The " Lil Bastard "

As promised, it would be rude not to bring you up to spec on the board before I jump and show you the next couple of projects, If I can sort through all the images I seem to have been taking.

The last post of actual board construction was taking off all the old glass and patching up the foam.
The next step after this is to put some new glass on it. You could always skip this process and go straight out on the water, But you'd be back in no time with what would resemble a soggy noodle.

As always, Safety First, and second and third. So what are we dealing with in terms of materials, this is going to dictate what we should be using in terms of PPE ( personal protective equipment).

This job will use Resins, solvents, Organic Peroxide ( MEKP catalyst ) fibreglass roving. Hazards would be , but not limited to, Harmful vapours, spills, chemical burns.

 

 

The basic PPE , and some other gear needed.

 Gloves, and a Respirator are a must! My respirator has been fitted in this photo with some 3M charcoal Filters, these come in different types and grades so you'll need to choose the right one for the job you are doing eg, dust filters....no good, the fumes from the resin will go straight through them. The gloves should be solvent proof, the reason being that the last thing you want is to put your hands in resin or Acetone, and have the gloves fall apart also if you were to spill MEKP ( Methy Ethyl Ketone Peroxide , whew) they would need to withstand this as MEK, for short, will burn the skin if left on without the need to be mixed with anything prior.
  A well ventilated area should be chosen as build up of fumes or vapour, can also irritate the eyes. Quickly whilst on the subject of eyes, These are a common forgotten area of protection, in this case I only have my half face respirator, meaning my eyes would be exposed to fumes and create an entry into the body of solvents if it weren't for the extremely well ventilated area I chose for the glassing. If your area isn't as well ventilated, a Full face respirator or even an air fed respirator would be good.

 Before we can start resin coating the board, we need to make sure our roving ( fibreglass ) is trimmed to the shape we need. How do we go about this? first unroll a length of glass at least 50mm longer than the length of the board you are glassing. For this board I'm using 4oz matting so I'm going to need 1 layer for the bottom of the board, and 1 and 3/4 layers for the deck or top of the board.

4oz boat cloth.

Wait. hold up Nick why 3/4 of a layer? I'll explain this in a wee bit.
Start with the bottom of the board. place the rough trimmed glass on and weigh it down. You could use some books, smooth stones, or as I did some light lead weights, This is to stop the glass moving a lot or blowing around when we trim it to the exact shape we need.

After setting this up, use a pair of scissors to trim the edges 25mm away from the outline of your board. A trick I learned here was to place a light ( hand held is best ) under the board whilst trimming, this creates a shadow on the glass where you need to cut. You can also save time here and trim the top layers too if you'd like, same process as the underneath, only this time the 3/4 layer will be the first layer, then a full layer, like the bottom, will go over that.

The 3/4 Layer

Being the part of the board where you'll hopefully be spending most of your time. it needs to be more durable than the bottom, it has to deal with the constant battering you feet will provide it with whilst taking off. Now as seems to be the  case when I take photos, I have managed to miss a photo of this 3/4 business to make it easier to explain and understand, so bear with me and hopefully I can explain it well.
 To trim this, we follow the same steps as the other layers. We roll out and only trim a length 3/4 of the board. When we place this on the board to trim it needs to over hang the tail by 25mm and the rest will go up the board, falling short of the nose ( due to being a shorter length).The reason it doesn't go all the way is due to the fact we don't often use the nose to jump on, For a short board anyway, If you have a long board, you may want to take this second layer all the way just incase you feel like hanging 10 or have your dog on the nose.
 Now we have a layer that creates a line across the board, with this edge, we'll trim it into a broad point that points at the nose.

That's the trimming out the way, next step is getting it stuck on the board. I'll do this in another post ( no where near as long as the last post was.) As I have been typing for what seems like for ages, and to be honest, I'm hungry and need to look at what's for dinner .
See you soon
N