Ok,
whats the go with sanding the final hotcoat...can it be done by hand...if so whats a good way to tackle it?
OR
is it strictly electric sander only??!
Thanks again everyone!
Marty
No NO,It’s quite easy, Just don’t use any wax and styrine in your filler coat, and you’ll be right as rain.
Howzit yorky, Are you saying not to add SA to the fill coat? Without SA it is just lam resin and will be harder to sand and won't be smooth either. Hope it's just a typo.Aloha,Kokua
Aloha Kokua, this was supposed to be humor, I think…
Howzit balsa, Might be but if saltbush didn't know that he might just do it the way yorky said and then he would not be a happy swayguy.Aloha,Kokua
nice kokua…if it was my thread I would have thought that was weird but would have probably done it anyway.
Thats humour, but I thought the initial question was a bit of a joke anyway ?
Ive hand sanded one board and only one. Its just incredibly slow and gruelling.
Buy a sander and do it in an hour instead of a week.
I got it Yorky.
Howzit surffoils, A grinder in the hands of the wrong person is a disaster just waiting to happen. I hand sanded a few boards back in the late 60's and it wasn't a big deal and once you get past the wax you are home free or at least we were back when lightness of the board was not a factor. I acn remember the first time I used a grinder and what a mess I made and i had a lot of patching to do afterwards. Now I love sanding with my trusty Makita.Aloha,Kokua
:-)…It would have been funny…looking back 15-18 years, a mate glassed a board I made him at his home, and did the filler in lam. He didn’t understand how or why it was so hard to get the job done… 20-30-40 or so pieces of paper (on a sander) and the board still looked shit…
…go the sander salt bush.
Ask a pro how to hold it propperly and the pad and paper etc.
Sorry about the humor.
cheers
when I was a teenager I used to glue wet and dry paper to the rubber discs that fitted in an electric drill and even that was much better than hand sanding the filler coat. A proper sander with speed control is magic compared to the electric drill.
here is an extremely short primer on sanding:
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start with the laps.
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long strokes and keep the disc travelling and floating in the same plane rather than following any undulations in imperfect glasswork. The first few strokes should just be knocking off high spots.
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use the leading edge of the disc, if you press the full surface into the board it will “grab”
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good mask with rubber seal on the face.
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overalls with masking tape sealing the wrists.
yeah dude hand sanding is sweet as. dont need a machine for your first few boards or even any boards. take down the plugs with a surform . use a nice big block, cork is good or some urethane foam and a long block . 80 grit or even 60
the trick is to get it early before it gets to hard. like the same day if possible will make all the difference. i get the areas like rails on bottom at tail and nose and plugs while the resin is still kinda half cured .
nothing wrong with hand sanding. good for the soul and is nice and peaceful and makes you strong
I use a big block of Agave wood for my hand sanding block. something like 3 x 4 x 11, When i absolutely want a flat finish to my sand job (like a wall hanger) I go to the wood chunk after I've done some machine sanding. Nothing makes a board flat like a soft flat chunk of wood with 80 grit.........Think of it like a planer for fiberglass.
Kokua, it can’t be anymore grueling than blocking out a balsa sand job, an old giant pal “Tiny Tim” Frank Mesellio used to only block sand his longboards in the 60’s
I’ve sanded a couple boards by hand. If I were you, I’d sand it with the roughest grit you can find, and once everything is good, hotcoat the board again with some styrene in the resin. Do a nice job and you can sand that coat with 220-320, skipping the need to work through the grits. I do it all the time with ding repairs. -Carl
Dont make it any harder than it has to be mate.
You wouldn't build a house without a nail gun would ya?
You can go to Bummings and get a POS random orbit sander for about $30 that will do you for years if you only do a few boards a year.
By all means try it and as Paul says it will make you strong and is possible good for the soul, but it just reeks of effort.
Yorky's humour is definitely an Australian thing. I thought it was funny anyway.
Bloke on 'dirty jobs' was buiding surfboards last night on the box. somehow didn't really compare with cleaning out the sewer pump tanks on the last one I saw.
Happy sanding.
This is a funny thread. Clearly there are two camps here. The question was a simple one, ‘Can you HAND sand instead of MACHINE sand?’ I think the answer is equally simple… of course you can, but it takes more time.
You’re next questions might be, “What’s the best way to HAND sand a hotcoat?” You’ll certainly thin this crowd out quickly.
If saltbush (Marty) or anyone is new to board building I would think that they might be a bit sloppy with the resin so when it came time to sand, there would be a lot of irregular lumps and pooling.
Sanding a board like that would be miserable, wasting sandpaper and ripping skin in equal quantities.
So initially, hand sand a few boards to learn the contours and why its important to be exact with resin.
Then,when you get a sander, certainly get an old board to practice on to build your technique so you dont root a new board.
But after youve learnt the lessons, apply those lessons to your resin work, use a sander and then you'll finish boards sooner and itch a lot less.
Then you'll spend more time in the surf and you'll find that surfing is also good for the soul, nice and peaceful and makes you strong.
And you'll smile more.
Either way is functional tho.
Come on. Hand sand. F#$K! are you serious!!!
be a man and sand by hand
short boards are a breaze 2 hours
The ''dirty little secret'' is that sanding IS the final step in shaping the board. I don't do it today, but ''in the day'' I would always have the sander do the initial rough sand, and then I would do the finish sanding, blocking and trueing all the lines, surfaces, and edges, on my personal boards. It made a difference in the final ride. The short answer to the question asked, is YES.