Board #2 is finished, for a friend of mine. Decided to build him one when he found out he made the jet program after primary flight school, he is going to fly fighter jets for the Navy, figured he will be living near beaches for the next 10-15 years. He finally gets to see it this weekend for the first time.
Sweet board max! Your mate will be stoked.
Which epoxy did you use? I’m keen to find out how you got such a nice gloss with epoxy, what was your method?
Cheers
Ant
Hombre! If that’s your Number 2 board… whoa… That is a magnificent finish!
Restec-p as Ali-g would say…
Ant/Dave,
Thanks for the nice comments. Without the help of everyone here, and the all-powerful archives, many more mistakes would have been made. It is RR Epoxy. I learned the hard way how to sand/polish adequately from board #1, with its 2 hotcoats and 2 glosscoats, and resin panels that are sanded through at nose and tail, pics below. I got carried away with the power sander a few times. Here’s my method, I think it’s posted somewhere else, but here it is:
I do everything per ounce of resin, to make less mistakes in calculating.
1cc AddF per ounce of resin, 1cc X-55 Accelerator per ounce of resin, 1cc Denatured alcohol per ounce of resin. If you find you get brushstrokes in your coat after it gels, lessen the X-55 and add more DNA. I warm the resin 2 sec in microwave per ounce of resin.
After it cures at least 5-7 days, then wetsand. If you are good with a power sander, do it that way. I only use it for 320 grit, with a soft pad, deck/bottom only. To make sure I am not sanding too much off, I mark the entire board with a sharpie marker, and when the marks come off, I know I am done in that area. You can also do this by taking the ‘shinys’ off, but the sharpie is easier for me. I also use the sharpie when I handsand with water, but only for 320 grit. No matter how hard I try, I still end up with tiny bubbles in my coats, that when sanded into become holes, at least they don’t span the entire coat. If you keep using the sharpie beyond 320, the ink gets into the holes, and the marks are nearly impossible to get out unless you go back a grit, and then you are taking away film thickness quickly.
Since epoxy is a lot ‘softer’ material than other coatings, you have to go slowly. I use 320-400-600-800-1000 progression, but next time I may add 1200 and 1500, to save time with the rubbing compound. Once the major bumps are off with 320, I only spend about 8-10 minutes on a grit wetsanding by hand. VERY IMPORTANT. Wash the board after every grit. May be overkill, but works for me. Learned that the hard way grinding and polishing optics. The last thing you want is a piece of 320 that was hanging around somewhere getting onto the board while you are at 800, and leaving some nice scratches.
I then get the sander with the buffing pad out ($30 sander from harborfreight on sale), and use the 3M Super Duty rubbing compound, wash the board, and use Fiberglass Supply’s #2 polish. Wash board, then finish it off with a coat of TurtleWax. I can still see some scratches on it if the light is right, but the photos don’t pick them up. Also, you have to be pretty close to see them, so I don’t mind. Next week I’m sure it will have a coat of surf wax on the deck anyway, so the finish is mainly for show when my friend first sees it.
Anyway, here’s board #1: check out the most bowed stringer setup around! I had to snap a chalk line to shape this one, because of the bend in the glue-up.
Yeah I remember reading that technique about marking with the sharpie… its a good one.
Only problem for us ozzies is that RR isn’t available over here, and the epoxies we have aren’t UV stable.
I used to do the elbow grease method like you, and bring up a decent shine, but then the board would yellow anyways.
I’ve switched to sanding the board to 240/320 ish and then clear gloss coat of 2pac, which has UV protectant ability to save the yellowing, and then wetsand that a little… saves a lot of time and elbow grease.
Cheers!
Ant
Beautiful gift maxmercy. He’s gonna be stoked. Mike
