Hey Beerfan, I used Krylon H2O water based spray paint found at Home Depot. I put on several very, very light coats. One, to keep the paint from getting too thick, and two, to prevent my first attempt’s results where it bled under the tape. That was a combination of cheap tape and going too fast with the application. I attached a pic of the better results. Since it was a gloss and polish finish done by pros, I was very happy with how even the color looked underneath. I was worried because on the foam, while there were no light spots, there were spots where the paint was thicker. But the glassing took care of that. Oh, yeah, took about the whole can to do the rails on this 10 foot board. Pinlines by Moonlight, I’m not there yet!!
Doug’s tips are right on. I’ve used flat house paint many times with good results. It doesn’t have to be exterior either, just flat. Recently I did a red/yellow and a blue/yellow stripe and panel combos on two 9’6’s. I bought the yellow at Home Depot(a Behr accent color) and the blue at Fiberglass Hawaii. FBGLSH was out of the red and yellow I normally use. I needed a brite red,not blood red or hot pink. I remembered that I had bought a brite red before at Walmart in the crafts dept. So that’s where I got it. All the paints worked well with a little thinning. I used water and the acrylic thinner from FBGLSH. Since it had been a couple of years since painting a board; I had two problems; 1. Poor taping at the rail-line( had to have the glasser lay down kind of a fat pinline to cover my wavy lap line) and not pressing the tape down hard enough( if you blow the blank off really well you will have better adhesion to the foam and a thimble works great for pressing down tape). 2. Not enough compressor to get an even and consistent spray pattern. Multiple light coats with complete dry time between is best. A wide fan and board length passes. Of course you need enough compressor to keep up with such a spray method. My glasser told me that getting the paint on too thick is what cause the crystalization. It’s cheaper and smarter to just let the painter at the glass shop do it. I could be shaping another board.
Make sure you spray a little crystal clear along the tape line first! This will fill in any areas that are going to bleed past the tape line. It’s a good way to seal it up before applying color. Make sure not to spray too close or too much.
Howzit McDing,I find using a shop vac with a home vac soft brush works best for removing foam dust before laying down tape. A compressor just blows the dust off but some resettles on the blank. With the vac there's no dust and the tape sticks really good.Aloha,Kokua
