I’m putting in an order for my next shortboard to be made in EPS-epoxy and am curious if anyone has had any experience with the color. I want to get color, but if it’s going to look bad then I’m fine going with clear finish. Has anyone had any colors that came out particularly good (or bad) on epoxy laminates? I’m interested in everyones experience so i can make a good choice. Thanks
I’ve done 1 yellow and 1 blue. They came out true to color, just like poly.
The only problem with tinting “epoxy” is if you’re tinting over unsealed, lightweight EPS. The resin (& color) gets into the porespaces and looks uneven. But as long as your blank is sealed or is >2# density, it will look just like a poly tint.
I don’t know how well swirls would work, though, because of how you can’t work epoxy around like you do poly. You might get it draining too much & running off the rails, or bleeding together too much with the long open time, or just being really expensive with how much you’d have to pour off the rails to saturate the laps…
red bottom, yellow top on sealed 1# eps using Resin Research epoxy and pigment
I just did a swirl with epoxy on 1 lb, and the blue tint did get into the pores a bit and make it look weird, despite the fact that I spackled and sprayed on a coat or two of Krylon H2O white paint. Can’t win 'em all though. I’d suggest a clear lam and then tint or swirl on top of that. Might even out the color and prevent it from getting in the pores.
Check out a recent post by Nativeson - “Brazil-ocks epoxy swirls /tints”. He gives a good explanation of how to do epoxy swirls. I say if you want color have them do color. Hopefully the glass shop has experience and could pull it off. Otherwise they shouldn’t even offer it as a possibility.
I did my own EPS Epoxy swirl /tint and it came out great (good enough for me). The board is a 6’-3" in the resources archive if you’re interested to see the results. Bear in mind it was my first EPS EPoxy. A glass shopo should have a lot more experience. I personally don’t see it being much different than poly.
I just did a blue tint with a five color splash pattern and it came out pretty good. I think that shades of blue look best - blue, sky blue, aqua, blue-green… but that’s my preference. Be sure to seal with microballoons and epoxy (RR) for a good bond and a smooth surface, as unsealed blanks will get a speckled look with tinted resin, especially darker colors. I put a little white pigment in my sealer coat, too, just to make it look really clean. (A peel test I did comparing micro/epoxy sealer and spackle as sealer showed clearly a better bond with the micro/epoxy, tearing out more foam, while the spackle pretty much peeled off clean - like poly on clark foam.)
Use a 50-50 mix of resin/hardener and microballoons for a good texture to seal with, a small, less-than-pea-sized dollop of white epoxy pigment in the mix. Light sand, and repeat if you still see any significant divits.