I’ve messed around a little with spray cans on foam and under the hot coat and here and there. It’s relatively easy to get all the paint down but i find it hard to get solid colours…whenever i spray you can see darker and lighter patches, just from overlapping of the spray can going back and forth…
My basic question is how do the pros get one uniform, opaque, just solid colour… is there a technique or gear or secret?
I’ve had a look through the archives, but no real info there…
maybe speedneedle or anyone other spray pros out there have any helpfull info?
If you have an air compressor and a spray gun, you can spray thinned out pigmented resin. A spray gun will lay down a much more even coat then a spray can. Also a spray gun will atomize the resin better.
I’ve got a compressor and basic air gun… is there any specific technique? Like less air pressure and closer up or smaller strokes or just keep the trigger down etc etc??
Also, you should always keep your spray can or spray gun at the same distance, which means don’t rotate your wrist but walk along the board, holding the gun steadily.
Very light passes. Don’t try to get too opaque with the first. If the paint starts to “shine”, it means too much paint.
Hi Lavs, to get a better opaque finish on both foam and filler sprays, I used to spray white lightly beforehand. I know it’s one extra step, but the brightness and boldness of colour was much better.
As far as technique goes, with foam sprays I sprayed standing on the left, then the right, the paint then gets into the foam pores better. Balsas technique looks similar and I’m sure works on the same principle.
Other than that, years of practice and trial and error.
balsa - yeah cheers for that, makes sense… diagram looks like you’d double cover everything so it should get pretty solid…
Wildy - yeah i remember hicksy saying something about getting paint into pores from different directions… and im trying to figure out a way to fit years of Trial and error into one day ready for tomorrow
Howzit lavz,I find I get the best results by spraying perpendicular to the blank surface,seems to fill any holes. Another question I get asked a lot is how to pull the stringer tape after painting so it won’t pull up any of the stringer wood with it, there’s a trick to doing this, I know the trick and was wondering how many of you do too.Aloha,Kokua
Howzit Atomized, I used to do a lot of gel coat spraying and as soon as I was done spraying I ran acetone through the sprayed to clean it but it really works the gaskets in the sprayer so you want to have extras on hand. Have a friend who sprays his acrylic and never would clean it after spraying so after a few spray jobs it gets so clogged it wouldn’t work. Kept telling him to run water through it as soon as he was done but he never would listen and ruined a really good sprayer til I got a hold of it and took it apart to clean it for him. Just goes to show resin/gel coat aren’t the only things that can ruin a sprayer.Aloha,Kokua
So if your spraying perpendicular, do you stand the board on its rail/side ? so the deck / bottom is facing you ?
When i pull stringer tape, i just pull it back on itself, not lifting up… i dont know any tricks for that? Taking wood off the stringer? thats a pretty hardcore tape you use…
How many coats would you use to get solid colour? Just many light light coats? till its solid?
Sometimes the discolouration is caused by the seeing wet paint and dry paint next to each other. The air that blows the paint on also dries the other areas already sprayed. The diagram above shows the way to cover it smoothly.
One thing to remember is to start your spray stroke off the board, then onto the board, then off again, otherwise you will get great big gobs of paint at the points you start and finish on.
Test and practice on something flat, muck around with water to paint ratios, the best way of gewtting experienced is to try it yourself…good luck…
Howzit lavz, I never move the board just the angle of the spray gun. Stringer tape is 233 and I pull back but at an angle so the tape comes off slightly side ways. How many coats of paint depends on the color, darker colors usually take more coats. one way is to do 2 light coats then a heavy coat since paint over paint will dry faster, but I know 1 painter who just does 1 heavy coat but he uses Nova paint and it works fine for him. Aloha,Kokua
The newer guns now have packing (gaskets) that are made of polyethyline and are solvent proof. The older ones where made of leather that woud dry from the solvents so you’d soak them with machine oil to rejuvinate them. I’ve been buying my guns from Harbor Freight. I usually wait till they have a sale and they’re $12 to $15 a piece. I have 12 to 20 of these thing set up with quick connects with a different color in each. I usually avoid cleaning them as much as I can get away with. Eventually a gun will get to the point where you have to rebuild them. Thats when I chuck 'em in the trash and replace them with a new one. Nova Color list the transparancy, translucency, opacity of their paints. The more opaque the more even the paint will lay down. The transparent colors are all pretty dark straight out of the jar. You can add white to them and get a bright medium color that’s very opaque. If you want to make a real dark color and avoid the crystalization problem, add calcium carbonate to the paint. Spraying technique varies from one individual to another. Some guys I know do multiple coats. I try to get it done with one.
Spray cans will probably do in a pinch but its definitely not the optimum way to go about it. And at $ 4 to $7 a can, to get a good even solid top and bottom could get kind of expensive. A cheaper quick n easy way is to use latex flat house paint. Tape off the stick and burnish the tape down. Pour a good amount of paint on whatever side your doing. Using a 4" to 6" piece of foam rubber that is soaked with the paint, work it out like you would a squeege until you achive uniformity. Wipe it down dry as you work it over the rails to the flip side of the blank to avoid drips. Let it dry . Do the other side. MAKE SURE THAT YOU USE A WATER BASE LATEX (ACRYILIC) FLAT. DO’NT USE ANYTHING THAT HAS GLOSS OR ENAMEL WRITTEN ON THE CAN.That could cause problems.
It may be done with a brush, but you’ll most likely end up with too thick a layer and that means filling all those micro cells that were waiting for resin (instead of paint) to create a strong bond with the glass. Too much paint usually leads to delamination. Weight is another issue.
I’m not sure but I’m guessing that its the same in OZ as it is here in the states.
Most paint stores do color matching with a computerized color scanner/paint mixer. You bring them 1" square color sample and they scan it. The computer creates a mix formula.The formula is sent to the color mixer. The mixer pumps out the prescribed colorants into a can of base. They put the lid on the can and shake it up. And there’s your color.
I get alot of customers that come in with paint chips they got at the paint store for the color they want on their board. I send them back to the store to buy quart of the stuff. That saves me the headache of having to try to match their sample.
Brushing the paint with a paint brush does’nt yield very uniform results. It’s alright for brushy painterly effects but, its not very good for large solid areas.
The piece of foam rubber technique I described in the previous post is alot like using a squeegee. You pour a generous amount of paint onto the center of the blank and work it out towards the rails. The piece of foam rubber helps work the paint into the pores of the foam. And since foam rubber is pliable, it works specially well over the rails. This is just another way of coloring a board when you don’t have spray equipment.
The spray can thing is OK but, I figure that the degree of uniformity that you can achieve is dependent on the inherent opacity of the paint mixture in the can. The more transparent the paint is, the heavier you will have to apply it. Since you can’t mix the paint that goes into the spraycan, you are limited to what few color are available in spraycans.
In an production enviorment, spray painting the foam is the most cost effective and fastest way getting solid color on a blank. It takes me about 3 minutes to paint a solid on one side of longboard blank with a spraygun.
