"Recycle This!! - Shaping Day

Today was shaping day for “Recycle This!!”.

The bottom of the deck is fairly flat but the top was a bit uneven. I was looking for someone with a radial arm saw that I could borrow or some clever way to set up one of my routers bit nothing panned out. I ended up putting a router bit on my drill press and was able to plane all but the center 4 inches of the top of the board.

I did borrow a belt sander and used it to shape the board.

I made a couple of models from news paper for the skin. I’ll use them as guides to cut my Kroger’s shopping bag skin.

Here are a few pictures from today’s work.

I started the day with a little belt sander shaping





Then some drill press milling



The drill press couldn't reach the center of the board





I sanded down the center strip leaving a little hump in the center



I used the sander to trim the outer edges of the board to match the shape of the model.


The overall shape is starting to look like a surf board



Working on building a model for the skin




The Moon likes the model


(Message edited by Bigshow on December 02, 2006)

(Message edited by Bigshow on December 02, 2006)

Hey Ed, are you going to fill in the bottom before laminating? The covering material will follow the contour, I'm guessing, once you wet it out. You could build it up with the hot coat, but I was wondering if you might put a thin layer of a microballoons mixture on the bottom to give a smooth surface to glass?

eerrr, I mean 'paper' instead of 'glass'

Jeff,

I'm working on putting the skin on this morning. I've got a top and a bottom piece. I plan to wet the top of the board and the inside of the top skin. Once dry I'll do the same with the bottom skin. I've got a vacuum bag set up to press the skin on, hope the vacuum bagging works.

Another engineer at work was using micro balloons, first I’d heard of them. Were talking about glass micro balloons, right?

Once mounted the skin on the outside surface will be dry – more or less. I was planning on “painting” several outer epoxy coats, sanding in between applications. I suppose your suggesting adding micro balloons to the first outside coat. I’ll have to do a little web research, what type of stores sell micro balloons. It looks like hobby stores might, I expect auto supply store might also have them.

Here's the skin.

I mixed up three cups of epoxy, painted the inside of the skin and put the rest on the top of the core. I taped the edges of the skin over the sides and to the bottom. Then I put the whole assembly in a vacuum bag. At first the bag didn't tighten up. I squeezed the air over to the vacuum hose and double checked the caulk seal, the bag looks pretty tight. Here are a few more pictures.

Vacuum bagging! Sick! Did you use a shop vac? I love it! How long did you leave the vaccuum running?

The micro balloons just fill large voids...I was thinking you might slop some on before the first layer of paper.

Ya, used a shop vac. I ran the vacuum for about an hour. The cold front hit us pretty good so I lit the kerosene heater and opened the garage door open a crack for ventilation. The top side worked really well, but the bottom side didn't draw a good vacuum and is a little loose. After opening the vacuum bag for the bottom side I set some of my ballast bags (the 30 lb and 60 lb bags in the pictures above) over the bottom to helpfully improve adhesion of the skin to the core.

I’m going to have to do some cleaning up on the bottom side.

I don’t think that filling the voids would be worth while, I least I’m counting on it not being not necessary. I could feel that the board was much stronger after the top skin has on. Now with both skins the board is getting a little heavy.

The fins are now; its really looking like a legit board.

Just out of the vacuum bag - top side

The bottom tail of the board, top overlapped to the bottom.


After vacuum bagging the bottom on and now with fins in place.

I've been reading about board building, found an interesting site. http://www.surfersteve.com/introduction.htm

Can someone tell me what they mean by "Hot Coat"?

Yo Ed!
I am not a polyester resin guy! But I believe the Hot Coat is the final clearcoat that goes on a board made with polyester resin that gets wetsanded and buffed out.

So how much "GOUGE" West Sys. do you have into this project??
Scott

The bottom "Lowes" skin didn't adhere well to the cardboard stringers so I ripped that layer off. The vacuum bagging worked great on the top side but not on the bottom side. I've decided to order a set of fins and fin boxes, I think I’ll put them on after I put the new bottom skin on. I’m also looking into micro balloons to fill some of the voids in the nose of the board.

The nose is a bit asymmetric, I’m not sure I’m going to clean that up – this is my first attempt at building a board after all.

The biggest cost is epoxy (not poylester) resin. I’ve been using Epoxy from the local hardware store at $31 a gallon, 2 gallons so far and I think I’m going back for a third gallon. My budget for this project was $10, I think in the end it will be more like $110. If you want a good board my recommendation is to buy one. If you want to fool around in your garage this winter then this is an interesting activity.

Ed
What brand name is the Epoxy that you are using??
West System 205 fast, 206 slow or 207 clear are all at least $60 a gallon.
I have seen boards and boat structural panels made from paper or aluminum honeycomb. Before the skin is bonded the cells would be filled with a micro-balloon mixture of putty just at the surface maybe 1/8 to 1/4 thick giving the skin something to bond to.

Elmer's

There is something so prophetic about that one word answer.

Scott is right a hot coat is a polyester resin 'sanding coat' typically used when glassing a Poly U board. It's the normal resin with wax added along with the catalyst. It's the coat after laminating the glass to the board and before a final gloss coat if used.

Prophetic: foretelling events as if by supernatural intervention; "prophetic writings"; "prophetic powers"; "words that proved prophetic", including apocalypses.

Jeff what are you trying to say, I have two guesses. First Elmer's symbol is a cow. I remember a bible story about a golden calf, and bad things happened afterward.

Second, cows are heavy, my board is getting heavy, mooo.

I've been looking on line at Epoxy resin prices, looks like Elmer's is pretty, che...errr... cost effective, hope it holds up OK.

(Message edited by Bigshow on December 06, 2006)