Hey guys looking for some solid advice one what to do. This is my fourth board. Each board new things have gone wrong where I have had to learn and be patient and not freak out. I thought by my fourth maybe I was past that. Not the case.
This is a 6’0 fish board. I did a spray paint job on the deck with some stripes. Basic PU board and UV cure resin. I did one 4 oz layer cloth on the bottom and 2 on the top. When I did the two layers on the top it turned out… well look at the picture… not good. I have not had this problem before with any other board. My only gues is the bottom layer of cloth somehow got readjusted and not flat, then when I glassed the deck it caused these weird white stripes to emerge. I have left it alone for a while not to calm down ahah and figure out what to do next. When I push really hard on these discolorations some of them are slightly rasied but not the whole thing. Will it at all go away if I put a sanding coat over it?
Go with the 'cheater' coat suggestion I posted earlier. With any luck, you'll be able to saturate those dry areas and minimize any pin air. Use plenty of resin and don't mix it too hot. Again - thin with styrene if you have any.
EDIT: Just saw "UV resin." No problem. It'll give you more time to work the resin in to those dry areas before you flash it.
Sounds like it was maybe too dry and as you suggest, the cloth shifted. You might try a 'cheater' coat... mix up a new batch of laminating resin, pour it on and squeegee it in to those dry areas. Run the squeegee back and forth and side to side - use enough pressure to work the resin in. If you have some styrene, you might try adding some to the resin to thin it out.
Next time use more resin and try a lighter touch with the squeegee. The board will be slightly heavier but the glass job will be more durable.
Hey - I hadn't seen the picture but it looks like that's what happened. You need enough resin to wet the cloth thoroughly before trying to remove excess with the squeegee.
Thank you guys. Next time I will definitely be sure of that. So moving forward should I squeege some laminating resin on the dry areas or move forward with the hotcoat? I was also suggested to cut these areas out and re-glass but this seems exretmely difficult
Well my friend you are certainly not alone in that boat. You’re definitely not past the learning curve at board number four! I like to say, Building surfboards isn’t all that hard to do, but its hard as heck to learn to do it well!
thanks you guys are my heros. no joke. i really appreciate the encouragement. i will give it a shot tomorrow morning with the sun out. one more question if I do it that way what about the bubbled areas? and will the deck hold up or will it crack easily?
Without seeing it up close, it's hard to say. Hopefully they'll flatten out if not too raised. If too bubbled, you might try slicing the raised areas with a razor blade, cover with wax paper and put a weight (Zip-Lok bag full of water?) on it, but that will compromise the structural integrity of the fibers. You could even patch those sliced spots with some extra glass.
Pulling off what's there will definitely chew up the blank and the paint, plus you'll be throwing all that glass and resin in the trash. It's possible but difficult to reshape a stripped blank. Leftover resin and blank defects will be your main obstacles going that route.
"will the deck hold up or will it crack easily?"
Assuming you can get the glass saturated and get the bubbles to lay flat, it should be pretty much OK.
"i will give it a shot tomorrow morning with the sun out."
I'm assuming you know that with UV resin you have to work in a darkened enclosed area with very little light? Sunlight through a window will start to kick the resin. Try to give yourself plenty of time to work it out - no bounced sunlight through an open door. Even your shop lights should be on the dim side.
Seriously - it's in a pretty tough bind. Use plenty of resin and work it in to those dry areas. Hopefully you can get them to lay flat for you. If not, 'plan B' might be to strip it, reshape the blank and reglass. It might even be argued ('plan C') to just start with a fresh blank, fresh glass, resin and a clear head.
Hey megatron you might want to try thinning your resin down with some styrene - that’ll make it less viscous which may help getting it through the weave. In my early days of lamiinating I had a similar issue where I’d mixed my resin too slow and it drained into the blank. I took the advice of a friend from a local factory who suggested ‘massaging’ a layer of thinned resin into the weave of the cloth by hand, really pushing it in with gloved hands. It worked Good luck with it mate and dont forget to post your results.
thank you johnmellorHuckthirdshade and all the rest who posted their experience. I worked on it all morning and this was the best I could get it. I definitely would say it looks a lot better. The technique worked for sure, my deck however just had some huge streaks, bigger than the method to fix it perhaps. I went through and got it as good as I could and also added one 4 oz clother down the center for strength.
This board is for a friend so I want to give it to him in as good as shape as possible. Any ides on how to fix, touch up, OR hide haha the leftover space in the color. It only really shows on the color side and way less than before. But I want to do as much with it as I can to make it look nice.
I still have not hot coated the board yet. I also have some posca paint pens. Any thoughts?
Hot coat it. Sand it and then re-tape and repaint you stripes on the sanded hot coat. Then either gloss or seal the painted hot coat. That'll do it. Lowel
I think that is what I will try. I researched some stuff on previous posts and it seems like others have attempted to spray paint over the hot coat. Heres what I got from previous posts:
Finish the board. Sand it down. Spray paint it with acrylic water based paint. Either spray paint or air brushed. I will probably air brush it because I have one and my graffiti work is not a skill I have acquired. Spray the whole board over with 2 coats of UPHOL #1 clear coat and it should be fine
I will try to post pictures of how this turns out soon.
hey guys thank you to those who followed the post and helped me through this board. I think it turned out pretty good after a very rough start.
I want to really thank those of you who were encouraging and supportive and offered some solid expertise to get this board to where its at now.
Shaping boards for me (although only 4) has been a really healing process for other areas of my life. I am so thankful to have found this because I have learned and had to work through a lot of my fears with screwing up and making mistakes and just working on my own on a project in general. So here is how the board turned out. Thanks again.
