The boards are all pale yellow or brown and look like they’ve been roasting in the sun for hours, but from what I’ve been able to find they were shaped from clean white blanks.
I’m about to start lamination on a 70s 3 fin bonzer style board that will be a surprise for my dad when he comes for a visit to Florida this fall and I wanted to capture that aged board look for him. What would I do to get a similar color effect? Any ideas what they’re using to make these boards look the way they do? Maybe a pale yellow/brown foam stain or lam resin? Any tips would be more than welcome.
Furthermore, just to clarify, I’m interested in the yellowed tint of these boards, not so much making them actually look aged (i.e. dings, water damage, etc.), not looking to give my dad a wall hanger or a purely decorative board. Should be functional and just want that slightly sunfaded look Alex and Ellis were able to capture in their board series.
Just to clarify: I didn’t post that to show or tell you what to do, or to show you what Alex and Ellis did, but to show what I did. Hence the post title “what I did”. You can do whatever you want.
I had a certain vision in mind (see pic) of the look I was after for my board, which is not a decorative wall hanger, but a fully functional surfboard.
But part of the desired look was a yellowed foam like you would see in an older board that’s been out in the sun. I accomplished this with paint on the raw foam before glassing, as shown.
For what it’s worth the end result is very convincing, no one has seen it as anything but an old yellow board.
Yeah I get that. I totally dig what you ended up with. Works well and I think you achieved what you set out to do. Really cool board man. Like I said, painting the foam might be my best option but I’m still hoping someone on here knows how these guys achieved this look with these boards. Thanks for the input Huck, your words are appreciated.
How’s about a yellow or brown tint job. Maybe yellow and brown combined. Just a little bit to make faint colored. Or maybe leave it outside for a few weeks:)
Or Sammy a wrote this awhile back: An old trick I learned from a guy named Doc, who used to post here: Mix used coffee grounds in your resin then strain the resin through a paint strainer to remove the grounds. Adds just enough yellow/off-white cast to clear resin that it matches a board that’s got some age on it.
The board on the glassing rack in the second article doesn’t look to have much coloring going on. The photos on the facebook page look pretty…“hip”…maybe more of a post-production photo filter than board color? Just a thought…
I agree with Huck, I think you could get results like those boards by tinting.
Yeah, pretty hip indeed. Definitely some photo filtering adding a little warmth to the facebook gallery, but in this link you can compare the boards to the white walls and see that they’ve got some kind of color to them, despite the filtering on the photos. What caught me off guard is, like you said, that blog post that shows the lamination on the glassing rack makes the board look white, but the finished board all have that yellow/tan/pale-green thing going on.
I could be wrong but some of the boards on the Facebook link look like a tinted volan lamination. The greenish tone of volan mixed with a light yellowish tan might be what it is. Take for instance the board I copy/pasted below from the site has a greenish tint to it suggesting volan cloth.
there is a resin that gives boards that old browned look Yater has used this recently among others probably got name wrong but isothalic resin a glass s hop Lin town does several of these boards t glassed with this resin every year
Back in the day when I was young and I started fixing my own dings it was very difficult round here to get clear surfboard resin other a) paying through the nose from the local shaper or b) buying 20kg of the stuff. Thus I used to go to the local boatbuilders and they’d sell me the resin they were using. The stuff was amber in colour. I wasn’t too worried about the colour as I had a pretty old board. After about five years I found out about wax in styrene to help the sanding, but that’s another story!
Yeah, so maybe try getting hold of some of that boat-building resin!
I think spuddups has the right idea. Get some epoxy resin from a boat building supply. Glass it clear and put it in the sun. Brown in very little time. Mike
I’ve used Fiberglass Hawaii 4 to 1 epoxy before when I couldn’t get surfboard epoxy. It’s in the local hardware store near my house. I laminated a board with surfboard epoxy but then I ended up using the 4 to 1 epoxy later in the fill or final coat. It turned brown in less than a year. Looked like an old board. I think it’s a great way to make an instant relic. If you do use that kind of resin, just paint over it with a polyurethane spray.
Hey Huck, I did the graphics on that board back in the late 90’s. Last time I saw it, it was brand shinny new in the shop. All the graphics work (except the Ron Jons laminate) was painted on the sanded hotcoat and then sealed with a gloss coat. I find it funny that so many of these board signs I’ve done end up being hung outdoors exposed to the elements. The graphics painted over an opaque glassjob would add to the life of the boards.
His cool is that? My inspiration came from a fellow swaylockian! I really like signs painted on surfboards, floods my brain with creative possibilities. My blank was painted before glassing, but all the rest of the graphics were added between layers of glass. Anyway, nice job on the cafe sign!
