My 12'6" splash mold process.... here we go.

[SUPflorida]

SUPUK you should have sold your mold to bef and it would have benn a win/win for both of you....
if the shipping would not have been too obscene.

[bef]

Top surface prep:
So flipping the mold over, everything looks pretty good.  The register keys popped out OK.  A bit of gelcoat seeped under the edges and chipped off on removal, but I will just sand that down some anyways.  Not a finish critical area, as long as it is smooth enough that the wax will seal it and the top mold release from it.  Scraped the clay away from the corner and I think it will need minimal cleanup.

Deck Pad:  yeah, as other threads have mentioned, removing the deck pad is a pain.  I actually liked this pad, but I am planning on trying cork on the board once removed from the mold to see how that goes.  Others here have tried it and for a touring board, I think it will work well.  And a whole lot cheaper!  If i don't like it, it will come off and I can put a pad on it.

Nose:  Well, this will be interesting.  One side has a nice radius, the other side is sharper.  For a splash, start with a higher quality board!!!!  To many things like this make this harder than it needs to be.  So, do I sand the sharp edge down which will break through the glass and make it a harder project?  Or do I build up the round edge to make it sharper?  Rounding it would be easier from a composite layup standpoint, but that is a lot of work for a generic board shape and something that is purely cosmetic.

Strength and finish:
This is another reason for making my own.  While I am not real picky on appearance, blatant misses like this get to me.  Especially when it is on the front corner of the pad, right where I look when I look down at the board.  They just tried to save a little bit too much paint and didn't paint back far enough so the pad would cover the paint line. 

Two of the cracks in the board already.  I put clear tape over it in the fall to protect from water.  Some of the clear pulled off with the tape already.  Good thing i have to sand the heck out of this and prime it anyways.  But for a 39 pound board, it cracked pretty early in it's life.  Probably not tested to see if it can withstand being caught between two retracting trailer slides from an unobservant wife, but it still hurt.  Also the top deck sounds like it might be delaminating from the core.  Where I stand, it sounds a bit "bouncy" and hollow.  I have mentioned before when I get off the board, I can indents where my feet were.  They bounce back and go away, but that can't be good for the longevity of the core.

I know, you get what you pay for.  I am happy, it got me into the sport and I can fix that when I make my own.

[bef]

SUPUK you should have sold your mold to bef and it would have benn a win/win for both of you....
if the shipping would not have been too obscene.

his was a race board.  Mine is what I call a "Aging heavy non athletic water recliner" board!  But yeah, I so would have bought a mold if there was one available....

Rest of board layup picks from above post....

[supuk]

The board mine was taken off would have been perfect it's 30" wide and a great shape just shipping the moulds to the USA would be way to costly.

Realy you should of had the board 100% preped both sides before starting the mould. The nose looks fine except it quite vertical so not much of a relief for de moulding

[surfcowboy]

The mold is awesome but that table! That's one of the coolest I've seen.

[bef]

Really you should of had the board 100% prepped both sides before starting the mould.

That is correct and a good point to bring up on a process documentation thread like this.  So I will go over my reasoning for how I did it:

I found the board finish to be pretty fragile.  It is also rather large and I new I was going to be moving it from the prep area to another location for molding, so I was concerned about doing too much prep work and damaging it after that.  So when I prepped the board to mold the bottom half, I made sure to finish the sides past the seam by a couple of inches.  That way I do not have to touch the parting line area anywhere. 

For anyone looking to learn from this project, that parting line is the main concern.  Once you mold the one half, any painting or sanding you do at the parting line can cause a mismatch between the two halves.  Then you have to deal with that flaw in your tooling on every part after that.  On large thick molds that you can work in, you can bolt them together and sand it out if the gel is thick enough for the flaw.  On these, that is not an option. 

So when I go to sand and paint the top for the next mold half, I am going to mask off the mold parting line to make sure I do not change it.  Then I will remove the tape and feather in the masking line before waxing takes place.

Thanks for pointing that out supuk, something that was in my mind but not the thread.  I do hate mismatched molds.

Brian

[bef]

The mold is awesome but that table! That's one of the coolest I've seen.

Gotta love having the shop with lathe, mill, plasma cutter, welders, torches, shear, brake, roller, drill press, tooling, supplies.....

The table turned out decent for a quick throw together and up-cycle of old stuff.  Should have thrown a coat of paint on it, but oh-well.  Makes it harder to change it and weld in the future.  I do need to hit the edges of the OSB with the belt sander and throw some paint or urethane on the wood to seal it.  Right now it will be a glass snagging pain with the rough top and edges.

I did turn the caster mounts on the lathe.  metal was an old stub connecting shaft from a worn out U-trough auger.  Everything else was laying around here.  OSB was cutoffs from a building project at work, otherwise it would have been from one piece.

Brian

[bef]

Wow, exposed what I believe to be failing damage already.  I removed the deck pad off the main portion of the board, and tapping on the top skin shows a hollow sound where I was standing from the pad back a bit. I know when I got off the board I could see indents where my feet were, but they seemed to smooth back out with time.  But now with the pad removed, it sounds like the EPS core is really crushed down and didn't spring back.  I can also press down with my finger and see the skin deform downward where it sounds hollow.  Other places do not behave like that.  I knew I was buying an inexpensive board, that has been covered.  But wow, only used it for about a month last year before putting it away in the shop.  Guess building my own is definitely the way to go for a heavier guy.  Trying to get the video short enough to post it here as an attachment....

[bef]

And water?

So I cleaned up the adhesive yesterday, not fun. 
(Note: I used a paper towel and rubbed acetone all over the adhesive one section at a time.  Wait a minute, do it again.  Then I used a 1" scraper and just scraped the adhesive / pad remnants right off, wipe again with rag.  Wasn't too bad)

Around the vent plug this is what I found.  Not sure if this is new from rot or discolored wood when built.  I ordered this board last September and we used it during September and into October due to warm fall.  Surprised to see this if it is from rot with how new it is.  Main problem is I need to paint over it to finish the board, so I will not be able to tell if it gets any worse.  Not sure it matter though due to other leveling work I need to perform where I stand.

Thoughts?

Also gotta love the quality control of China boards.  Yep, masking tape  left on the board where it was sprayed under the pad.  Really?  If you are going to cover the edge of the paint with a pad, why tape it?  Just make a spraying mask one time and reuse it.  Amazing.
 

[bef]

So not sure I will use this board again.  Might be OK for a lighter rider, but this is what I have to do. 

The first picture, the deck doesn't look too pad.  But nothing to really judge it against.
 
So I add a straight edge over the handle.  The handle is up a bit in the back, pretty level in front of the handle.  So behind the handle has to be built up.  But with how "mushy" the top skin is, if I Bondo this it will just warp and crack under my weight.  Then again, I am building new boards hence this project....

The other two pictures show the low spots where I stand, definately need to fill and feather this in to try to get a smooth surface in the mold.  For a 39 pound board with a bamboo core, the top skin really doesn't have much strength to it

So I will sand this surface and start filling it to smooth it out before molding.  That and work on the nose some.

[supuk]

that doesn't surprise me at all! wood or bamboo or anything that absorbs water should not be used in board even eps to a extent but we are yet to solve that one properly. my guess is its gone in through a bad sealing vent plug or there is a small pin hole or crack some were and its taken on water. Wet bamboo is a pain to repair as to get anything to stick it has to be dry and to do that you have to strip the glass and then try and dry booth the bamboo and the foam underneath which is near imposable so its just a big can of worms! Nothing surprises me with china boards now i have seen just about everything, generally the paint is covering most of the things. I have had a great one come through recently with a batch of kite boards from one of the big brands were the essentially glass the deck in three separate bits of cloth    so there were pretty much zero fibres running the hole length of the board and to no surprise they failed in that area, stuff like that should never happen!

[bef]

You never know with China: some of the work is fantastic, other times it leaves you wondering. 

So I started to fart around with layups....  nothing serious, just to start playing some.  I got a sheet of 3/4" EPS, I had a 1" sheet of pink XPS, 1/2" urethane foam and some 12" square x 3/16 cork from Home depot.  Just some material to play with and experiment because it was handy.  Oh, glass of choice was some 6.5 oz glass, pretty tight weave.

So first thing I did was try to get the epoxy to go through two layers of the 6 oz glass that was placed against a glass surface, didn't work real well.  That tight weave didn't help it wet out and in the picture you can see the air.  I then brushed the surface of the cork with resin and pushed it down.  Then I wetted out the top and did two layers of glass.  All was done with a squeegee and I tried to get extra resin out, but did not vacuum bag it.  It is strong, but way too heavy!  13.44 oz a sq. ft heavy!  2.9 for glass, the cork was 4.8 which gives 5.7 for the resin or 198% resin to cloth ratio, wow!  Afterwards I calculated out the cork and it has a density of 19.2 oz a cubic foot!  Good grief!  Weak material and really heavy unless you go with corecork.

I also laid up two layers of 6 oz cloth on the EPS and XPS to get a feel for how strong of a surface that would be.  My china board is heavy, but the standing surface is definitely not strong enough.  I wanted to see how well glass would feel over the EPS and XPS and how it would adhere.  Sadly, not well as was expected.  The EPS actually did a little better I think due to the more open surface, the epoxy seemed to penetrate better.  The pink foam just peeled right off.  Even the half that I had hit with some 80 grit sandpaper and put some gouges into.  So yeah, delamination on the XPS pink would be a reality.  Of course, how good of adhesion can you expect on a core material that does not have any real strength?  Hence your high performance foam cores that are in the 5 and 6 pound range (or higher).

Have more work to do on layup schedule and experiments.  The final layup will definitely be a mixture.  Lighter ends and bottom, medium in back for fin, heavy where the pad will be, partial stringers.  Good thing is I can try one and then adjust on the next board. 

[bef]

LOOK AT ALL THAT BONDO!!!!!
So I finally made some progress on the deck prep of the board.  It took a few layers, but first thing was to get the middle section behind the handle flat.  Then I could run a blade between the straight middle and the outer edge filling in between them.  There is a very slight crown to the standing area from the middle out, which seems OK.  That way water is shed towards your feet and then off the back of the board where a small gap is between the pad and the raised section of the edges.  Monday I should be able to get back to this and rough sand it down to the point that I can spot putty it in and get close to the first coat of primer.  Good thing it is in a climate controlled room, the deck might move with temperature for how soft the top is.

Nose Job:
Also hit the nose with the sander and yep, went right through the thin layer of glass.  So I am going to put some epoxy and glass in there and let it set over the weekend so Monday I can start dressing that in.  Need to dig out my radius gauge set so I can match it side to side.  Been awhile since I have done work like that.

[supuk]

Last year fanatic used eps as a sandwich layer which seamed pointless I guess it was a cost saving exercise and allso Naish used xps as a sandwich layer which made a little more sence but still a bit of a cop out. I did a test board but did it with to much pressure so cut it open and the epoxy had gone a long way in which would have helped a lot in keeping water out if it got a ding but allso would add a lot of weight.

At the end of the day the high performance cores are there for a reason and work very well.

[jrandy]

Nose Job:
Also hit the nose with the sander and yep, went right through the thin layer of glass.  So I am going to put some epoxy and glass in there and let it set over the weekend so Monday I can start dressing that in.  Need to dig out my radius gauge set so I can match it side to side.  Been awhile since I have done work like that.

I would consider fresh foam or epoxy filled with microspheres on that nose repair and then hand sand the sides to match. Glass it later when things are true. An all glass+epoxy repair will be harder to sand and you may sand through again somewhere else nearby. Also, I would forget the radius gauge and use the 'force' er um I mean sidelights.

Very interesting thread, Bef. Keep it up!