I glossed a ding repair area in the tail portion of a board. The glossing resin didn’t fully surface cure in certain areas (i.e., at the base of fin & small portions of the rails). What can I do about the uncured surface spots? Thanks!
I’m sure someone else will have better advice but… I had a couple of problems with sticky spots recently. One method I tried was to brush on some catalyst and then wait over night. After cleaning off the messy catalyst the next day the sticky spots were hard and able to be sanded off. Not sure if it would have sanded smooth because in the uncured/unsurfaced spots it was rather wavy/bumpy so I wanted to get rid of it and try again.
Another method I have tried is to just heat the areas that were still sticky. Putting a heater near them hardened them up rather quickly (few hours).
But then I think most of my problems come from having to work outside in moist, cold weather.
Oh, someone mentioned recently that sticky spots in resin was caused by the surfacing agent (wax) not rising correctly in those spots and thus allowing air to be in contact with it while it cured.
So basically you have the tacky surface laminating resin is supposed to have in order to allow more laminations to bond to it.
He explained that the wax helps the resin harden by inhibiting it’s contact with air. He suggested covering it with saran wrap to keep air off of the resin. I tried it and didn’t have much luck but I was thinking that maybe if I had something better at being an air barrier, say maybe a wax candle rubbed over the sticky areas, maybe it would help it harden.
Kai,
Thanks so much for your reply! I’m trying the wax paper method right now. In theory, it seems like it might work by “tricking” the resin into catalyzing.
I must admit, the first thing I thought of doing was brushing some catalyst over the tacky spots but seems like the most “invasive” method. So, if the wax paper trick doesn’t work, I’m off to Home Depot to buy a dryer gun.
Thanks for your help!
Kine -----------------Just Re-brush the tacky areas with another hot/coat. The catalyist in the second hot/coat should react with the tacky spots and result in a hardened hot/coat. If not I suggest that you look inside the can of resin you are using and make sure there are no “bubbles” ie. WATER contaminating your resin. Either caused by condensation or just leaving your container out so that it became contaminated by rain , moisture or other dampness that resulted in the contamination of your resin. It doesn’t take much to ruin a can of resin. HD McDing