Im on the last step of my first board, the gloss coat and have a question. First heres what I did: I added about 1oz of styrene monomer to 10oz sanding resin, coated board,It set up with a bunch of pimples, I then wet sanded by hand with 220,320,400,600, looks pretty good. Ive been reading the archives and checking the glossary. My question is this; should I be using a surface agent or is the styrene monomer the right stuff? and are all those pimples normal? Also It is around 60 degrees in my shed. Any help would be appreciated , thanks
You got it about right, The home made gloss is lam resin, surfacing agent (wax), styrene (thinner).
You used hotcoat that has wax in it, so you were right there. You could have added a little more wax but thats no big deal. It sounds like it did it’s thing…except for the zits. You got the zits from two or 3 sources. 1) Most likely place…The brush. If you use the same brush for hot coats etc. It was probably a little stiff when you picked it up, so you bend the bristles to soften it up. So now you have these little chunks of resin dust imbedded in the brush. You put the gloss on the board, you use the brush with chunks, and they sprinkle all over the board…clean your brush. 2) dirty resin & container, same problem as dirty brush…strain your resin, and use a fresh bucket. 3) dirty environment with a breeze, Are you glossing the same place you shape and sand? if so your going to get little floating pcs of debris in your gloss.
So lets review, clean brush, clean resin, clean bucket, clean room = no zits…it’s easy just follow these steps.
-Jay
Yim,
“Zits?” - pits, or bump? If bumps, what others in the post say sounds correct; if
pits, it’s more likely a contamination issue prior to glossing (less likely is a temp and/or humididty concern), i.e. atomized oil from your air compressor. In which case puchase an inline airhose filter and always wash your board with soap and water before glossing.
Maxwell.
thanks guys, I guess the resin got to my head! Im pretty sure I used a dirty brush, It was in the same jar of acetone the whole process. duh! Its those little details! thanks again, Im going to hit it with 220 power pad then go threw the wet sand process. Ill let you know who it goes. Yim., Is the Styrene monomer and surface agent the same thing?
Yim,
the surfacing agent is wax diluted into styrene monomer. Added to your resin, it makes it harden without that usual “sticky” finish that you get when laminating. This is why: wax being lighter than resin, it stays on top of the resin coat and prevents the styrene from evaporating in the air. Thus the resin hardens like it would inside a mold, i.e. with a soft un-sticky finish.
On the other hand, styrene monomer, used alone (without wax in it) thins down the resin just like any solvent would do to some kind of paint, which helps drawing a very thin film of resin on your board when glossing.
So, both of them are needed in your glossing coat: the styrene monomer to thin it, the styrene monomer with wax in it to make it sandable.