Do you sand this 2nd hot coat? I’m assuming yes. But what grit paper do you use? I checked the Gloss Coating link (http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/help-something-similar-to-gloss-coat) and there was some back and forth about starting with 220 vs 120. It looks like 220 should be the starting grit, and the go up from there, right?
I have a finbox + FCS. Do I just tape over the openings, apply the 2nd hot coat and then remove the tape after an hour or so? Or is there a better method?
With epoxy, you aren’t going to get it all shiny. So, what I do is laminate my glass and then do a fill coat. If I sand through the fill coat, I do a secon fill coat. I start with 100 grit, then 150, 220, 300, maybe 600 and then rubbing compound. That works for me.
If you already have the boxes in and are going to do another coat, just tape over the holes until the resin is cured and then you can cut the tape out.
On one board, lammed with epoxy, then hotcoated with epoxy, I sanded the deck too much and – with a much more experienced board maker’s help – added another very thin hotcoat. Because the first hotcoat was sanded down to a smooth finish, and because we got a little lucky with the second hotcoat really sitting flat, it came out glossy and clean and didn’t need to even be sanded; it looked like it had been, and like it had been polished really nicely – except that the finish is cleaner than any polish I’ve seen. I took down the seam line, and that was it. The sanding line, where the seam was, wasn’t as perfectly glossy, of course. Moral of the story, to me: if you’re going to re-coat, the more perfect your finish before the hotcoat, the higher the chances are that you’ll have a minimum of sanding to do, or even almost none at all.
For a different board, I shaped it and had it glassed at a well-known maker’s factory. Their fill/hot-coat, which I got to see before it was sanded, was much, much thicker and rougher than any I’ve done (but I’ve only done a half-dozen boards). This made me appreciate the extent to which my own glassing issues are really about my lack of post-hotcoat sanding skill, i.e. at this stage I still try to get lucky by getting a hotcoat to need very little overall sanding because chances are high that if I have to sand much I’ll end up burning through to the cloth at some point. In other words, at least for me, as a beginning board builder, the best thing I can do is try and develop better sanding skills for the post-hotcoat work. If I had better sanding skills I’d be much more apt to put on a thicker hotcoat, and only have to apply one, instead of having to do a “fill coat,” then sand, and clean/wash, and then hotcoat and sand again, or at the worst do a fillcoat followed by an immediate recoat (to add thickness), and still only have to sand once. Again, the upshot is that if I had better sanding skills, I’d hotcoat differently because I’d be able to get away with skipping a sanding step.
Batfische, I know exactly what you’re talking about. When I did my hot coat on this board, it turned out pretty nice and glossy. I was all fired up because I felt proud of my hot coat and how consistent it was. This is board #5 so I was stoked on my work. I was hesitant to sand it but it was pretty heavy and I need to practice sanding so I went ahead and sanded it. I definitely went too far in some areas with my sanding and now wonder if I should do another filler coat and sand again.
Here’s a pic. It used to be one of those soft top Surface boards. It fell apart so I stripped it down to the blank and went from there.
Back in the olden days all surfboards were gloss coated. At some point in the late 80’s surfboards needed to be lighter and thinner, and smaller with tons of rocker…much lighter and thinner !!!
To the point where most average guys could no longer surf…because we were told we had to ride a Potato Chip that only Kelly could ride…
…and then we rode through the longboard Revolution…started out good but for some reason we were told we had to surf our longboards like a shortboard. And our boards needed to be thinner and lighter,with more rocker…ect.
and the fish Retro Redo was fun and now the fat board fun stuff…One day you shape and glass your own surfboard. A Board that breaks the rules. And one day you sand your first board. You are going to have problems…sand throughs, boogers, problems with the overlaps. Fin box install f’ups…it’s going to happen…do a little patch work. sand everything really good and do a second hot coat…just like a gloss coat in the olden days.
Stingray does a second “hot coat” to make sure the glass job is nice…really nice…no sand throughs or pin air…everything gets sealed nice and tight.
It’s kinda like Additive F…not required…works for me…Stingray.
Your prose was nice…I envisioned a 30 second movie clip of surfing…starting with Endless Summer transitioning to pros in neon yellow wetsuits in the 80s…we’re now in the 90s with potato chip boards…fade into hp longboards…transition to hipsters now riding “what feels right”…all set to some cool tehcno music lightly thumping in the background.
All joking aside, you’ve accurately described all the issues we back yard board makers go through. Good to have Swaylocks here as a resource to minimize historical mistakes. Based on your response, I think it’s safe to say to do the 2nd hot coat and sand it as if it’s a gloss coat…but stop once I think my crappy sanding skills is going to hit the weave.
I just remind myself…I surf because it’s fun and I make my own boards because I can.
You should aim for only a single hotcoat, 2nd hotcoats are for sanding screwups - which happen all the time, even for the pros.
Sand to 150, if burn throughs happen then tape off the finboxes and lay down another thin hotcoat. We add a bit of Xylene to Resin Research epoxy to thin it out a bit more to help it flow out.
And, yes, sometimes we do epoxy glosscoats on purpose. The trick to polish epoxy is to get a good sand out on the original hotcoat (to 150 grit), lay down a dead flat glosscoat, start sanding at 320/400 (depending on how flat the gloss is). Then wetsanding 600, 800, 1000, 1200, compound and polish.
Here’s a pick of a Marty Bennett 6’0" freshly glossed with RR quick kick PH
Hello, I hope you will answer to this question in this threat about epoxy glass job. I’m doing a fin (twins keel) for a minisimmon, using a epoxy resin (sicomin) . After trying for a second time a hotcoat, I get the same problem again, some spots are sepparating from the flat surface. I have try changing brush, temp, clean area, etc…but still the same problem…
here is a pic to show the details…any advise will be appreciated!
