BUILDING HINTS COLLECTED FROM SWAYLOCKS (Swaylock's Resources)

(Swaylock's Note: These are hints collected from the discussion forum of Swaylock's. I'm not sure how long it took him to put them together, but no matter how you slice it -- pretty cool guy for doing it and sending them to me. Thanks Keith. In the near term, when I get some spare time, I'm gonna break this article up into the FAQs section. Also, I will publish that Paul Jensen Wood board article in Jan, 2003.)

WHAT KIND OF TAPE SHOULD I USE FOR LAMINATING?
I have always used blue tape over a laminate layer (like when you hot coat and don't want it running all the under the board). The blue tape is low adhesive and won't leave anything behind when you pull the tape up like regular masking tape. It will work on the foam, but good masking tape is better because it will stick better to the foam, and for the most part is cheaper than blue tape, especially when you're using anything wider than an inch. My advise, if you are using tape on a glass (laminate layer or hotcoat) use blue. If you are using tape on foam, go with regular masking tape.

(Kokua Fiberglass): The blue tape is a long mask tape primarily used with house paint, and it's not cheap. 3M 233 masking tape is about the best you can use for resin work.It's also used as stringer tape when you airbrush a blank.

WHAT KIND OF RESIN SHOULD I USE FOR A GLOSS COAT?
If you want to gloss a board I would get gloss resin. Hot coat resin leaves little wax pits and doesn't polish worth a damn. I have been trying to get around the same problem for a long time because gloss resin is expensive and hard to get and has a limited shelf life
Gloss Resin already has wax added, I like Reichold but Silmar also makes a good product.

KNOW ANY GOOD TRICKS OR TIPS FOR GLOSS COATING?

Here are some glossing tricks that I have learned in 30 plus years. Sand the board to at least 120 grit. Blow it off real good with an air compressor. Tape the rails and wipe the board with acetone using a white paper towel (this step kind of softens up the hotcoat). Strain the resin through a medium cup strainer (these are shaped like a cone and are common paint products). Gloss resin is best used in a cold room and is catalyzed pretty hot. For example in a 75 degree room using 16 oz. of Reichold resin I would use 35cc. Glossing is like hot coating, cross stroke twice and stroke longwise once using light brush pressure. Don't worry too much about little zits that show up they will be sanded and polished they look really bad when the resin is wet but it will all go away in the end. I like my glosses to jell within 20 minutes. Hope this wasn't too confusing. The trick is in the polishing. Good luck bro.

HOW CAN I REMOVE OR STRIP OLD FIBERGLASS FROM A SURFBOARD?

Hey amigo, I've restored a bunch of older boards. My trick is similar to what the other post mentioned. I use an Exacto knife or Dremel to score the existing glass at approx.2-3 inch parallel lines(lengthwise). Then, either with an Exacto or spatula separate the glass from the foam very carefully. This way you remove small parts of the glass at a time, rather than lifting large sections at a time(along with foam and stringer!). This is a time consuming process but it allows you to maintain as much foam and stringer as possible(which leads to an awesome restoration). I've done many of these over the years cuz I'm a cheap bastard and blanks are hard to come by in my area. First I resign myself to the fact that I'm giving up some thickness and most probably up to a quarter inch of planshape width. The other processes outlined here sound too time consuming for me. I take my 4 1/2 inch grinder with an 80 grit sanding disc and grind off the fins first, then grind away the glass along the rail just until I see foam. Next I take my utility knife (the same used to score drywall) and score the foam just under the glass (like digging dirt out from under your fingernails)to separate the bond. Press the blade tight against the glass so you don't gouge the foam. Also, press hard against the glass so the blade bends to conform to the rail contour. Next comes the sometimes bloody part where I grip the edge of the glass with my fingers and pry it up enough to get a good grip. From there, it usually peels off as easy as stripping a banana. Sometimes small chunks of foam are pulled away or little pieces of glass don't want to lift away. The razor or sometimes my planer will take care of that. Then I simply reshape the blank, trying to find that happy balance between not taking away too much more thickness and leaving too many deep gouges or scratches. Usually I'll throw on an extra layer of cloth for a deck patch to compensate for the softer foam on the deck that inevitably results. Part of the fun is making different shapes out of old boards. I recently rehabbed a nice 7'10" retro hybrid shape from my battered 8 foot funshape. It came out so nice I even put a gloss coat on it.

WHAT�S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A HOTCOAT, GLOSSCOAT, SPEEDCOAT, AND SANDCOAT?

HOTCOAT AND SANDCOAT are the same thing. Hotcoat is a term that means it's the coat that goes on after the lam process, and is heated up a bit with extra catalyst, also when applying your HOTCOAT on a fresh lam ,the heat from the lam makes it a hotter coat, hence the name, "HOTCOAT". THIS IS ALSO THE LAYER YOU DRY SAND ,hence the name sandcoat.

GLOSSCOAT; is the final coat(least wise it's suppose to be),that you wetsand, and/maybe polish.

SPEEDCOAT; is actually a term used for a type of fine/finish sanding on a sand finish or glossed board,(sanding lengthwise, from nose to tail, on the bottom, and rails only).This can also incorporate use of finishes such as acrylic floor sealers, polishes, waxes, or glossed(poly-resin)finishes.

HOW DO I HOT COAT A BOARD?
(Kokua Fiberglass): Hot coat the deck first, you need to lay down reinforcement fiberglass patches for your fins or fin system and I baste the bottom to seal any pin air holes before hot coating the bottom. To hotcoat the deck you don't need to tape off. Just brush your hotcoat to the bottom of the rail tuck then run a squeegee along this line. I'm not sure how many glassers use this process (basting) but there's nothing worse than seeing a beautiful airbrush job ruined by pin air. I also baste the rails, that way there's less chance of sanding into the weave.

HOW CAN I FIX A BROKEN BOARD?
(Jim Phillips): For the initial reattachment of the pieces you won't need but straight resin. I have a 10 foot length of threaded pipe with clamp heads on it. Put the board deck up and lay the clamp nose to tail, slowly tighten the clamp until the rocker comes back to true, then pour or brush resin along the crack to hold it into place. After all is cured you can make a saw cuts parallel to the stringer with a circular saw and drop a pieces of thin plywood/paneling into the cut. When ready, you can add filler to the crushed areas, sand everything down below the original surface and add glass, finish off as usual from there.

KNOW ANY GOOD LAMINATING TIPS & TRICKS?
Try getting your resin ready, tinting it, then before you add catalyst split it into two equal portions. Then add catalyst to one batch and lam one side to completion. Repeat for other side. This works well for me on boards over 10'0" or if you need to get a board ready for yourself in a hurry i.e., (sold board just before a new swell)you can kick each batch pretty hot cause you've only got to lam 1/2 the board at a time which gives you plenty of time.

HOW DO I GLASS CHANNELS?
(Kokua) Channels don't have to be a pain in the a--. The trick is to lay down some lam resin in the channel and let it kick, then lay out your glass and tuck it into the channels. It'll stick because resin is tacky, now cut your glass and do your thing. Works every time.

HOW MUCH CATALYST SHOULD I ADD (AND WHY?)
Q: what would happen to the lam's, top and bottom, if there were less than 1% of MEKP (catalyst)? just cure slow...or having a weak board?
A: (Kokua) The resin will drain out of the fiberglass into the foam (gravity). Your board will gain weight and lose strength in the fiberglass. I was taught that the best glass job should kick as I'm cleaning my squeegee.

ARE THERE ANY TRICKS TO USING SCREENS /SANDPAPER TO SHAPE?
When shaping I do this with both sandpaper and screen. At the start of a shape job I stretch and pull the screen over a hard table edge...it straightens it up. On sandpaper make sure that the smooth side is down while dragging. This works good on fresh 40 grit and prevents those aggravating cracks that you can get when you bend it around the block. Jim Phillips taught me this back in the dark ages.

WHAT KIND OF BRUSHES WORK WELL FOR GLASSING?
(Paul Jensen) I use cheap chip brushes...Before using one, I'll cut about 3/4" off across the tip of the brush, it seems to shed a whole lot less
(Herb Spitzer) ..I have those long, white bristle, wallpaper brushes, Cut them up to the desired sizes, and bang you have a set of brushes to go! No loss of hair there, either...I also have a few light, and dark bristle brushes from Sears, and K-Mart, 2",3",4"sizes all work nice.

(Tom Sterne) I used to use throw away brushes or cheapies from my resin supplier. I've found that since I've gone to using high quality brushes (unpainted wood handles!) I end up saving money. They lose far fewer bristles and with a decent cleaning procedure I can use them for many boards. I work the bristles pretty hard between uses by hand to keep them supple and to remove and loose bristles and glaze from the last use.

(Anthony) I use cheap-o brushes (one-use throwaway) for the hot coat and a good finishing brush for the gloss. Before I use the cheap brush, I pull the bristles to remove loose bristles. I have always had a few come out anyway. The professional shops I see use high end brushes, but they are hot coating and glossing 6+ boards at time.

WHAT TOOLS DO I NEED FOR AIRBRUSHING?

(Noodle) If you're buying an airbrush spend the extra bucks and get a double action trigger. I like my Iwata Eclipse, but lots of Swaylockians swear by their Pasche double action airbrushes. For surfboards true airbrushes are marginal on paint volume. So get one which will spray higher paint volume. I remember mine having a .5 or so tip, one of the higher volume airbrushes on the market. An airbrush that holds the paint reservoir above the tip is better at feeding paint. It's called "gravity-feed". The airbrushes which suck paint out of a reservoir, like mine, are called "siphon-feed". They are usually less expensive, but still get the job done. I think lots of pros paint larger areas with touchup guns.

The hobby and art supply places sell air compressors specifically for air brushes. The airbrush-dedicated outfits cost $100-$300 here in the US. They deliver low air volume at low pressure. The cheaper ones are designed to overload when you stop spraying, not a good design. The more expensive ones have a pressure valve, regulator and cutoff switch.
However, you can buy a big 3 or 4 horsepower compressor with a tank for the same money as the better hobby shop models. The big jobs have all the needed valves, switches and pressure regulators for airbrushing. Plus you can use the bigger rigs for big sprayers and air tools. Buy the big compressor if you have the space.

WHO MAKES BLANKS AND HOW DO I CONTACT THEM?
Clark Foam -
Walker Foam - 952 Dominguez Avenue, Wilmington, CA, USA 90744 tel (310) 513-1940/ fax (310) 513-1630

WHERE CAN I BUY BLANKS IN MY AREA?

On the WEB
Fiberglass Supply http://www.fiberglasssupply.com
Foam EZ http://www.foamez.com
Homeblown Foam from the UK
Walker Foam doesn't have a web address yet

NOTE: Fiberglass blank price with shipping is not cheap. It cost about the same to ship 3 blanks as it does 1 blank.

NorthEast USA:

Wave Riding Vehicles in Nags Head, North Carolina is a distributor for Clark Foam.
Water Shed in Rhode Island also stocks Clark Foam.

SouthEast USA
NE Fla. you can get Walker Blanks from Clay Bennet, 1089 Atlantic Blvd. Unit 22, Atlantic Beach Florida 32233 Tel. (904) 270-2044 Fax (904) 270-1708

NorthWest USA
Fiberglass Supply Inc, 314 W. Depot, Bingen, Washington 98605 Tel 509-493-3464

SouthWest USA
Mitch�s Surf Shop, 631 Pearl St., La Jolla, California Tel. 858-459-5933

HOW CAN I PUT CLOTH INLAYS IN THE FIBERGLASS?

The cloth inlays are laid directly on the foam on many cases. Choose a fabric (usually all cotton) that has stable colors proven by testing with your resin and squeegee techniques. There are several different techniques used. I prefer to mark the area out on the foam with light pencil or scribe lines that the fabric will cover and tape it off as you would a cut lap. You can either lay your fabric over the area and cut to the line or if the fabric won't allow this, lay paper instead and trace a pattern on to it. Transfer the pattern to the fabric and cut it out to the line or just short of the mark (the fabric stretches some once you wet it out). Many times your fabric inlay is placed symmetrical in relation to the stringer so you can fold your cloth in half and use a 1/2 pattern to be more precise. Cut with a razor, sharp scissors or better yet a fabric cutting wheel. You can prewet the foam or just squeegee some fabrics as you would fiberglass cloth and lay it precisely inside the lines you laid out. Watch carefully for air bubbles and dry spots, any imperfections are going to be magnified when you lay your cloth over the top. If you chose to trim your cloth after you laminated it down, do it after the resin gels a bit, the cloth shouldn't move as you use your razor blade. Remember that after you glass and hotcoat you will end up using pinlines to cover this cut edge, so make it as accurate as you can and avoid threads and frays.

I was thinking about doing a reverse lam, full length cloth inlay on bottom of my log. The only problem I see facing is trimming the cloth even along the lap line. How can I sight through the cloth to see where to trim with the razorblade (when it gells after I lam the cloth)? Anything else to consider?

Tape it off, laminate and then use a flashlight under the board when cutting. You can see the tape line very well. worked for me!
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(Jim Phillips): the best way for fabric and opaque lams is to be trimmed is, one, let it go off nice and crisp, two fold a crease into your razor blade, say about 5-10 degrees. This will allow you to hold the blade and still have it be flat to the surface. Take the salvage edge of the cloth, run your fingers under it until you have it loosened up to where it is stuck to the foam. It should now be nearly 90 degrees to the rest of the board. If it is sufficiently set up, it will be still soft where the tape ends and quite firm on the foam. Fold the cloth outwards and insert the tip of the blade into the intersection of the two angles. I gently pull the cloth towards me, this keeps the blade from trimming away from the cut edge and leaves a neat edge. When you get to the ends of the nose and tail it will be necessary to cut straight down, but do this slowly and look at where the tape edge and the foam are and run the blade right there. I am lifting up on the trimmings at this time, gently and finish off at the tips. If you follow these instructions, it shouldn't turn into a disaster for your first attempt.
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I cut an "L" shaped marking tool out of foam, and jab a pencil from outside to inside. I tape tissue paper to the board and mark the outline on the tissue. I remove the tissue and pin it to the inlay cloth. I use rotary shears to cut the outline on the appropriate cutting board. If the inlay design is symmetrical I only use half of the pattern. I fold the inlay fabric before pinning the pattern to it and cut left and right sides together. Rotary shears leave no unraveled threads. Because I lam inlays and glass together, accuracy is important. This is the most accurate method I've found. No unraveling also makes rotary shears valuable for cutting small glass patches and strips. They don't unravel.
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From my experience, which is very limited, thin cotton fabric works the best. synthetics stretch all over the place, are too thick and a big hassle. A mild vinegar/cool water rinse to set the colors and laying the stuff flat to dry is all that's needed. I've used bran-new fabric and it's worked fine. As far as function is concerned. Dark colors delaminate in the sun much quicker than light ones as the heat up so quickly. But leaving a board in the sun or anywhere that it will heat up excessively is never a good idea. If you can't cover the board up when you're at the beach for a long stay stand it straight up with a rail toward the sun. As far as I am concerned having a moderate amount of color on the front 1/3 of deck is way better than white. The glare off a white long board nose get wicked after a while. A good inlay can give a board a crisp signature at least as I see it.
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I find it's best to wash the material with some vinegar( no detergent ),dry, then iron out the wrinkles. I thin out resin with styrene, apply the resin to the area, lay down the cloth, apply more resin and squeegee. Watch out for fabrics with odd textures that may not lay flat or loose weave that will stretch. Always test any that you buy for stable colors with resin.
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(Noodle): First you fly to Hawaii, stop by one of several Singer Sewing Centers. They have really pretty fabric at great prices. That's where the kamaaina's get asian prints. It's beautiful and cheap. Maybe this will help pay for the surf trip. After cutting the fabric I make a few outline and corner marks on the shaped blank where the fabric should go. I laminate the inlay under the glass, so I first lay the fabric directly onto the BLANK, using my marks as guides. I tear off short pieces of tape and tack the outside fabric edges to the blank. I lay my glass over the fabric and blank, and cut it. Before adding lam resin, I carefully pull up the glass edges and pull the tape tacks off the fabric. I carefully lay the glass back down. When spreading resin, I squeegee the center surfaces toward the board ends. I squeegee most of the center resin out before moving toward the rails. This tacks the fabric in place, so that I can start squeegeeing resin outward across the rails. Here's how I see it. Resined fabric has no strength. Multi-layer glass layups should be monolithic (resined together), so that glass strands can interlock between glass layers. Laminating fabric prevents the glass layers from interlocking. Putting the fabric under the glass leaves the glass layers in contact with each other. I glass with epoxy. No resin, including epoxy resin, sticks well to hardened epoxy. Lots of poly shops resin fabric inlays to blanks and let them kick. They do this so that they can trim the fabric accurately. If I wanted to epoxy my fabric inlays to the blanks like the poly builders do, I would have to sand the fabric so it would accept laminating resin... not a pleasant thought. Some epoxy builders lay down some glass, sand, lay down inlay fabric, trim, and lay down more glass. I'm sure it works, but I think my boards are stronger.
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Lay down tape (4") on the board. Use some decent masking tape. Draw your pattern on the tape (someone put up a good tip on doing this with a U shaped tool, with one side longer than the other. On the short side put a blade or pencil, and run the long side around the rail, so the short side cuts or draws on your tape evenly around the board). Pull up the tape area where the cloth will go. Lay your cloth down and laminate it like a piece of glass. I like to tape down an area on the board where I can pull the resin to so I only get it on the inlay and no where else on the board. When the resin starts to kick, and you think you can cut the cloth without pulling any strands in it, take a flash light, turn the lights out in your glassing area, turn the flash light on and place it under the board. The light will go through the blank and you will be able to clearly see where your tape edge is. Cut along the tape line, then pull up your tape. Let the inlay sit for a while (to ensure the bond to the foam), then laminate the board like usual. Don't use cloth that has been treated (i.e., scotch guard etc.) or has a fuzzy texture. I like to use bedsheet type cloth.
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(Tom Sterne): this is done on the foam after shaping and before glassing.
1.Use a homemade "cheater" tool that is an L-shaped scribe to follow the rail line. The top of the tool has a pencil that will lay down a LIGHT line for my inlay at a uniform distance from the rail edge. If you are doing a nose patch type inlay then use some of your templates, triangle rulers or straightedge to help with the freehand part in mid-board. (tool is nothing fancy, just 2 pieces of scrap rail foam about 8" long. Joined at right angle with a dowel or ring shank nail. The overhanging piece is about 1.5" thick and you can just shove a pencil or a paint pen through it at different points)
2.Once the inlay area laid out on the foam in pencil I use 24" wide white craft paper you get in rolls at a hobby/craft store. Use a piece of paper large enough to cover your pencil line pattern and retrace the lines to the paper either freehand or using the scribe again. Cut out your pattern.
3. Using COTTON (high content at least and test for color bleed with resin)fabric transfer the pattern to the fabric. Works well to pin the pattern to the cloth then cut to the line you penciled in. Lately I've been using a half a pattern and folding the cloth to the midline and cutting through both layers. Use a good, sharp pair of scissors and try not to handle the fabric too much to avoid unraveling. The last trip to the fabric store turned up a very sharp rotary fabric cutter, used in quilting that I'm going to try instead of scissors.
4. Laminate the cloth to the board and be careful once it wetted out for shifting off your marks too much, sometimes it will stretch a bit so adjust how close or short you cut to line from the tests you do on the fabric. Problems you will run into is not saturating the cloth enough and getting bubbles (too dry) and even too much resin under the cloth that is not worked out before it gels. Give yourself plenty of time in your catalyst ratio. (I tested a really dense piece of cloth with UV Cure and it worked great on the test----your mileage may vary !)
5. Once the resin gels good, go back and work on loose threads and cleanup with a razor blade. For the rest...that's what pinlines are for. Look in "short boards" and "longboards", I just finished 2 full board cloth inlays. Lots of work on a full board jobs dealing with symmetry and centering the pattern in the cloth on your pattern.
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1. tape off blank(fabric area) 2. put lam resin on foam w/brush 3. lay oversized fabric on straight 4. pour a little resin on top use laminate using a squeegee 5. cut at tapeoff before its hardened(don't cut too early or you'll get threads) 6. do normal glass job over it.
Notes: polyester chiffon(not rayon)works good and I think it looks a lot better then solid cotton. be sure to test anything before use.

HOW CAN I MAKE A BOARD WITHOUT A TEMPLATE?

(Mike D.) You got your dimensions. Plot them on your blank. Pick a side, take a whip antenna, a sail batten (one of herb's techniques), or an old stripped fishing rod. What ever you pick, you want something that, when you pull it to form an arc it bends consistently (that's why you would not want to use something like a thin wood dowel, when you bend it the grain in the wood does not allow to follow a natural curve, you get the idea). Get some heavy nails, like 16 penny. Take whatever you are gonna use for the curve line and set it next to one of your plotted points. Note the thickness of whatever you are using and take the nail and stick it straight into the foam on the OUTSIDE of whatever you are using. What you are doing is putting these nails in the foam on the OUTSIDE of each of your points, so that when you place say a sail batten in there, the INSIDE of the batten will be right in line with your plotted point. Do one at the nose tip, one at the 12" nose point, one at the center point, one at the 12" tail point, and one at the tail. You can tweak the batten (or whatever) between these nails in your foam. When you get your curve the way you want it, trace INSIDE the batten (or whatever) and your trace should hit all your plotted points, with the curves in between your points being dictated by how you tweak whatever you are using to make your curve (at first, you might need some help holding the curve, while tracing). If it seems sketchy to you just practice on the outside edge of the blank.
You only have to do one side of the blank. When you get one side cut out and trued up, use that side to trace your plan shape onto some kind of template material (cardboard, masonite, whatever). Cut out your new template, true it up, and use it to trace your plan shape on the other side of the blank. It sounds funky, but not really. The key is getting something that curves consistently (without any weird flat spots in the arc), and just connect the dots. Good Luck.

(Ray) You can also use plastic molding from home depot or any large do-it yourself place. The plastic makes a nice even curve & is pretty cheap. You can test them, to see which ones work the best by bending & tweaking them before you buy!!

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