I grind my laps flat and put the hot coat on and it looks perfectly smooth. It takes me a couple hours to sand the board and get the hot coat completely flat with no low shiny spots. I use a Makita sander/polisher with flex pads. I normally start with 80 grit just to try to speed up the process. How long does it take you guys? Trying to figure out if I’m doing everything right. Thank you for your help!
There are undoubtedly professional sanders who receive nicely lammed and hot coated boards that can get them done in a hurry. For a home hobbyist with less than a perfect lam and hot coat, who doesn’t do it all day every day, it is probably more important to go slow and careful - maybe use some coarse sandpaper by hand on the rails, and sanding blocks on the flats. I’ve heard of some shapers insisting on hand blocked sanding jobs to avoid the ripples that commonly show up with a machine grind. I think moderator Huck has a sign-out message about things taking as long as they take(?)
30- 45 minutes on a stock 6’0" shorty.
Bottoms start with 220 then 320
150 on the rails to geth the seam off then 220 and 320
320 the deck.
then 10-15 to detail. 400 on the orbital and acrylic wipe
Never timed it but I’m guessing 40 minutes on a shortboard. I generally do a sanded gloss on shortboards. For the hotcoat I do 80 to 120. For the sanded gloss I usually go to 320.
it depends on how sure I want to be not to get sand throughs and have to do ANOTHER hot coat…
haste makes waste…so much waste.
I just came back from Newport and San Diego California. Went to a lot of surf shops to see what the current boards styles are there. I saw a lot of really good work, but I was also amazed at how many boards I saw with sand throughs and finishes I wouldn’t call finished.
If you want good results, you need to start slow and get the process figured out. If you just want to get them done fast, you’ll end up with boards like this. You can clearly see where they hit the weave. I only get these if I rush or push to hard.
Saw a lot of boards with carbon edges that had sand throughs. I don’t see this here, but we don’t get the variety of brands of boards here.
30 seconds less than it takes for a sand through.
Ci used to have amazing QC. Now you can just pick them apart
I’ll say this…
IF you shaped it.
And, you glassed it…
It is just a matter of bringing the shape
you wanted, to life…
The worse you are the longer it takes!
Sharkcountry: I totally agree. I’m in south OC and when I’m looking at the performance boards I find burn throughs on so many it’s not even funny. My buddy has a mayhem he wanted me to do a repair on, and the thing not only had burn throughs, there were spots EVERYWHERE that weren’t even hotcoated
I’ve seen sand throughs at the peak of a double concave so bad that you could literally see sanding swirls in the stringer.
From what I gather the pro guys take about half an hour or so. It takes me about two hours. Longer if the fins are glass-on.
I plan on two hours and it usually is spot on. I start with 40 or 50 grit on the machine on the flats. Razor blade to take down hot coat overlap on the rails. Hand sand the rails, nose and tail with 80. If I’m doing a pinline on the hot coat, I’ll get that part sanded all the way down to 400 dry. No pinlines, I’m stopping at a hand sanded 180. Of course, I’m doing a thin glass coat to finish. I start that with a quick 180 then move to 240 and up. YMMV.
I think they call these comments “all over the map”. Only because of professional preference; Agua is the closest to reality. What’s a “thin glass coat”??? If you’ve gotta start with anything heavier than 180 grit; you don’t know how to lay down a proper hotcoat. Lowel
I am not a pro but I practice for long time. On my poly sanded coat, over epoxy lam I know its not good, I start with 180 max on my roto orbital sander + hand on rails then 240 orbital only + hand on rails then scotchbrit 320 with water on polisher. Less than an hour for standard board.
Best improve is true sanding shape so everything go easily flat after.