Home made Boards

Understand totally about the weight.

If you just use the two coats of thinned epoxy you would probably use around 300mil or about 300g in total. For an example I know a litre will do nearly 2 full sheets of 4mm ply both sides for the first coat and about half for the second.
Varnish will probably be about the same for 4 coats at a guess.

The boot of a car can be worse than the underside of a boat!!! Everytime you brake hard, turn corners etc. the board can hit stuff pretty easy.

Go to the Bote-Cote website for a NSW dealer or they will send it direct to you. Highly recommend a 750ml kit plus 250ml of TPRDA. I use it all the time and love the stuff!!

TPRDA is a thinning agent you add to Bote-Cote 2:1 Epoxy.

Unlike other thinning agents it does not contain acetone or other solvents for thinning so is much better for you.

By thinning the 1st coat of eposy it allows it to soak much forther into the ply/timber.

Huddy if you are in QLD, google bote-cote and they are based in Brisbane. Great Aussie made product.

OK, two different answers!!

If you want to paint underneath for graphics purposes then do your epoxy coat first then do the paint. You can then varnish over the lot for a laquer type protective coat, although to essential.

If you want to paint the whole board to give it a commercial board look then still epoxy first with two thinned coats. Then mix some sanding compound (powder, very cheap for a small amount) with the 2:1 epoxy and use a flexi paint scraper to apply a thin layer of this that you can then sand to get a great smooth finish.
Then you can paint over the lot.
International paints are good and come in small amounts, 250ml I think. Use yacht primer for the first coat and then use Toplac for the 2nd. it's pretty cheap this way as you don't need the undercoat, although the primer is grey so you might need to lay the topcoat on thick. With some practice you can get a really good finish with a foam roller and 'tip off' (google painting techniques) with a good brush.

Hope that all makes sense!!

Polyester is fine if you want a board with a crap finish that will last you half a season.
Polyester sticks to timber, epoxy bonds to it. But a 1.5l kit of epoxy for $70 and it will do you for 5 boards and they will all last as long as you will.
If you are using timber then polyester is a false economy to me. Why build something that won't last??

Oh and of you're going to recommend polyester you really need to pass on the dangers. The catalyst or MEKP as it's called, can cause blindness if got in your eyes. it's also far worse for your skin and lungs, think poly insulation bats.

Oh and gelcoat is for putting on moulds and contains stuff which makes it a bugger to apply. For a hand finish over polyester resin you want flowcoat eg. the inside of a fibreglass trailer boat.

Sorry but this is what I do for a living, sell polyester, epoxy and vinylester to guys who have never used it before and between the 3 of us at work we have built over 25 boats!! Every person I sell epoxy to never goes back to poly!!

Recon I have a hand in over 300, but then who's counting?

WOW, definately know your stuff then!!

Sorry wasn't trying to have a go, simply small timber jobs with epoxy is sort of our thing. Ply kayaks, surfboards, dinghies etc. is one of our main retail lines.

Also get alot of people with poorly built poly trailer power boats with timber transoms/floor/stringers that have rotted out as the poly just seperates from the timber. Poly is a great laminating resin with itself but for me that's about when it should stop!!
I have a 30yo trailer sailer that is built cold-moulded oregen and epoxy and has no rot whatsoever!!!

Also

DIY vacuum pump

www.berkut13.com/sucker.htm

Board Decoration

www.airbrushwarehouse.com.au/

translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.freaksoffashion.com/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfreaks%2Bof%2Bfashion%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Cheers
Fossil

Great to see so many people having a go at making their own boards. I recently made my first one form Klegecell and using a vacuum bag setup to fibreglass it. It was a great experience and now I'm on to #2.

I documented all the steps including making the vacuum pump, rocker table, board design and construction board and also wrote up a review of what went right and wrong.

my blog is as

www.boardbuilders.co/

It woudl be great to know if you find it useful and have any comments /ideas on things I've posted.

Also, I found that the board builders site on www.kiteforum.com is a brilliant resource.

One of the biggest issues I came up with on my first board was the appearance of air bubbles in the fibre glass. I read around on google a bit and came across some advice but nothing that seemed to be something that I had obviouslys stuffed up.

Anyone have any tips on how to avoid airbubbles in expoxy resin when fibre glassing??


Cheers
Matt

I found that the Kledgecell etc does not add to the strength of the board but merely "keeps the resined pieces apart".

So as an alternative to the more expensive cores I used HD (high density) styrofoam sheets. easy to use, relatively inexpensive and epoxy friendly.

My second board was a very lightweight unit. In hindsight i had not used the correct weight of cloth & resin to attain the strength required.

Gave the board to my son, a beginner , he used it for around 20 minutes before it was converted to a two piece unit, broken below one of the straps.

I am now repairing said board using a Paulownia core and a "quad core " method as used by Brokite in their workshop videos.

http://www.brokite.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67&Itemid=63

They have a different method of rocker table & vacuum.

Fossil

Raw materials suppliers,

http://www.amcsupplies.com.au/catalogue/
www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=50&
www.fibreglast.com/contentpages-vacuum+bagging+equipment+and+techniques+for+room-temp+applications-230.html
www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=epoxy+resin+suppliers+south+australia&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryAU&aq=f&oq=
www2.blackwoods.com.au/infoBANKProduct.aspx?SG=2000165&S=16&G=2003644&P=7119841
www.bamboodirect.com.au/installation_options.html
www.highpointtimber.com.au/index.html
www.d3o.com/
www.fgi.com.au/
ddfiberglass.com/

To answer some questions;

Q-Cell is a generic filler powder. Makes the resin thick for glueing and sanding, although not as easy to sand as a dedicated sanding powder, also alot heavier.

Air bubble are usually caused by air coming out of the job as the resin goes off. This can often be helped by keeping the tempreture consistant throughout the curing time.

Yes klegicell or divinycell foam will add strength but if you put the same amount of glass top and bottom as a bit of ply then yes it will be weaker but a hell of alot lighter. If you made the foam one the same weight as the ply one then it would be alot stronger, especially as you make the foam thicker.

board is looking good!

I havent heard of klegecell before. I was investigating for my next twintip core, either Paulownia wood, divinycell, or corecell. How does klegcell, compare to the to foam based products i referred to? So many options. Must keep building boards to trial them.
My next projects on my list
Strapped surfboard, small twintip, mutant, skim board, wake skate.

Skim board and wake skate will be made fromoffcuts off other projects. But i better finish my first one and give it a go.

Hi there,

You're right that there are a huge number of options out there. I am keen to work with Paulonia but it seems pretty hard to come by in Sydney. I spoke to timber yard in Brookvale and they had been asked many times for it but said the only place they know of is an importer somewhere in central NSW.

Klegecell is similar to Divinycell and I suspect for board building there isn't much in it. Here's a link that discribes the two.

http://www.noahsmarine.com/United_States/Core_Materials-US/DIAB_Group-US/diab_group-us.html

There is a great video on youtube called 'rum and kiteboards' (i think) where a guys takes to a slingshot twin tip ( SX or mistfit??) with a circular saw so you can see the construction. It has a wide wood mid section (I think they use poplar) and pvc foam panels either side to balance up strength, weight and stiffness. It looks like heavy stringers like that or like in the brokite video is the key to making single layer baords to avoid the step down at the rails which limits how narrow you can make the board.

Also, if you haven't seen this yet the Brokite videos are a great watch...the good old boys of kitebaord making.

myvirtualshed.blogspot.com/2011/01/kiteboard-making-videos.html

I saw a Hadlow board the other day and it was working brilliantly in very average conditions. It was long at 138cm but very narrow. This is the next project I'm having a crack at.

Can't wait to see you're first board in action!!!