so I taped off some 2" apart dual stringers with 3mm blue tape pushed down a few times, and lightly paint some red epoxy on foam in between stringers.when I pull the tape off patches of stringer had red on then and looks weird. Not happy.
I took a red posca pen and painted the stringer red.looks good but generic with wood colored stringers.semi happy.
? Is can I sand the stringer down to show wood grain and fine tune shape. Would the foam still be red after sanding it or funky
3M blue tape is not the best choice. Green, or 233 or yellow refinishing tape is way better… 3M blue tape sucks and has been downgraded to blue crap. It is not intended to have epoxy, poly, acetone, paint thinner, laquer thinner etc etc over it. It is meant to tape off windows and electrical outlets and other non pourus surfaces. it’s adhesive is not resistant to heat of chemicals, and can barely stand waterbased at best.
You used epoxy, so I’m assuming its an EPS blank? Why didn’t you spray it with red acrylic…err water based stuff? The longer something has a chance to soak in the more it will have a chance to run under stuff. Thats why we kick out pin lines off super hot…or we fog on a color coat with our sprayer…let it dry real good…then come back with a color coat.
If there are voids between your stringer and foam…and it fills with paint, epoxy, poly etc…it will bleed. It will bleed even if you have tape over the top of it. (I’m assuming this is what happened) Wood wants to act like wood, it wants to transfer moisture through it’s grain. I’ve never had problems with acrylic spray over a taped off stringer with 233 tape.
Next time buy better tape, prep the blank better, and use paint and color sparingly, let it dry and then do it heavy if necessary.
now that the blank has epoxy on it you will have a hell of a time planing or sanding the stringer. Just go with it, fiddling around with it will just make you even more pissed off.
If you have a really sharp stringer planer (like the little guitar ones), you can take one thin pass over the stringer with it to expose the wood grain again. I have done this successfully in the past. If you gouge the foam and expose white, you can tape off the stringer (with better tape this time) and touch it up with the same colored epoxy.
