Fins get glassed.

I got some beautiful fins from my friend Lance Carstens out of Gresham, OR.  The colors seem to fit with the balsa and cedar on the board.

I plan to hot coat and gloss coat in the next week or so.

Fast glass

It's a nice sunny day here.  Perfect for glassing.  First I did the bottom.  Once it was in the sun it only took 3 minutes to set.

The laps got sanded.  I installed the vent port and leash plug. 

Then I glassed the top.

The bottom and top took about 1 hour to laminate.  That's much faster than epoxy which takes about 2 days.  Just saying.

First seal coat.

The first seal coat is on.  Solarez is easy to work with and drys fast.  This board is going to take a couple coats. 

Closed up and ready to seal.

The top is closed up. It's time to protect the balsa with a seal coat.

 
For this I'm going to use Solarez before glassing.  There are a couple reasons that I'm using polyester on this one instead of epoxy.  I like the fact that the resin hardens from UV.  That means minimal waiting for curing.  The other reason is I hope this board has a little flex.  All my epoxy boards are very stiff which is alright sometimes, but sometimes it's nice to have a little flex.  I'm using Sun Cure for the laminating resin.

Seal balsa with Solarez.

Now I just have to wait for a sunny day.

Shaping up

I have been busy with a few remodeling projects on the house, so I haven't worked on the board for awhile.  Shaping the rails is always a challenge I look forward to.  The first pass on the top is done.

It still needs a lot more work, but it's getting there.

Now the rails are shaped.