I have two boards that I want to give a nice gloss finish.
I have laminate many boards, but usually I do the sanded finis, 320 sand grit, and then polish it. But this time the boards need to have a nice looking gloss finish. Both boards are epoxy, I have been using Resin Research Epoxy. My main interest is how much resin should I use for a: 5’6 X 19 3/4 X 2 1/2 fish shape, and also how to finish so that I don’t need to sand it at all after I’m done coating the board. The other board is a 6’6 X 19 1/2 X 2 9/16 roundtail.
next to impossble to get a good gloss with epoxy. epoxy is hard to polish out…you ever seen a really shiny epoxy board? I;m talking shiny like a poly board? I haven’t. To get a really shiny epoxy board your better off spraying with some kind of shiny stuff, like UPOL, or Clear coat acrylic, or laquer or what ever.
Resin research for a gloss coat goes a long way. On an 8 ft board i use about 4 oz per side. Use a stiff brush or squeegee to move the epoxy around, then i tip out with a cheep throw a way brush to level, then I use a heat gun to loosen up the epoxy and flow out the brush lines. heat makes the epoxy flow like water. (use heat gun at your own risk)
Polishing out the epoxy takes longer sanding, and higher grits than poly. Using additive F helps make the epoxy more buttery to sand, but there is still some gunking up of the sand paper before you get to the good stuff.
the simple answer of course is to use polyester resin and brush it out and elbow grease to polish
i use a machine with wet and dry . start at 400
wash the board between each grit
if you need a lower grit then u are laying you gloss wrong
u need a slow torquey machine
laying down a flat gloss is the worlds biggest mystery
temperature and age or resin,humidty , brush and catalyst all make a difference
here is one simple tip, U have about 3 minutes to get it done before the styrene starts to evaporate and the resin gets a bit draggy., if u are still mucking about by then the gloss will not level
Professional I am not…but what silly said: " you have about 3 minutes to get it done before the styrene starts to evaporate and the resin gets a bit draggy; if you are still mucking about by then the gloss will not level".
Lay it on quick and smooth, then walk away.
Don’t be tempted to touch up anything with the brush.
yes i made one just before u posted this up believe it or not, im uploading the video glossing an 8 footer to facebook. it took 2 minutes to brush out the gloss. my boss andrew has one that he made for doing concrete benchtops
i just glued a couple fo bits of cedar across them with 5 minute epoxy
Nice video. I wish I’d seen something like that before my first go at a gloss.
The brush idea’s great… less strokes and time required.
But mate, you don’t have pants on!
so what im saying is that if you do get brush marks then you will make more work for yourself due to needing a corser grit to get brush marks out. coreser grits is deeper scratches and lots more work rubbing. so it really is in how you lay it down
If you want a gloss to lay flat just set the resin off slower. The trick is to put the resin on liberally then pull it off and smooth it out fairly fast. If you leave too much resin on the flats of the deck as it flows out it can actually “sheet” which is where the weight of the slabbed resin will actually seperate from itself. If you use a bit more resin you don’t need to cross stroke it. Long strokes nose to tail will give you a more even layer of resin and be easier to sand. A strainer is good to limit the amount of dirt zits you end up with. Also make sure there are no open doors allowing any air flow or breeze to contact the resin. Apply it real wet and you won’t have problems with the brush dragging. Walk away for a minute or 2 after leveling the resin on the flats out, then come back and clean up your tape line so you don’t get a thick seam from the resin flowing off the domed deck.
