly sanded, shaped, droped, holed (?), and what not. But it's too flexy. So does anyone have any methods for glassing a dropthrough? Not sure how to go about keeping the epox out of the cuts. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

Just glass right over them and once the epoxy is set you cut the excess glass with a utility knife, clean it all up with a sander and you're set.

[FlatLandBoards]

back to using vinyl sticker like graphics under fiberglas! I know that surf board companies always use thin vinyl style graphics that are essentially stickers and stick it either to the raw foam core of to a board that has been glassed once or twice which im not sure i would think you could do both with a wooden board and you could do some pretty sweet graphics with vinyl as you could do sweet photoshop stuff and portrait quality pictures. I think you would have more of a raise in the cloth if you laid the graphic on after one or two layers of cloth and resin. however I know you can get vinyl printed in multiple thicknesses I think I might just try that on a few boards. hmmm man i need to win the lottery!

[benmasters]

surfboards logos are generally rice paper.

[FlatLandBoards]

surfboards logos are generally rice paper.

see I guess I was wrong but rice paper would work to know that i think about out it I have used it in the past but the stuff i got from Michael's came out kinda smeared looking when you printed it out but maybe it just wasnt quit as nice rice paper.

[TTime]

a couple pointers i might add to this thread.
when using cloth glass it's best to use unidirectional fiberglass. all of the fibers go in one uniform direction and it's a lot stronger but still being able to provide a good amount of flex on a longer board.

another thing i like to do when glassng is apply a thin layer of resin on the wood deck and a thin layer on the actual side of the cloth. i find this helps a lot with asorbing the resin and causes things to bond better.

for a mixing cup i used a paint quart mixing cup. you are able to find them at hardware stores. they are labeled cups with many measurements and a decent size ( well able to hold much more resin then you will proly need ).i fide these useful because when i was doing one of my first board i mixed the resin off and caused it to never fully dry and ruining the board.

another note on mixing cups.
i used a marine grade epoxy resin and when i mixed it and was working it onto the board and went fo pick up my quart cup again the resin had heated from mixing and melted a hole stright through the bottom.

and for my last thing. if you are not feeling doing a "shell" of fiber-glass aroung your board or on a side. I also liked doing a core or more like a ply of fiberglass. when glueing my two pices of wood (1/4 in. baltic birch) i put a layer of fiberglass cloth (unidirectional) between them and use the epoxy. when applying the epoxy i put a coating on both pices of wood and both sides of the cloth.
*NOTE*
With this method of the cloth between i use a press to put a concave and rocker on the board. not sure if it would work without one but certently with a bag.

well good lucy!

[Geeezer]

see I guess I was wrong but rice paper would work to know that i think about out it I have used it in the past but the stuff i got from Michael's came out kinda smeared looking when you printed it out but maybe it just wasnt quit as nice rice paper.

I used laser printed normal paper and it worked fine... I printed text and logo onto red paper and cut out the star giving a pseudo 2 tone effect.

http://www.silverfishlongboarding.co...post1297669677

(epoxy on board, lay on paper, epoxy over paper, lay on glass epoxy over glass... Hey presto!)

Pro markers pigment bleeds as i discovered... MTN graffiti marker ink doesn't

[kinggargantuan]

awesome thread!

a few notes from my experiences with poly and surfboards:

be careful what you store the excess poly in because it eats thru some plastics.
be careful what you MIX it in because, as someone else said, once you add the catylyst it will heat up and can eat/melt the cup you're using. most hardware stores sell small mixing cups that also come with measurment lines on them. they're cheap enough that you can throw them away when you're done with them, if you dont want to bother trying to clean them.

decals... if you dont have $$ or a location for rice paper, you can use toilet protectors from public restrooms. LOL. seriously. i cut the center out of a toilet protector (new protector, not a used one. you're nasty.) then, after testing my image size on regular paper until it would fit on my toilet center, i taped the edges of the toilet paper to a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, using the original test image as a map for where the toilet piece should go, and i sent it thru the printer.

the thing about using rice paper or the toilet tissue is that the resin will seep thru the paper, making all unprinted on parts nearly transparent, if not 100% transparent. it also allows for the resin to get a better bond with the wood underneath it whereas a normal piece of paper may not let your bonding agent (glue, paint, epoxy, poly, etc) fully connect the paper to the board and you could have delaminations or bubbles in the future.

[Maxx]

sweet! thanks for the help but i wanted to do carbon fiber, what do need for that?

I just did some carbon work, its just like fiberglass, but you can't see how saturated the cloth is, and thats where experience helps out.

[flannelman]

i was wondering who has worked with poly/epoxy pigments. i keep seeing them at TAP Plastics when i by my stuff, but they really don't have like a demo display.

TAP Premium Opaque Pigments: TAP Plastics
TAP Plastics

i really want to try out the black with a heavy weave FG to achieve a Carbon fiber look. at like a 6th the price. i don't really need CF in my builds but it looks so tasty, so why not mimic it? its like 3 dollars in store, so it might be worth a shot on my next build, a slalom deck.

Where do you guys find your rice paper. i really want to make a character of my cat Pouncer to put on the bottom. would it work with acrylic paint, or should i just paint directly on the board. i would feel better painting off the board so mistakes can be made.

[LeSueur264]

I'm pretty decently experienced with fiberglass but I've reached a small predicament. I've gotten down to the last of my roll and I basically have 2 strips that are only like 30 inches or so long. Can I take two pieces of cloth and lay them down next to each other to make one layer?

[piedogger]

I'm pretty decently experienced with fiberglass but I've reached a small predicament. I've gotten down to the last of my roll and I basically have 2 strips that are only like 30 inches or so long. Can I take two pieces of cloth and lay them down next to each other to make one layer?

Structurely no problem what so ever but if you are trying to wet it out clear you may see the line.

[LeSueur264]

Structurely no problem what so ever but if you are trying to wet it out clear you may see the line.

Thanks, the line won't bother me because I'll probably then be putting fabric on top.

[cawlin]

So when I glass, I get all done and I can still see the fiberglass threads on my board. I know it's not really a big deal, but is there anyway to have to be a clear finish? like if you wet sanded it? or are you stuck with the slight transparent-ness of the fiberglass?

[atomicturtle462]

Often times you cannot see it. If you can just hotcoat it.

[flannelman]

So when I glass, I get all done and I can still see the fiberglass threads on my board. I know it's not really a big deal, but is there anyway to have to be a clear finish? like if you wet sanded it? or are you stuck with the slight transparent-ness of the fiberglass?

fiberglass doesn't ever go perfectly clear. it will get clearer with some more layers of whatever you want to use as a clear coat. polyacrylic, or whatever.

[cawlin]

fiberglass doesn't ever go perfectly clear. it will get clearer with some more layers of whatever you want to use as a clear coat. polyacrylic, or whatever.

what would happen if I tried to sand down my fiber glass? Obviously I'd have to be ridiculously careful so as to not get through it, but do you think it might help?

also, do professionally made boards (raynes, landyachtz) use fiberglass in their construction?

[flannelman]

what would happen if I tried to sand down my fiber glass? Obviously I'd have to be ridiculously careful so as to not get through it, but do you think it might help?

also, do professionally made boards (raynes, landyachtz) use fiberglass in their construction?

i would not try it. if you nicked the FG it would be ruined. just do like you would normally do if clear coating a deck. put 2-4 layers of clear over and wet sand. that is MUCH safer, and will ad depth to your work.

[cawlin]

i would not try it. if you nicked the FG it would be ruined. just do like you would normally do if clear coating a deck. put 2-4 layers of clear over and wet sand. that is MUCH safer, and will ad depth to your work.

OK I'll give it a shot. I want to get it as clear as possible, so as to show off the wood texture. Except just the bare wood is too flexy.