the post about color changing surfboards brought an old memory to the surface. I remember that Dewey Weber did a series of boards in which the color was in the cloth and they were laid up using clear resins—i seem to think that there were several colors—blue, yellow red and green…i don’t think the stuff was around more than a couple of years. Why? seems like a good idea?
Aloha Walrus
Been a long time since I dealt with Color Flow Cloth but…
Sand throughs destroyed the color. The glass had to be covered with a lot of resin (thick hot coats) to prevent this from happening, which made them heavy at a time when everyone was striving for lightness.
To keep the color uniform, the weave was extremely tight. Resin wouldn’t easily pass through or wet out the fibers. If I remember right the reccommendation from the Mfg was to wet the blank first then lay out the cloth and wet it more.
Too labor intensive, too costly, too heavy and all boards looked the same color wise… And gain was ??? Pretty much zero!
ColorFlo was the brainchild of Grant Reynolds. Early 70s. He had his own label, “California Company”. He was also a partner with Hap Jacobs, as I recall.
More about Reynolds and ColorFlo, here: