What's up guys.. First attempt at glassing didn't go so well. I should have read all your information in the surfboard building guide first. The resin kicked quicker than expected and I panicked. I think I realize a lot of the mistakes I made and how to be more successful next time, but I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to salvage this. There are dry spots in the lap as well as spots with excess resin all along the rails.
Not a big deal. The board will surf fine but look a little funky. All a part of the learning process.
All you can so now is move forward and keep glassing. Sand that lap down close to flush with the foam before laminating the deck. Don't worry about the dry spots, they will fill in with resin a little but still be visible.
Things you can do better:
1. Cut the laps real nice and straight following the outline of the board. Jagged glass edges make it harder to laminate and sand flush. Take your time cutting! A nice lap cut makes the job easy.
2. Shorten the laps a little, actually a lot... you only need an inch or inch and a half lap. Shorter laps will also be much easier to saturate (see #3)
3. Saturate the glass 100% before wrapping the laps onto the deck. Look for white, dry weave and make sure there's resin on all of it.
4. Don't let the epoxy resin sit in the bucket after mixing! It reduces work time. Mix it thoroughly for about 2 minutes and immediately pour 1/2 the resin down the centerline of the board. Squeegee it around nose to tail from center outwards to the rail on each side. When there's no more resin to spread pour another line of resin out of the bucket near the rail and continue saturating. Just spread it an move along. Let the resins soak in and don't screw with it too much.
You should have less then 1/4 of the bucket worth of resin as you're ready to saturate the rails. This give you more working time with the resin (less exotherm)
Work the resin on the board from the centerline stringer out to the rails to saturate the fiberglass hanging down (the laps). Lift the lap fiberglass up with one hand and squeegee the resin from the deck onto the white glass. There should be no white glass spots showing when fully saturated. Use the resin left in the bucket to saturate any dry spots on the rails.
Relax and flow with it. All you're doing it getting all the fiberglass wet with resin and sticking it to foam! There's a process to it but don't stress it!