Fabric / CF skinning

Did you do anything specific to line up the center of the print with the center of the deck? Or just eyeball it?

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That was a big challenge to say the least.


I gridded up the cardboard below during a dry layout mock up. Centered the board within the grid, and then marked the fabric(sharpie) corresponding with the grid(deck had already shifted b4 this pic, but imagine the sharpie marks lining up with the cardboard lines).
There was still some eyeball work while laying. Timing the tack was quite integral, enough tack to adhere, but not so much so that you can readjust.
I had my better half help in the laying. This helped immensely so I could eyeball the sharpie marks, get the center down and work my half down while she held up one side. Then I took over her side and layed the rest.

There were a few adjustments needed on both decks, which entailed pulling the fabric back up(partial or all).
The whole time, eyeballing from both directions to try and get the straightest lines possible.

A real PIA, a non symmetrical design/layout would be immensely easier for fabric application. The fabric is really easy to warp and stretch so trying to keep even pressure with hand holds is important.


I’m quite happy with how this one turned out, definitely not perfect, but pretty good.
A life long shred homie has a zealot, so i think I’ll put him on this so I can keep an eye on the durability of the flexy skinned deck. If it was a stiff deck I wouldn’t worry a bit.

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How you were able to make white as white and black at the same time? Most fabrics I tried are getting a bit transparent after resin is applied. Then color of wood stats to be visible.
Also I tried polyester fabrics with print (they print flags this way). I did it in vacuum bag and this worked like delaminating fabric and I could pill it of easily. So nothing really worked for me :frowning:

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A few basecoats with white pigment added helped make the white pop and didnt seem to effect the black.
I think only 2 coats is needed for non white fabrics which is what I did for the orange/red vanguard.
2 basecoats wasn’t enough under the white on my sample blocks, some knots in the wood shown through.

If you look real close on the black/white deck near the rails, you can see the wood color coming through.
I had issues with the basecoats sticking there.
It may have had to to with the direction of my final brush strokes, or the heat gun while popping bubbles may have thinned it off the edge.

About fabric adhesion, I did a slight pull test on my sample blocks after a full cure, and I was able to pull up the corner without too much effort.
I believe the next coat after fabric layment is what really locks it in. I’ll do a full pull test on my finished test blocks later to confirm.
@glyphiks @rosco Any input on fabric adhesion that @Lukas asked about?

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Ah thanks for the in-depth write up! That makes sense, I knew you’d worked out some system to get the alignment. You and your better half did a bang up job.

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I decided to get some cotton based materials.
They bond really well and quality is good. On one sample I applied a pressure and surface is smooth and really good. Now I have to check how they behave after cuting and drilling.

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I personally don’t see the need for a vacuum while skinning.

On the test that delaminated, did you put any sort of basecoat on the timber first? If not, the timber could have absorbed too much of the resin for the fabric to make a good bond

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There were 4 layers of glass fibre under as I wanted to make the deck stonger. Plan was to do it in one go with graphics and you might be right that there was not enough resin…
So you are using polyester cloth and it bonds good?

Yeah dude, polyester has been bonding well for me. But to be fair, I haven’t actually done a pull test on it.

I have some minor chipping of the top coat epoxy on my ride from where I stand the board on it’s end

, but no delam

Edit: if you are applying your resin to fibreglass, you may have a resin compatibility issue?

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Oh never heard about that… How can I check is it the case?

Polyester resin and epoxy resin often don’t play well together.

If your resin has a strong, distinct chemical smell, it’s likely polyester.

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Yup, polyester smells, but Polyester stinks. Vinylester also stinks.
If is sanded for good roughness that’s gonna help adhesion with a mechanical key. May not be enough tho. is mixing types even with that no bueno?

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Eh i don’t know for sure, read and heard so many different things.

My experience says polyester and epoxy together are no bueno.

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I’ve never had any issues with bonding epoxy to fibreglass. Sand the shit outta it first, should be fine.

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First of all thanks to all of you for help. By polyester I was talking about fabric material not resin.
Resin is 100% epoxy.
Bond between wood and fiber glass is strong but between fg and polyester cloth with graphics is almost none. I was thinking about what @glyphiks said about lack of resin. Please take a look.


Those spots where trucks come have more resin as they wasn’t so tight in the bag. All layers of fiber glass is super hard and I can grind the edges easily with no delamination. You can see the cloth is stiff as it took some resin but still pill of suuuuuper easy.
It kind of looked ok but wasn’t.

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That’s bizarre dude, I’m really stumped as to why that would be happening.

When the polyester fabric is removed, is it holding resin? Or is it acting more like a peel ply?

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How permeable is that fabric? Is it possible that it acted as a barrier instead of be fused between layers?

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It’s like that. It took small amount of resin … changed from silky fabric to more like plastic bag.

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Hmm, definitely sounds like the fabric hasn’t bonded at all. Maybe the fabric you used has a different sizing to what we’ve been using :thinking:

Curious to know how the cotton finishes when bagged, when you use it without a bag, the texture it leaves is difficult to finish smooth without using loads of resin and sandpaper.

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I’ve ran into this before back in 76. Most of the time it was wax that didn’t dry.

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