The Deck is Officially Glassed!

After the resin from the other days little dent issue cured up, I was ready to start working on the deck. My lap line was pretty rough looking. I didn't really notice how bad it was the other day so I didn't clean it up as well as I should have. I had some drips, some strings, and a couple folds in the nose and tail. But I took the 60 grit sandpaper to it and started knocking everything down. The pre-coat that I did the other day helped make sure that I didn't get into the foam or anything, so that was nice. It took a good little while and a good bit of elbow grease, but I got it to a point where I was happy with it. I'm sure I could have spent some more time on it, but it looked good.

Now it was time to start cutting the fiberglass and laying it on the board. The top has a 7.5 oz deck patch and a 7.5 oz layer. I think this should be good for the top, but we shall see. I laid out the deck path at about a foot over the half way point and cut it back at an angle:



Cutting it at an angle like this help it from developing a weak point. If you just cut it square, there can be a lot of extra stress in that spot and can snap the board in half.

Next I put on the top layer and evened everything out. I cut it about an inch below the rail and notched the noise and tail (I really need to spend more time on those areas next time, I got a few wrinkles on this one).

The "stand" that I'm using right now is two boxes that I brought some stuff up from Phoenix and two dumbbells that I brought also. This is COMPLETELY insufficient. It basically sucks! They are two low, not level, not sturdy, and are too wide. They suck! The first thing I'll do before moving on to my next board is build some board stands for shaping and glassing. There are a few examples out there and they shouldn't be hard at all to put together. If you are thinking about doing your first board, GET A STAND! Really, get a stand. It will save you so much time and a whole lot of extra stuff to deal with. Trust me, get a stand.

Now that I've got that out of the way, time to start spreading some resin around. This time I mixed up a lot less resin. It was right around 32 oz. I did 22 pumps of resin and 11.5 of the hardener. This was pretty much perfect. I had a little left over, and dripped some but was a pretty good shot for the glass schedule I'm using on the top. This time I also used cheap-o throw away paint brush to make sure I got the rails nice and wet. I think this made me drip a lot less resin, but I'm not sure if it really saved me on any work. I'll have to do a couple more and compare, especially once I have my stands setup.

Everything went good this time, thoough. I made sure I took more time on the underside of the board and cleaned up any hanging strings and brushed out most of the drips.



You can just see the deck patch in the second picture. But everything is looking good. I should be able to flip it when I get home in the morning and start sanding that lap down. I have some Additive F coming in the mail. I hope that gets here soon so I can start getting my hot-coat going and start working on the art work for the board.

My First Real Issue

Well, I've had my first real issue with something going wrong with the board this morning. The other night, when I was glassing the bottom of my board, the box I was using as my stand was a little to wide. So I had to put something underneath the board so I could have a little bit of room to wrap the rails underneath. The only thing I really had was some of the weights that I was using the other day to weigh down each laminate. This worked pretty good last night and allowed me to finish glassing the bottom.

However, this morning, when I flipped the board over to get ready for sanding down the laps I noticed dents in the foam. First thing I thought of was some of the spackle that I used the other day. But I figured this would create a big mess and wouldn't really let me wipe down the board after I sanded down the laps. So I went with resin. I'm not really sure if this was the best idea or not, but it's what I went with. I figured it would also give me a little bit of protection when I start sanding down the laps, so I don't nick the foam again. I mixed up about 4.5 Oz of resin, poured it on, and spread it out. I made sure to keep some of the resin in the little dents on the board and right around the laps also.

I let it cure while I slept and this is what I've got:



The dents don't actually look that bad. I edited the picture a little bit so you could actually see the dents. But it seems to have worked pretty good. I just need to head up to Walmart to get some denatured alcohol (It's the only place open this late that might have it). After that, a little bit of sanding and it's time to glass the top. I'd like to get that done before I have to start work tomorrow.