RealSurf Surfers' Forum

yep in 25c weather the kinetics fast has a 3 hour flip, 5 hour sand time, the regular is a 5-6 hour flip, 10 hour sand time. You can speed both of these up if you heat the room. i get my bay heated up pretty nicely and can normally flip in under 2 hours with the fast.

things to look out for are making sure everything is clean so the epoxy doesn't become contaminated. getting your mix ratios spot on, making sure you mix it very well and not leaving it in the pot for too long. Ie try and empty your pot within 2-3 minutes of finishing mixing - otherwise it can heat right up.

even with the fast, you have a lot more time than with poly. I only use the slow for vac bagging, where you need a lot longer for the resin to be drawn out by the vacuum.

Yes, M-F, what P-A said… I find it can be best to mix by weight rather than volume. Stir well, scraping the sides and bottom

The part A of epoxy can be very thick and the hardener very liquid. As epoxy goes off it gets thicker.

According to Kinetix, pot life for H125 is 35mins, H130 is 15 mins. Used in conjunction with Kinetix 110X.

Watch Greg Loehr (Resin Research) a master of the stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGZL4tu3JbU

Use a hard squeegee and drag it out… more about resin to glass ratio. You supposedly need less, experience hasn't really supported that, but that could be me.

Polyester is brittle, epoxy more flexible and a lot more expensive.

When sanding, keep moving, it gets hot and soft rather than cutting like poly. Pretty sure we added wax in styrene to epoxy fillers even for EPS boards. Foam should be sufficiently sealed from the lamination.

i'm using the ultra white kinetics. Don't like it as much as RR, but it does the job.

I haven't had to microwave any. it comes out pretty thick, but once you mix it well with the hardener it is plenty runny to spread and wet out the cloth.

shapers told me not to mix anything with the resin for hot coating. so i didn't for the first one and it came out not so great. have been mixing RR additive F in my hot coats since and they have been coming out better with no issues. just half a cap to a 300ml hotcoat.

Pic of the draws pls. love this thread

pirate_agenda wrote:i'm using the ultra white kinetics. Don't like it as much as RR, but it does the job.

I haven't had to microwave any. it comes out pretty thick, but once you mix it well with the hardener it is plenty runny to spread and wet out the cloth.

shapers told me not to mix anything with the resin for hot coating. so i didn't for the first one and it came out not so great. have been mixing RR additive F in my hot coats since and they have been coming out better with no issues. just half a cap to a 300ml hotcoat.

Sorry to hijack, but where'd ya get add F ???

Beerfan wrote:

pirate_agenda wrote:i'm using the ultra white kinetics. Don't like it as much as RR, but it does the job.

I haven't had to microwave any. it comes out pretty thick, but once you mix it well with the hardener it is plenty runny to spread and wet out the cloth.

shapers told me not to mix anything with the resin for hot coating. so i didn't for the first one and it came out not so great. have been mixing RR additive F in my hot coats since and they have been coming out better with no issues. just half a cap to a 300ml hotcoat.

Sorry to hijack, but where'd ya get add F ???

left overs from my last RR order. it is only paraffin wax in styrene or something anyway (don't quote me on exactly what it is). I have been using RR for my last couple of batches of resin, and really like it.

Although I am finding the kinetics is good to hotcoat and sand, now I have figured how much to use the add F. I just like that with fast RR I can flip and sand really quickly, which helps when i'm trying to do a few boards at once and I only have room for either 3 drying if i'm not doing any other work, or 1 drying and 1 working on normally.

Awesome read Matticus from start to finish, Gonna give it a go for sure.

Interesting what you're saying about templates and not quite fitting / doing by feel Matticus. I had the same experience with my latest, and it ended up performing better than anything I've shaped to date.

Your stands look a lot like mine... old 20ltr drums filled with quickset, right?

Matticus Finch wrote:Followed Rics advice and tried the circular saw. Made me really nervous, and had the fence slip back down a few times which locked the saw in place, but it works really well, nice clean edge with barely any tidying up required afterwards.

All in the technique, MF, hope you stood on the opposite side of the blank when you were cutting?

FWIW, Rich had also disabled the return spring on the fence.

Nose and tail areas where the curve is more pronounced you need to take a few runs at to remove the excess band.

Looks like you got a good result though.

When I was a tradie, it was not that uncommon for people to doctor the guard on a power saw. I witnessed two very serious accidents. I'm not saying don't do it, just never forget that you have

Accident 1. Kick back into the inside of the calf, missing the bone by a mere few mm

Accident 2. Chippy cutting on stands. Gets interuppted, puts his foot on a stand and "rests" the the still spinning saw blade across his quad

Scenario 1 improbable if on the other side of a blank. Scenario 2 always a risk until the blade stops spinning

I'm with SWVIC, like any tool it has it's risks, but once you have your technique down it feels quite safe.

You need to get the air out pretty quick to properly vac using polyester resin, MF. Not sure whether the resin would stick but I doubt it. Why not do a small test?

Better still why not use your epoxy.

Yeah MF, you need to do it with something so lightweight as a blank. I'm guilty of holding the guard open with my opposite thumb to start a cut on timber when I want reasonable accuracy. Otherwise, when the guard first comes up against the timber, the change in resistance can cause a slight skew. Like Ric said, it's all about developing technique via familiarity

Most power saws should have a spring that you can remove pretty easily if you take the blade off. Then use a bit of string, tie wire, etc. to hold the guard open. Just make sure it's secure enough not to come loose and catch anywhere

any reason for wrapping the cork around the rail ? why not stop it where a old style cut lap would be ?

i wonder if sections of cork would work as in deck grip size pieces ,front and rear feet spots ,or tail to 3/4 of the way up the deck in grid style ? its probably been done [swaylocks]

gabsouy wrote:i wonder if sections of cork would work as in deck grip size pieces ,front and rear feet spots ,or tail to 3/4 of the way up the deck in grid style ? its probably been done [swaylocks]

it definitely ha been used that way. drewtang did a few of his early ones like that, and i've seem a few sups over at sways with it like that.

Matticus Finch wrote: Had planned on doing this one in epoxy but I only used about half the UV resin I expected to on the last board so I'll probably just use up the rest on this one.

Don't run out half way through…

My thinking on these and short shorties, can be pretty flat rocker, but never ridden anything under a 5'11".

Matticus Finch wrote: Hopefully I wont need flippers.

too funny

Matt, I've used FGI 'surfset' epoxy with polyester filler - personally I wouldn't do it again. Yellows badly for one, but the main issue I had was areas of de-lamination usually when drilling with the forstner bit to do FCS plugs and legrope plug.

Just that little bit of pressure would flex the laminate and de-lam a halo of resin. I imagine if you had an impact the same thing would happen.

Only used it twice and each time was the same result and the second time I had even sanded those areas to make sure they were well keyed for the polyester.

To my (limited) knowledge, epoxy bond over polyester is all about the preparation. Given you can't sand what you have done you will have to base the bond on how much of the foam cell is going to be a useful key for the resin. My thought, is like with like, stick to one or the other and don't try to mix.

man!! you're pumping em out! good stuff!