Part 4: Glassing your Surfboard

Introduction

Like shaping, glassing your surfboard becomes much less intimidating once you break it down into clear steps, use the right tools, and do some simple preparation prior to each step. At Greenlight, we like to focus on the more environmentally friendly methods of construction, which is one reason why we prefer glassing with Epoxy resin. Epoxy is less toxic to work with, but just as importantly, we feel it makes a stronger, longer-lasting, better flexing surfboard.

 Greenlight pioneered a Bamboo Cloth/Epoxy stretch-glassing method, which uses the most environmentally friendly materials we could find to produce a high-quality glass job. If you want to go this route, click here for more details on our bamboo cloth stretch glassing method.

 This guide will focus on glassing your surfboard with the more traditional fiberglass layup method, both “freelap” and “cutlap” techniques, using state-of-the-art Resin Research Epoxy resin. Don’t expect your first glass job to go perfectly. Like anything, it takes some practice to perfect the art of glassing. Nonetheless, we are confident you’ll get a good result if you prepare and follow these directions.

 Choosing a Glass Schedule

The first step in glassing is to determine how much fiberglass you are going to put on your board. This is called the “glass schedule” and it dictates the final strength and weight of your board. The more glass you use, the heavier, but stronger your board will be. Surfboard fiberglass comes in rolls which are 27” to 38” wide and meant to be cut to the correct length and width once the glass is rolled out over your blank. Fiberglass is measured by weight per square yard. The most common weights for surfboards are 4 oz and 6 oz per square yard.

 Shortboards

The lightest glass schedule that you would want to use is one layer of 4 oz on the bottom and two layers of 4 oz on the top. The extra glass on the top gives you some protection from pressure dings from your feet and other bodily contact. For this super-light glass schedule, you may also want to add a small patch of 4 oz glass under the main layer in the fin box area. This gives you additional strength in the fin area without adding too much weight. If you want to increase the strength/weight of your shortboard, you can simply go up from there. The next step might be two layers of 4 oz on the bottom and a layer of 6/4 on the top. Another way to add additional strength is a “deck patch” under the main layers to reinforce the tail area of the board, which takes a lot of abuse from your feet.

 When you are layering 4 oz and 6 oz together, it is best to put the heavier cloth on first, and the lighter cloth on the outer layer. This setup will use less resin in the hotcoat stage of glassing. For most shortboards, it is not recommended to have much more than 10-12 oz total on the bottom and 12 oz of glass on the top.

 Longboards

Most longboards typically have at least a single 6oz bottom and double 6 oz top glass schedule. This would be for a pretty light longboard. Go up from there if you want to increase the durability (and weight) of your longboard. The max glass schedule you would want on a longboard is about 16 oz on the bottom and 18 oz on the top.