I am new to shaping and glassing and have an idea that I dont know will work . . now I am also new to swaylocks but I have been searching the archives on this subject for a while with no result, even after rewording my search as many ways as I could think of, so I joined on to ask the question I couldnt find . . . anyways I have recently laid my lam coat on one of my boards that I want to do a glossy finish but I dont want to add any more weight (which it is fairlly heavy already) can I lay a gloss coat instead of a hot coat?? I think it would work considering theres wax in the gloss resin, but I dont know if layin gloss to laminant resin causes problems??
If anyone can give me info on this subject, it would be greatly appreciated, and as I said before there might already be a discussion on this that I couldnt find for the life of me, so if you know that there is please reply w/ the link or something thanks
peace,
Zach
It normaly go’s like this
Lam
sand or hot coat which actualy stifens up the board
then gloss if desired
the sand coat is a little thicker coat than a gloss coat so you can sand the board smooth
and gloss resin is for mostly cosmetics and a final seal it is harder when cured and will most likely crack under stress
you can do the sand coat and polish that
right on, well whats the difference between sand coat and hot coat??
its the same thing
just different terminology
Just add some extra surfacing agent and your good to go, polishes out pretty nice…
awesome so if I add some more wax solution I can just throw on some rubbing compound and buff it as if it were a gloss coat?? but also how much more wax? at this point Im at an ounce of wax per quart of resin
dont add any more than the recomended amount of surfacing agent
how big is this board?
hey crown royal, I sanded a friends board who wanted a really shiny finish. what I did was after sand out all the big lumps and getting uniform finish I used wet/dry sand paper(used wet) progressively down to 1500 grit. this produced a really shiny finish, i supposed one could use a buffing wheel to make it even smoother. just be really careful not to sand through the hot coat.
Resin is just glue for the fiberglass. Lam resin is that, it laminates the cloth to the foam or whatever. The hotcoat, or sanding resin fills the little voids in the lamination which you should have if you did a proper lamination. You should only use enough to fill the weave. Don’t let it puddle up. Also the sanding resin has wax in it so you can sand it without gumming up the sand paper. So now you have perfectly laminated board but it will have some ridges from the laps and what not. So you sand the all this mess down to where it is flat and smooth…but you will have hit the weave in a bunch of spots. This is where the gloss resin comes in. If you leave exposed sanded through cloth, the water will wick just like a peice of wood, so you use the gloss to stop that. If you dont want to use gloss you cn use Future floor polish or clear spray paint.
So we get back to your question about gloss in place of sanding resin. The answer is no. Glos is brittle, too much styrene and wax, gloss is a cosmetic thing mainly. Now you can use sanding resin for gloss in a pinch, but sanding resin is too soft to get a real good shine…unless you work (sand) it for a really long time. Theres a reason we do it particular way, if there was an easier way, we’d be doing it. Don’t use gloss for sanding resin 1) too hard. 2) too expensive. 3) Brittle board.
So how close to a mirror finish can you get buffing out sanding resin? If you sanded up to, say, 600 then buffed/polished, howz that going to compare?
Thank you resinhead that was very informative, one other thing I was wondering though is can you add wax to your laminant coats so that its easier to get down any mess ups, or does that interfere with the connection to the foam and laps
Nope, no wax in the lam coat. Adding wax to the lam coat will give you a bad bond when you put sanding resin over it. What you need to do is use a surform or grinder to flatten down the laps before you put the hot coat on.
thats what I figured, like you said before if there was an easier way to do it, than everyone would be doin it already . . anyways thanks for all the knowledge guys Ill post some pictures of the quiver me and my buddy are building once theyre done
peace
Zach
The short answer is that you don’t need a hot coat or sand coat. The coat you put over the lamination can be sufficient if you lay it on thick, and it has surfacing agent in it (or you use sanding resin or surfacing resin).
That said, I always go with the three-coat method. The last (gloss) coat is heavily thinned with styrene so it has practically no thickness. Also, if your lam coat has pinholes in it, there is always a chance that the hot coat will not fill them all, so three coats is good insurance. DAMHIK.
Its possible to finish a board to full gloss with no “Rub-outs” straight off the filler coat.
This takes a serious quality job of lap-grinding however…Prep scuff the lam to knock weave pimple-tops off prior to filler also, (…an epoxy thing…) go really easy on the wet-rub of the rails, and slow buff only.
This is a good way to reduce weight.
Josh
bizgravy
yes you can get a nice shine from a hot coat. it’s not quite as “mirror-like” as a gloss coat, but its close. i use this process on boards that i have done the paint job on top of the hot coat, but it will produce the same results w/out paint.
-lightly sand the the paint or hoat coat with at least 800 grit wet/dry sand paper (i usually go up to 1200 grit)
-seal the paint with 3 coats of acrylic clear coat from a can - usually krylon crystal clear. (lightly sand between the 1st and 2nd coats of clear to smooth out)
-once dry, use a polishing compound and buffer pad to bring out the shine. (hint- spread the compound around with the pad before you turn on the polisher, otherwise you will add a nice amount of compound to whatever you are wearing)
-finally, seal with “dolphin skin” or some other brand of sealant and final buff out
brasco