Long Board Part II

This is a continuation of the “Work Begins on a long board” thread: http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/messages/87668/531012.html?1199761677

So I left off recovering from pigmented resin leaking through masking tape to the clear portion of the deck.

Last night I also put the second layer of glass on the deck. I added Kokopelli art under the glass. I made the art on my computer. Then I taped rice paper to several sheets of 8 ½ by 11 paper and printed the art. I cut the art out and placed it under the new layer of glass. I put a copy of my Kokopelli surfer dude in the center and a daisy chain of small Kokopelli figures just south of the nose.

Rice paper taped on 8 1/2 x 11

Laying out the daisy chain

Center figure

After glassing

Tonight was fin night.

This evening I started by sanding the laps from last night. Last night I spent a fair amount of time tracking down loose glass threads. I also followed up my laps with a foam brush. After lapping with a squeegee I followed up with a foam brush. Using the foam brush I pulled the resin from the top center of the board over the edge of the board and on to part of the bottom. I clean up the laps with the foam brush all the way around that board. The laps were the best looking ones that I have made yet.

I needed to measure the thickness of the board where the fin will be located to make sure the board had enough depth. The right tool for the job is a caliper. I have a set of calipers for my wood lathe but they are too small.

So I went back to my roots. I made an expedient caliper from cardboard, a nut, a bolt, and a pair of washers.

I think I may have placed the fin a little far forward but I wanted to make sure that the fin box was in a deep enough section of the board.

I set the side fins so they point to an imaginary point in front of the tip of the board . I used a 1x3 and a 4 foot rule as guides.

Then I traced the fin boxes and got the router out. Then it was time to cut a few strips of glass and mix up a little epoxy.

Calipers

Too small

Just right

Aiming for a point ahead of the nose of the board

Time to fire up the router

One down two to go

The bit in my first router was too shallow for the deep center fin box so I chucked up my other router

Glass and fin boxes

hey ed,you ever tried fiberfill in the boxes.really good as long as your not using suncure.thats what i do.makes a cleaner line between the board and the box.also cuts down on the finish sanding.i also like to sand that center fin box down a bit on a belt sander before i install it.helps keep the goughes down to a dull roar when finishing.good job mr.i like the punk rock paint job.one of a kind.lates

I just put down the sanding coat. I mixed up 18 ounces for the job. I maybe could have gone with an ounce or two less, but for a newb it seem to work out fine. I was going to add 6 cc of Additive F but when I looked in to the can it was full of flakes and gunk so I set it aside. On my other boards I taped the edges. I read somewhere that one laminator simply continues to brush the edges on the bottom. Kind of like lapping. But he only does it on the first side, the second side gets taped. I gave that a try. It kept me busy for quite a while.

The wet edges with the resin swirl are looking brighter with a nice glossy coat. I definitely went too dark with the pigments but I think it's going to look OK.

Here are a few pictures for this evening.

At a distance

From the nose

Nice color at the tail

WD, I'm not sure what fiber fill is. I haven't really built that many boards and to be honest this is my first traditional surf board. What is fiber fill. Is it made by Kellogg’s or General Mills?

It's shaping up nice Ed! The resin swirl looks good with the hotcoat.

Looking good Ed! Love how the hotcoat shines over the swirl.

I've heard Metamucil is a good sub for fiber fill!

Ed, you and a picture of your cardboard design have made the "Surfer Magazine" discussion forums. I am an internet idiot, try forum.surfermag.com, the thread is titled "comedy from Swaylocks", whatever that means. Good luck.

Ed,if you get to the site go to surfer discussion, then the Swaylocks thread.

Joe, Thanks I've seen the thread. I originated the Swalock's thread. Someone else created the Surfer Magazine thread. Some of the Surfer Magazine thread posts sound like they were thoughtful many seem a bit immature. I don’t think Dave Williams would let anyone carry on like that for too long.

It's late, but I thought I'd share a bit of repair and then the bottom sand coat application.

I noticed that there was one bare spot on the deck that is smaller than the size of a dime. The resin floated away from that spot. I've read that this can happen if the board isn't absolutely clean. In particular this kind of blemish can come from body oils. The was another rough spot near the Kokopelli figure but it wasn't as bad. I didn't do anything with that spot this evening.

I started by sanding the rails and part of the bottom. Recall that I pulled resin from the top to the rails and on to the bottom of the board. So there was plenty of resin to sand on the rails.

Then I taped over the fin boxes and I put drip tape on the rails. Everyone is telling me to use 3M 223 tape. I still have the blue and I didn’t get a chance to look for the more exotic tape. This tape will do for the hot coat. I’ll need better tape for pin lining.

When sending the glass and resin for the fin install I ended up sanding though to the stringer. I put a spot of pigmented resin on the stringer, glass over that, and then clear epoxy over that.

I washed the surface of the board with denatured alcohol to remove hand oils. I let that stand while I helped my daughter with a school project. Then I mixed up another 18 ounces of resin. I poured the resin in about seven thin ribbons up and down the board. I quickly brushed the resin side and front to back. After the board was wet I slowly brushed side to side, back to front, and so on. Each pass I tried to slow my pace and lighten the pressure on the brush.

Sanded through to the stringer, dang it



Ready to patch

Tinted and patched


Looks pretty rough after sanding



This is after washing with DNA


Sanding coat is on and still wet

Looks great Ed, how many hours do you have in her? When are you going to make me one?

Its fun building boards but if you wanted a custom board I think you'd be better off having someone that has done this a few times.

wow. that looks great! i wish i had the talent you guys have and some time on my hands to try and build one.

hey ed..fiber fill or milled fiber glass is used to strengthen resin during fin box and leash cup installations..it can be used with both polyester and epoxy resins..a pound of it costs around $7.20plus shipping..it lasts forever..that little over sand spot on the stringer was what i was talking about when i mentioned sanding that center fin box down most of the way prior to installation.she looks good,looking forward to seeing it all polished up.lates

OK Here's a newb longboard question. I've got a big 9.5 inch fin and I've installed a big fin box on my board. How do they work? The fin has a metal dowel in the front and there's a screw and small plate in the back. There's a small cross member in the center of the fin box. I'm assuming the cross member is there to help the box hold its shape until it has been glassed in to a board. Then I suppose that you're supposed to punch the cross member out. Then slide the dowel of the fin in where the cross member was. Do I have that right?

I had a problem with the sanding coat on the bottom. A lot of small voids or bare spots materialized as the resin cured. I cleaned the board with rubbing alcohol. I’ve read that denatured alcohol is recommended. So, I may not have used the right stuff.

Surfactants are supposed to help reduce fisheyes and craters. I was going to put RR additive F, a surfactant, in the resin but when I opened the can there was a bunch of junk floating in the can. I read on Swaylocks that additive F has to be kept warm to prevent solids from precipitating out. I left my RR products in the garage and that means freezing temperatures. I wonder if I’ve ruined the additive F or if I can reheat it to return it to its original condition.

The fin and box. Also note some of the surface problems.

Hey Ed, you have the box figured out. The slot also allows the "nut" to slide in.

I found that same issue with Additive F and did a little looking. It's Xylene and wax in a 9:1 solution, "principally". Typically if you warm it and shake it up, it's good as new.

I really like all that you've done on the LB.

Cool, I'm off to the local boat show to mill around and gawk.

As noted above the resin swirl bled through along the cut lap is pretty wide. I'll put a big fat 1 inch "pinline" along the cut lap.

Friday evening I picked up four different widths of 3M 233 masking tape. This tape is highly recommended for pinlining. I spent a little time practicing with the tape. Taping looks pretty challenging. I also drew a pinline pattern for the nose.

Since the colored edge is so irregular I think that I need to make an edge tool to define where the edge of the tape should be.

Tape

The plan



The boat show was fun. Much smaller than it was 20 years ago.

I think there must be some surfboard building karma or curse that goes along the lines... For every second you hurry you spend an hour sanding. Or maybe, every mistake is recognized or rewarded with an hour of sanding. I left my RR Additive F, a surfactant, in the cold garage for several months. When I went to use the surfactant for the sanding coat the wax had precipitated out making it unusable.

The sanding coat on the top of the board was pretty good. The bottom coat however had a lot of craters. The remaining irregularities from the last lap were on the bottom side as well. I spent about three hours hand sanding the bottom and the rails. I started sanding the top but it was getting late.

That's harmless resin dust.

Ed, the wax froze out? You warmed it up and mixed it?

I love all the tape! That does look like quite the job of painting!

I've been warming and shaking the can. I haven't checked to see if the solids have dissolved yet.

The deck has been sanded and I've taped the pin line and a nose pin line design.

I made an edge marking tool from a large circle template tool.





I can almost get away with a 1/2 inch pin line but I ended up going with 3/4 inch. I started taping by first laying down 3/4 inch tape over the meandering cut lap/resin leak. Then I laid 1/4 inch tape above and below the 3/4 inch tape. Then I removed the 3/4 inch tape and then expanded the the 1/4 tape with more tape and butcher paper.






I also taped out the nose art. It's a little different from the design but it's close.


Taping up the nose





Masking the entire board

It been very cold and I had problems pin lining so it's been I while since I updated this thread. Today I put the gloss coat on the bottom of the board.

I both love and hate Resin Research epoxy. Up until I started pin lining the fume free epoxy has been wonderful to work with. However, compared to cheap old Elmer’s epoxy it has been very difficult for me to get glossy coats. Thinking back the hot coats came out glossy. I didn't use any Additive F in the hot coats. I used F in the gloss coat and have board zits like stars in the sky, drops of water in the ocean, or grains of sand in the desert. Let's take grains of sand in the desert, that's dusty.

I think I'm going to skip using F on the top gloss coat just to see the difference.

The weather has really been cold. We have two consecutive days of +50 F weather. I’ll do the top coat tomorrow. I've tightened up my plastic inside-garage-tent to better hold heat from my kerosene heater. I had the board and epoxy in the basement to keep it somewhat warm. I’ve had the F sitting on a heater vent. While setting up today I set the F and epoxy within range of the heater to warm up a little bit.

Once I had everything ready to go I mixed up 15 ounces of epoxy - way more than I needed. I poured the epoxy up and down the board and spread it with a foam brush. Once wet I went along one side and then the other, brushing from the stringer to the tape line. As I pulled the epoxy the brush got wet and I wiped the brush off into my mixing bucket. I got about 6 ounces in the bucket and it started to kick. It started to get hot, steam started rising from the bucket, and the 6 ounces expanded to fill a 24 ounce volume. I had to put the bucket down. I finished wiping the board up with the brush. Toward the end of the job I went around the edge of the board to clean up drips. Then I noticed that my saturated foam brush started to get hot and steam up as well.

Improved sheeting


Heating only part of the garage

The kicking steaming epoxy


Down the line


Can't see the zits here but trust me they are there


You can see some zits here

Ed - cool to see it coming along! sorry to hear about the zits - they are not fun! also, i always love a steaming bucket of epoxy in my hand - good times! (not that I've ever done that - ha ha) :-)

Anyway Jeff and others may chime in here, but one way I've found to really reduce the number of zits is to heat up the resin in the micro - about 1.5 seconds per oz before mixing in the hardener. also adding a dash of DNA along with the F helps. in cold temps you can also put the F in a warm water bath a little bit before you are getting ready to glass. Mix really slow, then you can filter the mix with some paint strainers from HF. it helps pull out a lot of the waxy residue that seems to form up in the mix. then just go really slow with the brush.

Of course you can go without the F as you mentioned - it does come out a lot cleaner - almost no zits at all, but then when the board fully cures you might get a little orange peel effect. the surface will be smooth, but very slightly rubbery looking...

Yeah, Matt is correct, but can I be honest? I've never been able to get a decent gloss coat with Epoxy. I've talked with folks that have that showroom shine gloss coat and they use 2 pac. I can get a semi-decent gloss, but literally it's 8 hours of sanding and polishing - MORE than I spend on construction!

Ed, I really think that this board is so sweet for a first attempt.

I’ve read about RR cold temperature problems. To be honest I think I’ve had fewer problems at cold temps. I think the gloss coat recipe that I’m hearing about, that is: heat the resin, add F, warm the board, keep the room warm; all work toward making the epoxy less viscous, more thin and runny. So the resulting layer is thin. Maybe dust shows up when it’s too thin. I think that adding F made solids precipitate out of the epoxy. I didn’t filter the mixed epoxy last night, but I will tonight.

I'd say that I did what Mat recommended. I didn't use a microwave but I did warm the bottles by setting them near the heater for about an hour. I mixed slowly, I spread slowly, I've read mixed reviews on DNA so I didn't use any, I wiped the board with dry paper towels, then I wiped the board with DNA.

We'll see what the filter does tonight.

Ed,
is this board for the wake or for the surf ?

Putting top deck gloss coat went better, worse, and different than the bottom gloss coat did yesterday.

This evening I did pretty much the same thing as yesterday. The only major differences were that I only mixed 12 ounces of epoxy and I strained the mixed Additive F and two part epoxy with a mesh bag strainer. I think the strainer was a major improvement. The resin pouring out of the strainer was clearer than what I poured in. I had significantly fewer zits on this side of the board.

At first I thought that things were going really well than I noticed that a 2 foot by 8 inch section of the board near the tail opened up a huge crater matrix. I spent most of the last part of the working life of the epoxy massaging that section. Toward the end I poured a little epoxy from my catch cup over a few bad spots. I think that will come out OK but it will take more sanding to event out.

The taped off edges have a few lumps that will also need a little sanding.

The nose art


Center Art


Down the line from the tail


Down the rail form the tail see the bumps

http://www.wakeboardmidwest.com/membergalleriesDefault.aspx?galleryid=141&p=6&s=#m edia

That was such a BLAST! Loved the longboard division!

Check this longboard out. It's got 6 feet of concave in it as well as a "step deck" along the tail of the board.

http://www.2ndlight.com/fusetalk/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=3&threadid=74238&enterthread =y

I wonder if this would help slow the board down any when trying to nose ride it.

Matt that board is very interesting.

I've spent quite a bit of time sanding lately. I ran up from 220, to 320, and 600 grit paper. I bought a 10-inch orbital buffer and then buffed the finish with 3M polishing compound. After that schedule the board was pretty murky looking. The 600 grit was wet dry but I just worked with it dry. I did all that sanding by hand, boy are my arms tired. I don’t think the random orbital buffer is the right tool for the job.

I picked up some 1,200 and 2,000 grit paper at NAPA. I stepped back down with some 400 grit that I found in the basement. Then starting with 600 I wet the board and sanded the top and bottom. I also started using a power orbital sander. I worked up to 2,000 grit. The board started to look a lot better. The board still doesn’t have the shine that I’d like to see.

I picked up a 5-inch boot for my drill and more polishing compound. This time the shine started to come out. The top and bottom look pretty good. I think they need one more pass. The rails and the wide pine line still have some sanding scratches. I’ll have to go back and rework them.

I’m getting some white speckles in several places including the pin lines. I’m guessing they are the bottom half of tinny air bubbles that have been sanded of and filled and packed with polishing dust.

There are some spots that I see that aren't perfect but I think that I'll spend a little more time on the finish and call it done.

Wet sanding with an orbital


The rail hasn't been buffed. See the small white speckles


The shine on the board is starting to look good


Some of the color isn't as brilliant because of some white speckles

I borrowed Jac's 7" buffer. I think the shine looks OK. At any rate I'm done buffing. I don't want to put surfing wax on the board and drag wax in the boat. I'd like to find a 1/4 thick soft gray EVA foam to place over most of the deck. Any ideas where to look for an adhesive backed foam? Or maybe I should just spray adhesive on a sheet of foam.

I really like gator grip - it's a softer EVA. I think down at the office I have the url of a place in hawaii that sells the 3m eva like what you'd find on the Shred Stixx.

http://www.wakejunky.com/

Ed, you should be proud of that board as a first effort...the showroom shines you see on production boards aren't epoxy, they are 2pac or polyester. You've done a great job!

It's been a lot of fun. I just sent an email out to a few local friends inviting them over next weekend to start hacking on the Night Rider.

Congrats on completing the Night Rider. I bet it will ride just fine. I've got this huge hatchet fin that is heavy and supposedly good for noseriding. I'll see if I can get some pics of it up this afternoon.

The Night Rider is the NEXT board.

Matt, I'd be interested in anything associated with noseriding fins. Keep us posted.

Ed, I remembered the other site!!!!!! That always feels like an accomplishment when I remember ANYTHING

http://www.northshoreinc.com

NSI has traction and I believe they will sell custom cut shapes and colors.

Nice work Ed!

Matt - curious as to the "hatchet fin".

This is what I have for my upcoming noserider. Just haven't had the time to shape it yet. Futures 9.25

Here is what I'm talking about. I had this thing on a 10'4 once and I swear you could hardly turn the board. However, if you took off and angled down the line this thing locked you in there. This thing is heavy too.

Matt - that is a serious fin!

Everyone is posting LB fins. Here are mine.

I had two bottom surface defects. There were two small crater near the nose and a chain of sanded through bubbles. I cleaned the defects out, taped off the surrounding area and then dabbed on a little epoxy.

Here are some pictures after polishing.

After looking closely at the board I see that I sanded through down to the fibers in a few places. I think that I've read that this is a problem. Exposed fibers will wick water in the board. Is that correct? If I have to put on a second gloss coat I'm not going to use a surfactant. I think that’s what generated all of the zits that made me sand like crazy. I hope this board is done before spring.

Sand-thru's are what those are called. Certainly weakens the structire, not sure if it wicks water...it could if it didn't have an adequate covering of epoxy underneath. It would be tempting the "board-breaking-Gods" to not cover them.

You're almost done with this board! It will be fun to see the first voyage pictures.