Why isn' poly obsolete now? gee, could be that the movers and shakers in the industry don't want to change --their systems are in place and have been for many years and it's all they know and don't want to learn........old dog-new trick etc.... I've been riding and working with epoxy boards for 11 years now and i will not buy a polyester board again......the ride is great, the strength is unreal and they are just plain better boards
Can someone elaborate on how it is that it takes less resin? My glass jobs (polyester) have gotten much better on the last few boards, and I think that part of it is because I've been using MORE resin. I end up wasting a bit, but it assures that my laps are thoroughly saturated and gives me some extra to spread over the top to hit dry spots (allowing me to pull it dry on first pass and let less soak in). Does less epoxy soak into the foam, or weave? I don't understand how it can take less... but 2 1/2 boards from 1 gallon?... that's insane (or maybe I just waste a lot of poly resin)
I myself am going to start making the move toward epoxy with gregs RR products, If you are a decent glasser the cost balances out well if you can actually use the amount of resin he says you should, if its 33% more but you use 66% less than poly, the cost should be about the same, if your sloppy and waste resin than you will have that affected in your cost. I have talked to greg a bit and assume these prices are public: from greg: Below I'm writing some tips on making our stuff easier to use. If you take your time epoxy is actually easier to laminate than polyester, uses much less material and eliminates harmful chemicals in the factory. 1. Mix ratio must be adhered to. Deviation from the mix ratio will keep the resin from attaining a full cure. Also the material must be THOROUGHLY mixed. If not there can be soft spots. We use metered buckets (I'm sending you one which we get at the local hardware store) to assure proper mix. We use large paint stir sticks (like the ones hardware stores give you to stir paint). All our resins are 2 to 1 mix ratio by volume. The metered buckets work unreal, actually better than pumps and we laminate right out of those buckets. 2. Additive F. We use it in every batch we shoot, including laminates. It eliminates blush which is the biggest problem in building epoxy boards. It only takes 1cc per ounce of hardener in the mix. We put it in after pouring the resin and hardener into the bucket and then mix them all at once. It makes the resin a bit cloudy but clears out when the resin cures. 3. When laminating, the first thing to do is to pour all the resin out and spread it over the glass. You then wet the rails and tuck them. This gives the resin time to soak into the cloth on the flats. Polyester must be pushed through the cloth. Epoxy just soaks in and it does that in its own good time. It can't and shouldn't be forced. Additive F actually helps with this quite a bit. After it soaks in, squeegee out any air and remove any excess. We use plastic, "spreader," type squeegees. We've found that they move epoxy better than rubber squeegees do. They take a couple boards to get wired but after the initial learning curve laminating is much easier. 4. We use VERY little resin. Below is an example of our use levels for different size boards. As there is no "gel" time, any resin left over can be used on the next board. If you run short you can easily mix up additional resin to finish with. Usually we just work out of one bucket and simply keep mixing more material as needed. It isn't the same, "this bucket for this board," as polyester. These are estimates for total mixed material. 6' and under - 9 -12 oz. bottom 12-15oz. deck 7' and under - 12 -15oz bottom 15-18 oz. deck 8' and under - 18 - 21 oz bottom 21- 24 oz. deck 9' and under - 24 - 27 oz bottom 27- 33 oz deck Hot coats run just a bit more than an ounce per foot. For instance a 6' board would take about 7 oz. per side. Longboards, 9', take about 12-15 oz. per side. If your glossing use a bit less than a hot coat. We use 3" disposable white bristle brushes for hot coating. We don't clean them. We use them for one batch and pitch em. Not only do we feel that their not worth cleaning but we've also had problems in the past with contamination from cleaned brushes which manifested itself in bad hot coats. New brushes always make for clean hot coats. 5. Do not use acetone for clean up and never let contaminated acetone touch the skin. Any toxicity problems we've seen in the past always included contaminated acetone. Not only that but acetone doesn't work that well with epoxy anyway. Leaves everything sticky. For your hands use disposable vinyl gloves. Clean gloves between boards with scrap fiberglass. I usually cut scrap and pile it neatly on the table so I have plenty ready. Clean your squeegee with scrap glass. Anytime the squeegee gets slick I just wipe it and my gloves down. When the gloves get funky, peel em off and put on a new pair. 10 cents a pair is cheaper than acetone. With so little resin being used very little goes anywhere except on the board so things tend to stay much cleaner. We don't ever get more than a drop or two on us. If you do get some on you, use Go-Jo or Fast Orange or some other waterless cleaner with water to get it off. These clean epoxy more effectively and are much safer to use than acetone. 3 Pt set: 2 Pt. Resin, 1 Pt. Hardener: $26 1.5 Gal. set: 1 Gal Resin, 1/2 Gal. Hardener $85 3 Gal set: 2 Gal Resin, 1 gal. Hardener $155 7.5 Gal. set: 5 Gal Resin, 2.5 Gal. Hardener $348 15 Gal. set: 10 Gal. Resin 5 Gal. Hardener $626 Prices are FOB Melbourne Fl. or Tucson Az. which is now open. Thanks, Greg Im assuming that the flow of epoxy is better than poly so you can work it easier therefore not wasting as much resin, also your workability is longer so you can collect and reuse instead of rushing to meet a Gel deadline. DREW 30 bucks a gallon????....Im glad im not in the northeast. Good luck guys and sorry greg if I overstepped anything by posting this http://www.surfboardglassing.com
most informative Eric. Couple more questions. How does weather affect Epoxy. Cold, humidity?? Are curing times drastically affected by these two as poly is?? I would assume that thier is a HazMat shipping fee???? is this true!! Eric, have not made contact yet with Walker. i have called a couple of times, but always get an answering machine. Oh well. Once again thanks for the info Drew
Im not 100% sure, I think weather is not a factor, I know there are ideal temps but i dont think results vary as much as poly. As far as a Haz-mat fee, Youd have to ask greg or someone who has had items shipped, there might not be, I dont beleive epoxy has the same flammability as poly. Keep on walker, have you left a message? They are small time so they keep odd hours. Im going to offer to finish thier website as soon as im over there next they need blank info and a means to email orders in. http://www.surfboardglassing.com
Drew, Not sure what you mean about Walker. I have not used them but maybe you got their # from someone else here named Eric... or maybe I posted it sometime. I have the # and do want to get some blanks from them one of these days. and, Surflab posted the GL info too. As for epoxy in the cold or humid... I've only used RR epoxy in the summer. It was humid but it worked fine for me here in NY. no blush problems, cured hard in 2 hours, and no additive F either. I don't think epoxy will cure well below 55, but that is from very limited personal experience of doing a few repairs with it recently in cooler weather. Best bet for laminating in the cold seems to be UV activated poly resin. As long as the sun is strong it goes off. should be warmed up to wet out the cloth first. Best for epoxy, from memory - heard here, is a controlled environment about 70-75 degrees. Hope that helps, Eric
sory about the confusion, thought you were someone else. thanks for the info about epoxy. Mighty helpful! where in Ny are you anyhow. i am in monmouth county NJ. near belmar, manasquan
just outside of the city in the burbs... still means a 45 minute drive to the ocean though, feh! Manasquan is such a nice set-up. Kind of like a version of west end 2 on LI with better prevailing winds. I'm headed to Fla in a few weeks. That'll be a nice change. then back to reality till spring. Best, Eric J
Greg's indicated epoxy resing coverage above closely approximates what I'm getting using polyester. I usually measure by the cup, and 3 cups (24 ounces) will in fact do a single layer of 6 ounce silane cloth on a board up to 9 feet BUT ONLY IF YOU DON'T WASTE RESIN. Any experienced glasser who measures and considers his volume will know exactly how much will be needed. I've watched a few pro glassers, and resin is all over the place - hands, tools and floor. To them, quality and ease of construction win out over material cost. If you run the math and consider the consequences, you'll do this too, unless you are prepared to be very careful and closely measure your catalyst. I try to spill very little - maybe a ounce or few if I'm careful. I tend to mix a little (few ounces) extra so I don't get caught short - this is particularly important if you are doing a colored lam, where you can't and don't have time to make more colored resin that will match. I use a little 3 cc syringe to measure my catalyst, gives me about 20 minutes pot life here in Honolulu. My ratio is about 0.8 percent catalyst last time I checked. I'd like to hit one percent flat, where the resin will set up the hardest, but I'd have to chill the resin and I'm not ready (nor is the wife) to see a gallon of resin in the fridge. C'mon, guys, carefully measure your resin, measure your catalyst (not just the "coupla caps from the bottle" method! Write down how much you use, look at it before you pour the next batch, you'll save a bit. Buying 5 gallons at a time brings my poly resin price from 35 a gallon to something like 18. Similarly buying a roll of cloth takes if from near 5 bucks a yard (27" 6 oz.) down to half of that.
Why isn' poly obsolete now? gee, could be that the movers and shakers in the industry don't want to change --their systems are in place and have been for many years and it's all they know and don't want to learn........old dog-new trick etc.... I've been riding and working with epoxy boards for 11 years now and i will not buy a polyester board again......the ride is great, the strength is unreal and they are just plain better boards
i see, whats the price difference? dk
Can someone elaborate on how it is that it takes less resin? My glass jobs (polyester) have gotten much better on the last few boards, and I think that part of it is because I've been using MORE resin. I end up wasting a bit, but it assures that my laps are thoroughly saturated and gives me some extra to spread over the top to hit dry spots (allowing me to pull it dry on first pass and let less soak in). Does less epoxy soak into the foam, or weave? I don't understand how it can take less... but 2 1/2 boards from 1 gallon?... that's insane (or maybe I just waste a lot of poly resin)
I myself am going to start making the move toward epoxy with gregs RR products, If you are a decent glasser the cost balances out well if you can actually use the amount of resin he says you should, if its 33% more but you use 66% less than poly, the cost should be about the same, if your sloppy and waste resin than you will have that affected in your cost. I have talked to greg a bit and assume these prices are public: from greg: Below I'm writing some tips on making our stuff easier to use. If you take your time epoxy is actually easier to laminate than polyester, uses much less material and eliminates harmful chemicals in the factory. 1. Mix ratio must be adhered to. Deviation from the mix ratio will keep the resin from attaining a full cure. Also the material must be THOROUGHLY mixed. If not there can be soft spots. We use metered buckets (I'm sending you one which we get at the local hardware store) to assure proper mix. We use large paint stir sticks (like the ones hardware stores give you to stir paint). All our resins are 2 to 1 mix ratio by volume. The metered buckets work unreal, actually better than pumps and we laminate right out of those buckets. 2. Additive F. We use it in every batch we shoot, including laminates. It eliminates blush which is the biggest problem in building epoxy boards. It only takes 1cc per ounce of hardener in the mix. We put it in after pouring the resin and hardener into the bucket and then mix them all at once. It makes the resin a bit cloudy but clears out when the resin cures. 3. When laminating, the first thing to do is to pour all the resin out and spread it over the glass. You then wet the rails and tuck them. This gives the resin time to soak into the cloth on the flats. Polyester must be pushed through the cloth. Epoxy just soaks in and it does that in its own good time. It can't and shouldn't be forced. Additive F actually helps with this quite a bit. After it soaks in, squeegee out any air and remove any excess. We use plastic, "spreader," type squeegees. We've found that they move epoxy better than rubber squeegees do. They take a couple boards to get wired but after the initial learning curve laminating is much easier. 4. We use VERY little resin. Below is an example of our use levels for different size boards. As there is no "gel" time, any resin left over can be used on the next board. If you run short you can easily mix up additional resin to finish with. Usually we just work out of one bucket and simply keep mixing more material as needed. It isn't the same, "this bucket for this board," as polyester. These are estimates for total mixed material. 6' and under - 9 -12 oz. bottom 12-15oz. deck 7' and under - 12 -15oz bottom 15-18 oz. deck 8' and under - 18 - 21 oz bottom 21- 24 oz. deck 9' and under - 24 - 27 oz bottom 27- 33 oz deck Hot coats run just a bit more than an ounce per foot. For instance a 6' board would take about 7 oz. per side. Longboards, 9', take about 12-15 oz. per side. If your glossing use a bit less than a hot coat. We use 3" disposable white bristle brushes for hot coating. We don't clean them. We use them for one batch and pitch em. Not only do we feel that their not worth cleaning but we've also had problems in the past with contamination from cleaned brushes which manifested itself in bad hot coats. New brushes always make for clean hot coats. 5. Do not use acetone for clean up and never let contaminated acetone touch the skin. Any toxicity problems we've seen in the past always included contaminated acetone. Not only that but acetone doesn't work that well with epoxy anyway. Leaves everything sticky. For your hands use disposable vinyl gloves. Clean gloves between boards with scrap fiberglass. I usually cut scrap and pile it neatly on the table so I have plenty ready. Clean your squeegee with scrap glass. Anytime the squeegee gets slick I just wipe it and my gloves down. When the gloves get funky, peel em off and put on a new pair. 10 cents a pair is cheaper than acetone. With so little resin being used very little goes anywhere except on the board so things tend to stay much cleaner. We don't ever get more than a drop or two on us. If you do get some on you, use Go-Jo or Fast Orange or some other waterless cleaner with water to get it off. These clean epoxy more effectively and are much safer to use than acetone. 3 Pt set: 2 Pt. Resin, 1 Pt. Hardener: $26 1.5 Gal. set: 1 Gal Resin, 1/2 Gal. Hardener $85 3 Gal set: 2 Gal Resin, 1 gal. Hardener $155 7.5 Gal. set: 5 Gal Resin, 2.5 Gal. Hardener $348 15 Gal. set: 10 Gal. Resin 5 Gal. Hardener $626 Prices are FOB Melbourne Fl. or Tucson Az. which is now open. Thanks, Greg Im assuming that the flow of epoxy is better than poly so you can work it easier therefore not wasting as much resin, also your workability is longer so you can collect and reuse instead of rushing to meet a Gel deadline. DREW 30 bucks a gallon????....Im glad im not in the northeast. Good luck guys and sorry greg if I overstepped anything by posting this http://www.surfboardglassing.com
most informative Eric. Couple more questions. How does weather affect Epoxy. Cold, humidity?? Are curing times drastically affected by these two as poly is?? I would assume that thier is a HazMat shipping fee???? is this true!! Eric, have not made contact yet with Walker. i have called a couple of times, but always get an answering machine. Oh well. Once again thanks for the info Drew
Im not 100% sure, I think weather is not a factor, I know there are ideal temps but i dont think results vary as much as poly. As far as a Haz-mat fee, Youd have to ask greg or someone who has had items shipped, there might not be, I dont beleive epoxy has the same flammability as poly. Keep on walker, have you left a message? They are small time so they keep odd hours. Im going to offer to finish thier website as soon as im over there next they need blank info and a means to email orders in. http://www.surfboardglassing.com
Drew, Not sure what you mean about Walker. I have not used them but maybe you got their # from someone else here named Eric... or maybe I posted it sometime. I have the # and do want to get some blanks from them one of these days. and, Surflab posted the GL info too. As for epoxy in the cold or humid... I've only used RR epoxy in the summer. It was humid but it worked fine for me here in NY. no blush problems, cured hard in 2 hours, and no additive F either. I don't think epoxy will cure well below 55, but that is from very limited personal experience of doing a few repairs with it recently in cooler weather. Best bet for laminating in the cold seems to be UV activated poly resin. As long as the sun is strong it goes off. should be warmed up to wet out the cloth first. Best for epoxy, from memory - heard here, is a controlled environment about 70-75 degrees. Hope that helps, Eric
sory about the confusion, thought you were someone else. thanks for the info about epoxy. Mighty helpful! where in Ny are you anyhow. i am in monmouth county NJ. near belmar, manasquan
just outside of the city in the burbs... still means a 45 minute drive to the ocean though, feh! Manasquan is such a nice set-up. Kind of like a version of west end 2 on LI with better prevailing winds. I'm headed to Fla in a few weeks. That'll be a nice change. then back to reality till spring. Best, Eric J
Greg's indicated epoxy resing coverage above closely approximates what I'm getting using polyester. I usually measure by the cup, and 3 cups (24 ounces) will in fact do a single layer of 6 ounce silane cloth on a board up to 9 feet BUT ONLY IF YOU DON'T WASTE RESIN. Any experienced glasser who measures and considers his volume will know exactly how much will be needed. I've watched a few pro glassers, and resin is all over the place - hands, tools and floor. To them, quality and ease of construction win out over material cost. If you run the math and consider the consequences, you'll do this too, unless you are prepared to be very careful and closely measure your catalyst. I try to spill very little - maybe a ounce or few if I'm careful. I tend to mix a little (few ounces) extra so I don't get caught short - this is particularly important if you are doing a colored lam, where you can't and don't have time to make more colored resin that will match. I use a little 3 cc syringe to measure my catalyst, gives me about 20 minutes pot life here in Honolulu. My ratio is about 0.8 percent catalyst last time I checked. I'd like to hit one percent flat, where the resin will set up the hardest, but I'd have to chill the resin and I'm not ready (nor is the wife) to see a gallon of resin in the fridge. C'mon, guys, carefully measure your resin, measure your catalyst (not just the "coupla caps from the bottle" method! Write down how much you use, look at it before you pour the next batch, you'll save a bit. Buying 5 gallons at a time brings my poly resin price from 35 a gallon to something like 18. Similarly buying a roll of cloth takes if from near 5 bucks a yard (27" 6 oz.) down to half of that.
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