Buying a blank and glassing it for the 1st time

[Donkey]

I have been working with a lot of carbon fiber and glass fiber wrap for my job. I noticed the fiber wrap comes from Hexcel and the glass fiber is very similar to the S2 glass fiber on one of my boards.

Due to boards being really expensive I want to try and glass my own board. I was able to find a shaper who is willing to sell me blanks for 50-80 dollars. Am I crazy trying to do this? Can anyone give me some advise on this? So far I have a lot of experience laying this glass and carbon fiber on concrete decks and concrete beams/columns..... but never any surfboards

[CHarvey]

Go to swaylocks.com and do a search on that in there forums. Should be able to find the needed information there as I have seen several of the shapers in that forum using carbon fiber in their builds.

[Donkey]

Thanks. Swaylocks is just what I was looking for and had some nice videos.

[tomcat360]

You seem to skip over the part where you have to shape....you know blanks aren't shaped right?

[Donkey]

Oh yeah, I know blanks aren't shaped. He is going to shape it for me. Shaping is nothing I want to mess with, I just want to slap on the carbon or glass fiber wrap.

[CHarvey]

LMAO!!!!! You know it didn't even occur to me that he mentioned nothing about that part of the equation.
Classic.

[tomcat360]

Haha alright, it's probably going to be much more delicate than you are used to. Very meticulous, if doing concrete is anything like boats or something, then it has to be much much cleaner and more precise.

[Donkey]

I figure it's going to be delicate and precise. If it goes wrong, no big deal it's worth the gamble. The blanks are 1/10 the price of a new board and the fiber wrap and epoxy isn't costing me anything.

[tomcat360]

Rock it then dude. Post your results. Also you gotta have more flexible glass for glassing surfboards, most people use vacuum bags for CF or other really stiff material.

[oldgrom]

When It comes to carbon fiber the only real way to have it bond corectly is to aoutoclave it ,second to that is vacume mold it. But what the hey I say go for it it's not costing you much and what's the worst that could happen.