A Gloss prep question

General Discussion
1

I’m about to gloss a board that I’ve had some major problems with. It’s all hotcoated and sanded down with 60grit. I guess either the hotcoat was a little thin or I had some glass that didn’t get a good bond. There are two different things happening in a few areas:

  • In a couple small spots, maybe 1/2" round, it appears that the hotcoat “chipped” off or something. You can visibly see a little “crater”. Should a gloss coat fill this in? It’s VERY shallow, about as deep as piece of paper is thin.

  • I had to hand sand this entire board, so it took a long time to get all the shinies out with the 60grit on a block. I’m afraid if I sand the whole thing with 100 or 150 grit, I will get major sand throughs, more than I have now :wink:

If I leave it at 60, I’m sure all those gnarly scratches will show up under the gloss, right?

Thanks in advance.

2

have you considered re-hotcoating the board, instead of glossing it now, with the big scratches and sand-thrus?

you can always gloss it later.

3

No, actually, I hadn’t considered that…Will a second hot coat hide the scratches, or are you suggesting sanding the first one down as much as possible and THEN re-hotcoating it? That’s ALOT of work with a 6" block by hand ;(

4

hard to suggest which is better without seeing the board. If you want, you can bring it by this weekend and use my sander to take it down more, then re-hotcoat it. Might as well do it right, no?

5

Here’s a couple pics, maybe you can see what I’m talking about here. Maybe I’m just being too picky and should just gloss it, I don’t know…

6

What if you gloss it, and if it doesn’t look good enough for you then pretend like it was just a second hotcoat.

7

Like Keith said; it is hard to tell without seeing the board. It sounds like you should get rid of the scratches or at least hand sand with a finer grit. If you’ve sanded pretty decent(no shinys), but have scratches, go to a finer grit. Save yourself extra steps and jump to 180. 180 is coarse enough to reduce the scratches, but fine enough to minimize burn-thrus. Use a no-fill paper, it does a nicer job and cuts faster. When you’ve reduced the scratches, blow the board of with air or wipe down with a painters’ tack cloth. Re-hotcoat the board with what I call a piss-coat. Catalyzed surfacing resin thinned 10-15% with acetone. Resand the board. Get rid of that s#%t 60 grit and start the board with 80grit no-fill, then go to finer grit as you deem necessary. The piss-coat will take care of the burn-thrus. 60grit is like putting in a request for serious scratches. Especially if you use regular old garnite paper. I usually start with 80grit or 120 depending on how good a lay-up and hotcoat I have done. I use a special order paper, that only a couple of other guys know the benifits of, I can only say that it is a no-fill. McDing

8

Your 60 grit sanded board will receive a finish coat and be okay, just don’t styrene thin the finish resin. You can leave it thick in places where it needs to be.

Then go surfing, that’s what we do when we’re not typing stuff to post here (if we’re lucky). South shore is coming up this afternoon, 45 minutes to blastoff.

9

Hey man, I would fill those holes in. Gloss resin goes on so thin that you will probably see them. The scratches are fine, 60 grit sanded is fine for gloss prepping. Since it would be easy to fill the holes in now, do it so you don’t run the risk of any weirdness in the gloss coat. -Carl

10

Yup, that’s exactly what I did…I filled in the holes with a little sanding resin and am about to gloss. I’m at that point where I want to get this thing done for my buddy SOOOO bad, only because I can’t wait to shape the next blank in my garage! Damn, I’d make a horrible professional shaper…No patience. Thanks for the replies.

11

What would happen, if anything, if you didn’t sand or polish a gloss coat? Just gloss it and leave it as is…Just curious, 'cause it looks so damn nice, then you go take all the shine off, and so far my luck with bringing any shine back has been slim to none…

12

I guess if he wanted to he wouldn’t have to sand it at all or maybe use 36grit. You can’t make up for a poor hotcoat by globbing on finish resin. That is why I suggested the re-hotcoat followed by a standard gloss. Am I mistaken? I didn’t notice that anyone had said anything about thinning resin with styrene. I thought gloss coats were supposed to be applied evenly. I was was taught and told to apply evenly and thin on the gloss. The object is to have a nice even surface that will wet and dry sand easily, without having to work extra hard to remove brush marks and globs or areas where the resin is thicker. Get out the #2 and polish! It took me a few years to learn that if I wanted a nice gloss without the scratches I could not afford to skip any step in the process. McDing

13

hey Tenover, back in the day that’s how a lot of manufacturers finished their boards: super-clean gloss and (SUREFORM !!!) the tape line, done. I guess it is up to you and the customer. The original function of gloss resin was to seal the porous sanded hotcoat and add a hard shell. ALL sanded hotcoats are micro-porous, and because of the paraffin and formulation are “softer” than gloss, so with the sealing out of the way the added benefit you can get is that gloss polishes-out to an automotive finish. This did well with the surfboard showrooms of the day, takes some of the dead weight from the gloss coat off, and just plain looks BITCHIN’…

14

nothing is more rewarding thatn taking the many steps to bring out the mirror finish from a gloss coat. Done correctly you will be amazed at just how simple it is and how wonderful the results can be!

Trust me, it is so worth polishing out the gloss coat.

Drew

15

All right then, I’ll go through the process again…Gloss, wet sand with 320, then 500, then #2 rubbing compund, then poilsh…

16

tenover,

I start with 220, very lightly with this grade. make sure the sander is n the slowest setting.

Then 320, then 400, then 600 NEVER WET sand.

Then I use super rubbing compound by 3m, then medium cut then fine cut, then micro finishing compound, then marine wax.

Perhaps overkill, but you can definitley see a difference in quality.’

Drew

17

I asked a question about the gloss process a while back and got as many different “right” answers as you could imagine. And another thing, I am doing this by hand, not with a sander, so yes, the speed will be slow…

18

Drew, why never wet? Are the thousand rubout guys doing something wrong?

19

i meant never wet sand the first step with 220. Pardon my incorrect placmenet.

But i suppose that you could wet sand this stage. But I am to cheap to by the 220 wet-dry paper.

Drew

20
Quote:

Yup, that’s exactly what I did…I filled in the holes with a little sanding resin and am about to gloss. I’m at that point where I want to get this thing done for my buddy SOOOO bad, only because I can’t wait to shape the next blank in my garage! Damn, I’d make a horrible professional shaper…No patience. Thanks for the replies.

Did you really mean “sanding resin”? You sanded it down afterwards I assume? Well, for next time you might try this: use lam resin, put a tiny bit on, and smooth it over the holes with a squeegee. Slowly add more until it just fills the hole. Use the right amount and a light touch of squeegee and you almost won’t be able to tell where the hole was. No need to sand. Now it’s all ready for the gloss coat.

Oh yea… make sure the board is level wherever the hole is.