Step 9: Glassing
Before you get excited and start mixing your resin precut your cloth, use the sharpest pair of scissors you have or can get. If you have any stringers carefully cut those out as best as you can.
Pre-measure your resin and hardener into separate cups. I was fortunate in that the garage was about 45f in the morning and got up to about 60f in the afternoon average humidity was about 35-45%. Since the hardener generates heat to start the curing process the cooler ambient temperature worked to my advantage as I was able to make larger batches of resin than if it had been summer. You can also use less hardener if you find that you're having trouble applying your mix before it begins curing. Also if it's curing too slowly you can carefully use your heat gun to help heat up the resin as it cures.
I pre-measured 20oz cups of resin into a larger cup and dropped the hardener into a separate cup. The directions call for 10 drops per fluid ounce of resin, I added 15 extra drops for anything that would get stuck in the cup. As you can see a little bit of hardener goes a long way. I counted out the first cup then marked it so I had a line to go off of for additional mixes.
For the first layer I painted resin over the portion of the mold that I was applying the cloth to then brushed the resin over making sure the cloth was completely soaked. For additional layers I just placed them on and brushed the resin over, if the resin had cured I sanded the surface down as close to the cloth as I could get then brushed the strips with resin as I applied them. My understanding is that you can sand down to the cloth on when adding additional layers because you want as little resin in between your layers of cloth as possible, but do not sand down to the cloth on your final layer. I used strips that were about 3" wide by 10"-12" long for the cloth. Make sure you add an extra 2" past where you want to cut.
I had to go back and take pictures of the process I used for the lay-up seeing as I was the only one with a respirator and I didn't want my wife to come out and take pictures during the process. You can see here what I was trying to go for in the lay up process.
One problem I did run into with the initial layer was that the weight of the front and back started pulling the ends apart, I eventually braced the ends up with some spare wood that I had, but this started after I had finished the initial lay up and right as the resin had started curing. All of this started pulling apart the cloth and created a lot of headache and extra finishing work later on down the road.
NOTE: If you're making a "one-of" mold don't get too attached to your previous work.
Pre-measure your resin and hardener into separate cups. I was fortunate in that the garage was about 45f in the morning and got up to about 60f in the afternoon average humidity was about 35-45%. Since the hardener generates heat to start the curing process the cooler ambient temperature worked to my advantage as I was able to make larger batches of resin than if it had been summer. You can also use less hardener if you find that you're having trouble applying your mix before it begins curing. Also if it's curing too slowly you can carefully use your heat gun to help heat up the resin as it cures.
I pre-measured 20oz cups of resin into a larger cup and dropped the hardener into a separate cup. The directions call for 10 drops per fluid ounce of resin, I added 15 extra drops for anything that would get stuck in the cup. As you can see a little bit of hardener goes a long way. I counted out the first cup then marked it so I had a line to go off of for additional mixes.
For the first layer I painted resin over the portion of the mold that I was applying the cloth to then brushed the resin over making sure the cloth was completely soaked. For additional layers I just placed them on and brushed the resin over, if the resin had cured I sanded the surface down as close to the cloth as I could get then brushed the strips with resin as I applied them. My understanding is that you can sand down to the cloth on when adding additional layers because you want as little resin in between your layers of cloth as possible, but do not sand down to the cloth on your final layer. I used strips that were about 3" wide by 10"-12" long for the cloth. Make sure you add an extra 2" past where you want to cut.
I had to go back and take pictures of the process I used for the lay-up seeing as I was the only one with a respirator and I didn't want my wife to come out and take pictures during the process. You can see here what I was trying to go for in the lay up process.
One problem I did run into with the initial layer was that the weight of the front and back started pulling the ends apart, I eventually braced the ends up with some spare wood that I had, but this started after I had finished the initial lay up and right as the resin had started curing. All of this started pulling apart the cloth and created a lot of headache and extra finishing work later on down the road.
NOTE: If you're making a "one-of" mold don't get too attached to your previous work.
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