Author Topic: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.  (Read 17757 times)

Dwight (DW)

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #15 on: December 04, 2016, 05:37:40 AM »
I love the noise those resin encrusted shoes make shuffling across the floor. Mine do the same. They get slippery to walk in with all the resin stuck to the bottom. It's why you shuffle. 😃

jrandy

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #16 on: December 04, 2016, 06:35:06 AM »
Badger, thanks for the videos. I agree it's very nice of him to show his shop and good practices.

The HD foam tutorial is awesome.

The extra glass nose and tail also make sense.

Does anyone else do the 'loaded' epoxy like he shows on sealing the HD foam and before the normal fill coat? Did he use fumed silica on the foam and glass spheres on the first fill coat?

The guys at Sways talk about 'cheater' fill coats, using a small batch of plain epoxy and a squeegee to affect the surface of the lam (fill pin holes, clean off dust, disturb any other contaminants to equalize surface tensions) before doing a traditional fill coat. My understanding is that the cheater is pressed on hard and mostly pulled off. Once the remains of the cheater coat start to set, the normal wet fill coat is done.

I'd like to try Jimmy's methods sometime.

http://pushheretosavealife.com/
Be safe, have fun. -J

supthecreek

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #17 on: December 04, 2016, 06:38:55 AM »
Great series...Jimmy Lewis does a really nice job of showing most of the parts of the glassing process... and the care that must be taken.
Gives us a nice appreciation for how much work goes into building the boards that we ride.

The most impressive part for me personally, was his deft touch with the grinder..... so easy to let that thing get away from you when sanding sensitive areas.
I have a very light, multi speed, that protects me from taking too much..... his experience and touch makes it look easy. It's not.


Night Wing

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #18 on: December 04, 2016, 06:53:52 AM »
@Badger

Just reviewed Day 4, 5, and 6 videos and I'm really enjoying how sups are made. Thanks for posting all of these videos.
Blue Planet Duke: 10'5" x 32" x 4.5" @ 190 Liters (2 Dukes)
Sup Sports Hammer: 8'11" x 31" x 4" @ 140 Liters
SUP Sports One World: 11'1" x 30" x 4.5" @ 173 Liters
CJ Nelson Parallax: 9'3" x 23 1/2" x 3 3/16" @ 78.8 Liters (prone surfing longboard; Thunderbolt Technologies build in Red construction)

Off-Shore

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #19 on: December 04, 2016, 07:09:49 AM »
Great to see these and the wonderful attention to detail in a super efficient and experienced way. I worked for 2 weeks in a fibreglassing shop in Sydney making small dingys / boats and decorative panels for shopping centres in the 80s and that shuffling around on glass fibre encrusted shoes on a glass fibre encrusted floor brings back memories... this was the only job I have ever been fired from. Even though I'd built my own 8'6" windsurfing wave board before I took the job, I was not cut out for glassing day in and day out... It is a skill which even after 2 weeks I had not even begun to master... and the boss, after seeing a pitifully badly made dingy getting stuck in the mold because I had not prepared it correctly before laying down the gel coat decided enough was enough...and very professionally told me that my services where no longer needed...

Seeing this you can tell Jimmy has a rare talent in (hot mix) bucket-fulls.

So good to see a master at work.
SB 9' x 33' x 4.1" - RPC 9'8" iSUP - SB All-Star 12'6" - Blue Planet Bump Rider 14 - SB Ace 14 x 27 - RedAir 14' Elite Race - SIC Bullet 14v1 TWC - SICMaui F16v3 Custom

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/HksupaHk_SUP_and_Downwinding

Badger

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #20 on: December 04, 2016, 10:04:53 PM »
Kalama E3 6'1 x 23" 105L
Axis HPS 980 / PNG 1300
Sunova Flow  8'10 X 31"  119L
Me - 6'0" - 165lbs - 66yo

supuk

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #21 on: December 04, 2016, 10:42:49 PM »
Pretty cool series that shows every one a little more of what goes in to a basic traditional custom board + his plastic rap technique however not a fan at all of people using polyester as a gloss coat on top of epoxy, all the boards i have had to repair with this have had issues with chips, shatters, adhesion and never last well and are a pain to repair, just seams crazy to use poly at the very last step when you have built a nice durable epoxy board.

Dwight (DW)

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #22 on: December 05, 2016, 03:51:39 AM »
The lesson everyone should take away from this....don't order a gloss finish. Now you see all the extra weight you just added.

Most guys today spray paint the gloss on. Also adds weight.

I cab-o-sil my cheaters coats too. It made a massive improvement in the quality of my hot coats. I thought it was my little secret trick.  I guess not 😃

Bean

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #23 on: December 05, 2016, 06:50:39 AM »
Pretty cool series that shows every one a little more of what goes in to a basic traditional custom board + his plastic rap technique however not a fan at all of people using polyester as a gloss coat on top of epoxy, all the boards i have had to repair with this have had issues with chips, shatters, adhesion and never last well and are a pain to repair, just seams crazy to use poly at the very last step when you have built a nice durable epoxy board.

It just comes down to production cost.  A gloss finish on epoxy requires a multi-step sanding (to 2000-3000 grit) and polishing operation that adds significant cost in man hours and supplies to the process.  If everyone else in the industry shortcuts this process, and you don't, you will eat the extra costs.

SUPflorida

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #24 on: December 05, 2016, 08:37:19 AM »
Caution...master at work...most home builders trying to sand the laminate lap with a stiff 8" pad with 40-60 paper on a 5,000 rpm grinder are heading for disaster. Same with sanding out hot coat with 60 gritt with 8" pad on a 1750-2,500 rpm sander/polisher.
Pay close attention to how he keeps the tool moving quickly and continuously. These aggressive grits can eat into/through the laminate in a heartbeat.

One main thing to take away from this is even a pro like Jimmy spends a considerable amount of time building a board. What he is showing is the accelerated
"Readers digest" version. In today's marketplace a custom board like this is a true bargain considering the time and materials going into it. Where else can you get a hand made piece of art for that kind of money? And you can actually use it for more than a wall decoration.

TallDude

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #25 on: December 05, 2016, 10:00:48 AM »
Caution...master at work...most home builders trying to sand the laminate lap with a stiff 8" pad with 40-60 paper on a 5,000 rpm grinder are heading for disaster. Same with sanding out hot coat with 60 gritt with 8" pad on a 1750-2,500 rpm sander/polisher.
Pay close attention to how he keeps the tool moving quickly and continuously. These aggressive grits can eat into/through the laminate in a heartbeat.

One main thing to take away from this is even a pro like Jimmy spends a considerable amount of time building a board. What he is showing is the accelerated
"Readers digest" version. In today's marketplace a custom board like this is a true bargain considering the time and materials going into it. Where else can you get a hand made piece of art for that kind of money? And you can actually use it for more than a wall decoration.
+1... I might add that moving the sander fast also keeps from over heating a specific area which will cause delaming. My friend who sands boards for a living, says he always hand sands the rails. He'll go a quick 80 grit then 200 for a sanded finish.
It's not overhead to me!
8'8" L-41 ST and a whole pile of boards I rarely use.

supuk

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #26 on: December 05, 2016, 12:30:09 PM »
Pretty cool series that shows every one a little more of what goes in to a basic traditional custom board + his plastic rap technique however not a fan at all of people using polyester as a gloss coat on top of epoxy, all the boards i have had to repair with this have had issues with chips, shatters, adhesion and never last well and are a pain to repair, just seams crazy to use poly at the very last step when you have built a nice durable epoxy board.

It just comes down to production cost.  A gloss finish on epoxy requires a multi-step sanding (to 2000-3000 grit) and polishing operation that adds significant cost in man hours and supplies to the process.  If everyone else in the industry shortcuts this process, and you don't, you will eat the extra costs.

indeed it does polyester is a breez compared to sand compared to epoxy but that says something about it too! to me doing it all with epoxy you end up with a far higher quality board. I would always sand to 600-800 for a matt Finnish so its not a million miles away to get it to polish. you don't get quite the shine unless you spray a clear coat but i could never bring myself to dump a load of polyester over the top of a nice epoxy board, its something i kinda now associate with a china made board not a custom.

Area 10

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #27 on: December 05, 2016, 12:45:00 PM »
If anything, Jimmy is making this look *too* easy. Any of us who have attempted doing a decent repair will know how much skill and effort is required for that, never mind building a board from scratch. There are a thousand ways it can all go t*ts up. But is is useful for people to know that this is how boards are built - many newbies just think they are popped out of a mold just as they are and then a deck pad slapped on, stuck in a box and given to the shipping companies. They don't imagine for one minute that each stage is hand done, one at a time, even for "production boards".

SUPflorida

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #28 on: December 05, 2016, 03:50:42 PM »
If anything, Jimmy is making this look *too* easy. Any of us who have attempted doing a decent repair will know how much skill and effort is required for that, never mind building a board from scratch. There are a thousand ways it can all go t*ts up. But is is useful for people to know that this is how boards are built - many newbies just think they are popped out of a mold just as they are and then a deck pad slapped on, stuck in a box and given to the shipping companies. They don't imagine for one minute that each stage is hand done, one at a time, even for "production boards".

So right Area 10, the cream of the crop in any discipline always makes the difficult look like child's play.

surfcowboy

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Re: Jimmy Lewis board construction videos.
« Reply #29 on: December 05, 2016, 06:46:28 PM »
Thanks to whoever made the video too. It's hard to shoot and edit a video and we really need them in this sport. Kudos.

Also, yes, don't try a lot of these techniques if you're a first timer. All that sanding he's doing is the pro way. I start at a much higher grit. Longer process but way more room for mistakes. Each board I sneak down a grit but man, he's starting with crazy rough grit! Fast but only for pros.

This and DW's video and all the rest are Godsends for the home builder.

 


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