Vac bagging tips

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Desired rocker fixed with vac bagging balsa planks on bottom.

 PEEL PLY     Measuring out and cutting with 2 inch hangover of rails. This will be used for an exposed cork top lamination.

I use peel ply for vac bagging most everything except wood planks such as balsa. I use PEEL PLY for carbon fiber, kevlar, texalliumin, nylon, cork and probably would use it with veneers if I  used that stuff.  

Once cut roll up keeping in mind if you start tail or nose to unroll it when needed.

Cut cork to overlap rails and an 1/8-1/4 inch to the bottom. It will be sanded off eventually.

Preparing for fiberglass cloth  to cork foam side

Four ounce fiber glass cloth cut to cork outline

six ounce cloth cut 1(one) inch beyond the cork outline

Vac bag supplies nose to tail in order of placement.

- PEEL PLY( disposable, soaks up excess resin, leaves perfect cork finish for no sanding)

-RELEASE FILM(reusable, have 50+ pulls with this pictured)

-BREATHER CLOTH(reusable,@ 30+ pulls pictured)

-36" VAC TUBE(appropiate length, @ 100 + pulls pictured)

Wood scraps to keep floppy cork and cloth level for resin application.

Milk Jug for epoxy resin mixing and catching when laminating

For beginers I recommend with a double layer of fiberglass cloth to take the length of the board and mutiply times 3(Three) for the total resin volume in ounces. The Peel ply will pull the excess resin through the cork. I am going to cut my 9 oz cup to 7 ounces to wet out my cork/fiberglass.

Applied resin to cork/fiberglass and wet out(unable to photograph) then flip and center to deck.

PEEL PLY material over cork deck

Securing deck with tape. Don't get too concerned with complex nose or tails issues. You can always cut and place nose and tail blocks if needed. I was able to wrap the nose and tail nicely and will see what happens when cured.

Next is RELEASE FILM. Two reasons to use

1. To protect vac bag from resin

2. To help pull cork over rails in between the tape already placed during PEEL PLY application.

BREATHER CLOTH. I usually place on the side I am pulling. This was the deck

Place board in Vac bag. One end is already clamped off(side with inlet nipple).

Review. Board is in vac bag. Side with inlet nniopple is clamped off and other side is 0pen with no clamp. HOOK UP VAC TUBING TO INLET NIPPLE AND SWITCH ON PUMP.

The opened end of the bag is 3/4 clamped off. Place a suction source(my festool vac) and place nozzle on breather cloth. Clasp opened part of bag around festool suction with one hand. Turn on festool suction to draw bag to vacuum very quicly.(< 30 seconds) Full disclouser- I stole this idea from Bernie(oneula) while watching him.

Suck down to about 80% total vaccuum, remove festool suction, clamp off tube completely, your main vac pum is still sucking. Pull slack of bag to make deck side tight as possible and rails bend to bottom.

Roll out flats then curves just to make sure things are adhering nicely.. Very necessary with veneer. Balsa planks and cork not so much But I do it anyways.

Forty minutes from cutting peel ply to in bag with full vacuum

Wipe drips on floor if necessary

Fan on vac pump just in case. My pumps will shut off automatically if they over heat. Never has happened. Vacuum wood dust prior to turining on.

See resin being absorbed by peel ply.

1. Vacuum pump to reservoir

2. Reservoir has vacuum switch and Vacuum gauge

3. Reservoir to bag.

removing the peel ply. Stayed in bag 2 hours. Could have come out at 90 minutes.

All off pic also.

Tail wrinkle, cork overlap and sanded seams.

The tail wrinkle cound be sanded and razor bladed out and patched. I'm putting on tail and nose blocks so ignored the problem.

wiliwili wood or willy wonka tail block?

Chose balsa, saved cut offs for reference when reshaping.

Hi Andrew,

 Here are some pics of the board for the vac bag project. it is currently third in line to be sanded then urethane sprayed. These pics are of the final coat of green room blue jug resin/west coast fast hardener that was brushed on like any gloss coat. Green room pours liked water. I didn't post past where I left off because it is pretty much just surfboard building and no vac bagging stuff. For the 9 people on this site who are interested in vac bagging I will post all the steps in my next project with different materials. Thank you for the PM and kind words. If you have specific questions feel free to ask. If you are on oahu you are welcome to come by for personal lessons/help.