Did my epoxy gloss yesterday and the deck came out beautiful. The bottom however, was lumpy and did’nt adhere at all in spots. I’m wondering if I should just sand it off and re-gloss, or try and fix this. suggestions?
Vern:
Looks like you are are going to be sanding. Can’t tell from the photo how deep the imperfections are. Start with 320, if it heats up and not cutting deep enough, go to a more agressive grit, 220 or 120 as needed. On your regloss, try heating up the Part A in a microwave for 10-15 secs. prior to adding the hardener to improve the flow of this final coat. Remember, if you can see the surface imperfections under your sanding side lights you are very likely going to see them after the glosssing stage. It’s all good, you learned a good lesson and it only cost you a few ounces of resin.
Tom S.
vern,
I was doing the same thing yesterday in the garage. I noticed the finish starting to get messed up. I had the garage door up about six inches to vent the garage a little. I closed the garage door completely the resin smoothed out the best it could before it gelled and hardened. I glossed the deck around 3 pm it was still about 85 degrees in the garage. The deck
came out pretty nice. I don’t know if its a coincidence but I think every time that I had a problem with a hot coat or a gloss coat I was doing it outside or some place where an air draft was. So I was wondering if you had the same experience?
Mike
Tom,
Yeah, I think I’m sanding it off.
Mike,
typically I would do this in my garage, but I wanted to see if dust was my issue this time, so I glossed in the open area of the kitchen/dining room with all the windows closed. I have concluded dust is not the issue, possibly the sandpaper I used or more likley, blowing it off with the aircompressor.
Thanks for both your replies.
“blowing it off with the aircompressor”
ding ding ding!
prolly oil in the air; gotta make sure it’s contaminant free; it’s not that there wasn’t adhesion; it’s that it fisheyed. Use Additive F, if you’ve got it, and make sure it’s all in solution before you mix. Wipe board down with a rag saturated in denatured alcohol or xylenes. Remove all oils.
For what you’ve got there, I WOULDN’T go as far as sanding it all off, cause you’re gonna get sandthroughs. I would sand it down a bit, for sure, with a coarse grit. Any shinys; hit’em with the coarse sandpaper backed by a soft foam pad to make sure the grit gets in there. Once the entire surface you plan on glossing is sanded out nicely (I like 120), hose the board down (to remove all sanding dust), let it dry, wipe it down with denatured (to remove oils) and you’re ready to go again.
good luck! HTH. Air compressors bad…
Hey Vern,
Don’t go too crazy, you might be able to sand it down and get a polish out of it. Only recoat if you absolutely have to.
Also next time just dust the board off with a paper towel or cheese cloth, the board will never be as clean as it is right after a good sand. No need to wash, rub, alchol bath, etc., just dust off. Also it’s not the fine dust from 220 that leaves zits, it’s all the other stuff floating around. A little 220 dust is like sifted flour, it just melts into the epoxy. Ususally crap comes from that Gloss brush that didn’t get a good clean last time. You know the crispy brush that you bend to make soft again?? Well, all those little crispy you just made, that are lodged way up in the bristles work there way down just as soon as some nice slippery epoxy helps them move via gravity…thats where the zits come from.
Tom S is right, make sure the Epoxy & additive F is good and thin, meaning good and luke warm. Also make sure you don’t put it on too thick, a little goes a long ways
And by all means, use a new brush. Don’t touch the board after it’s been sanded (use paper towels), and use good masking tape for the drip edge. Do this and you will never have fish eyes, or F-ups
In reading the archives, definitely two schools of thought on the denatured alcohol. I have always had a certain amount of fisheyes, typically pretty small. I have always used new chip brushes (cheap, throwaways) and wiped the board clean with DNA. I also always heat the resin +/- 10 seconds in the micro and use Add “F”. The only thing new here was the environment, blowing it off with the air (prior to cleaning with dna) and a splash of DNA in the mix.
dna, brush, or combo ??
GWN & Resinhead, Thanks for the replies.
Don’t wipe or mix DNA into the Epoxy. DNA isn’t 100% pure. it can have a certain % of water or some other bad thing.
Also once the can is opened, you start to accumilate condensation…water. Water in epoxy bad. Warm epoxy with additive F is plenty thin to do a gloss.
Wiping down a board with a liquid only turns the dust particles into paste and forces it into the pinholes. So now you just bondo’d all the pinholes with white epoxy mud…sweet
If you have to dust the board off beyond a papertowel or cheese cloth thing, use a fine, stiff, bristle brush to work the dust out of the hole. I use a tooth brush for the stubborn ones sometimes.
Clean epoxy over clean epoxy will never fish eye.
Also make sure you never have any hand lotion, soap residue, oily bug spray, etc…, on your hands. Make sure before you touch the board you wash and rinse you hand throughly… I mean Howard Hughes clean. Sometime us garage guys are multi-tasking, sanding a board getting it set up, getting it clean. Then you go and spray a tree for bugs, maybe put on some sunscreen. Then you come back touch the clean board, BAMMM…poisioned gloss coat.
I tracked down my culprit one time to sunscreen. Left fisheyes in finger prints on the rails.
Hey guys
my 2 cnts
I’ve only done a few boards but learned the hard way on the first one. Luckily my bud (Jeff Wells) saved it for me.
Thank you Jeff.
This is what I know now…
right before you gloss coat sand the board with 100 to 220 grit paper (which ever floats your boat)
keep your hands lightly coated with dust (absorbs oils)
put a freshly laundered white cotton sock on your hand/arm and dust the surface
dont rub hard just enough to get the dust off
Tape rail
once more with the sock
apply gloss
Like the other’s have said, a little dust melts back into the resin or epoxy
dont use tack rags or any solvent or alcohal…not needed