Happy New Year!

We two have paddled in the stream,

From morning sun 'til dine.
But seas between us broad have roared
Since auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Was finally able to do the lam coat yesterday. Above is a picture of the bottom of the board all ready, with the single layer of 6 oz. glass folded up, ready for the laminate, that is, the graphic.

 

With the laminate on. I used a little lam resin and squeegeed it into the foam. The pointed piece is a fin patch to hopefully add a bit more strength to the fin area. I wasn't going to do it, but the tail is so thin on this board that I figured it couldn't hurt.

Both sides went reasonably well. Gel time was exactly as expected, about 25 minutes. The nice thing about the painted foam is you can clearly see where the cloth needs more resin or where there are air bubbles. I did a free lap on this board, because all the masking tape I tried pulled the paint off a little. It was nice not having to cut the tape, but I do like the control that the cut-lap method offers.

Like I said, both lams went reasonably well, but unfortunately it looks like there is some of the crystallization I've read can happen with painting the foam, especially with darker paints. I think this happens because of moisture, which is strange because the board dried over a week. Maybe there was moisture on the board, and the paint trapped it in? I don't know, but it's kind of a bummer, especially because the paint looked so clean on the foam. I could paint over the hotcoat and cover it up, but I probably won't. Fortunately, it's mostly the deck that this happened on, which most of it will be covered with wax.

The real bummer is spots like this, which are on the rail near the nose...

...and spots like this, which are very close to the tail where no wax probably would have ever gone. Oh well though, a surfboard is meant to be ridden, with aesthetics an added bonus. But maybe I'll still do something to cover it up, we'll see, but for now, some pictures....