I have tried resin pinlines but I always! get bleeds. I switched tape, sanded to all different grits (in the direction of the pinline) but nothing ever worked. Always a few bleeds so I switched to airbrushed acrylic pinlines. The type you get from Michael’s art store. Now my pinlines come out perfect except for when I gloss over them. I always get little areas of seperation. After they dry I sand them lightly (again I have tried all different grits) but I always get little seperations. Not everywhere but just a few here and there. The rest of the deck is perfect, only the pinlines. Any suggestions?
Could be a few reasons, tape residue, fingers, something in your work area. In Oz I used this auto stuff called ‘Prepsol’, a preparation solvent made to thoroughly clean areas before painting, but doesn’t efect the paint. It removes grease, wax, etc. Use a really small soaked rag to wash, then dry off with clean dry rag, dont let it air dry. After that I never had problems with sprayed pinlines or larger pre-gloss sprays.
Gregg, There is also another possibility: If you have any product with silicone anywhere in your shop, keep it far away from any painting or glassing projects. For all the good things silicone does, when it comes to glueing, painting, or glassing, it’s like the rat in the woodshed: it’s sneaky and it ruins things. Doug
what I gotta do is this - learned from long experience…
Use none other than Scotch 233 tape, it has more/better adhesive
Tape your pinline, then mix a small batch of lam resin, catalyzed kinda quick. use your finger to smear this resin onto the pinline between the tape, so the clear lam resin will seal the tape edge. See, it will still bleed, but it’s clear lam resin, and when it sets, it’ll seal the tape.
Brush on your catalyzed pinline resin quickly. Minimum effort, just go quick and get it even.
Pull the tape immediately. The longer you wait, the more time there will be for the pinline resin to find any imperfectly sealed tape edges.
A few notes…
Since I buy nothing but lam resin any more, I put a little surfacing agent in the pinline resin.
This is one place where the faster set of lam resin is a good thing.
Again and again, Scotch 233, about $3/roll at 3/4 inch width; no other tape has adequate adhesive, unless someone here comes up with something. Fineline tape is, I think, the same stuff, but $7/roll at 3/4 width too much. Fineline is for guys who can’t tape straight, which is, I’ll admit, no simple matter. But for a home-made board guy like me, spending that much on expendables is a no-no. Tools, well, I have some cheap and others not.
Waz reading the archives on pinlines and had a question or two for you if you don’t mind? Can you use acrylic paint in the same process instead of resin w/ pigment? And do you run the paint over the lam resin while still wet? And what’s to stop me from putting the pin line onto my laminate layer and then hot coating over so as to better protect the line from sanding later on? I allways sand the buggers at least somewhere. I finished a board last night the bottom pin is sweet but the decks is sanded through right at the nose. So I can stare at it all day while surfing and be humbled. They are an art in themselves akin to shaping. Mahalo’s
Howzit chris, Even better yet spray paint the pin lines on the foam especially if the board has a sanded finish. Don’t try putting it on the lam since there isn’t a flat surface and most likely the paint will bleed into the weave. I like india ink for pins and it doesn’t need any sanding before a gloss job. As a matter of fact I don’t sand even acrylic pins and don’t have any problems.Aloha,Kokua
The reason for the separation is that the painted surface (even if sanded) is still not the same as the sanded hotcoat surface, and gloss will flow away from areas of high surface tension. Could also be contamination from the air compressor when airbrushing. And some premixed paints like the small bottles at Michaels have detergents in them to cut surface tension so it will flow easier. Try a high quality acrylic like Novacolor thinned with Future on a test piece.
For resin pins, I never use gloss resin because of the bleeding. Lam+SA is pretty thick, and won’t bleed much. The great thing about resin pins is that you can sand the crap out of them. If you do get bleeding, scrape off what you can as soon as you pull the tape. Sand any bleed or ragged edges with 220 wrapped once around a blade. Always burnish the tape down with a small mixing stick regardless of resin, inked, or painted pins.
The thinner the media you use for pins, the more you need to adjust the tape type. As Charlie pointed out, tape can get pricey. For painted pins, I’ve been using the cheap black plastic electrical tape (Harbor Freight). This stuff will bend all over the place, so you need a cheat line to follow. It will burnish down very tightly and minimize bleeding. Regular 3M scotch magic tape also will hold down very tight, but is difficult to lay because it’s so thin.
Howzit Pete, It’s possible that the gloss separated due to a slight edge left after pulling the pinline tape. I have found that using a wall paper roller to flatten the edge works. The edge will keep the gloss from flowing smoothly over the pin which results in the sepapration.Aloha,Kokua
…I have never been happy airbrushing acrylic over resin…
I tried lost of brands, but too liquid for my taste, very difficult to obtain a solid color , etc I prefer pens, or resin or even acrylic directly from the tube
Straight from the tube as the Harbour video shows is a good example of using thick media to avoid bleeding. The tool that is used for the smoothing of the line is a piece of rubber squeeqee. The idea with this technique is to smooth the paint between inner and outer tapes which produces a pin the thickness of the tape. It really isn’t as simple as it looks; you need very smooth light pressure passes and wipe the paint off the squeegee as it starts to load. The paint will be very thick and wet under the tape, so you need to pull it carefully. It will also take a long time to dry, so have the hairdryer ready and always sand them before glossing.