After a most successful first board, a HWS, I’ve decided to tackle restoring a longboard that I have from the 60’s/70’s that’s in very bad shape. Will post some pictures later today.
I’ve already removed the glassed on fin and will start sanding tonight removing all of the imperfections and really bad repair jobs. After doing this I would like to keep the original color’s on the board. Pretty sure all of the medium brown on the board was white when new and has turned from water damage and years in the sun.
Question now. I would like to simply sand, re-shape the nose/tail, and then lay an epoxy sealer coat and a single layer of 5oz lam over everything. After cure can I then paint the entire board with acrylic and then put down an epoxy gloss coat over that to UV protect/seal it in – or is there a better way?
Paint it before you lam. I would recommend a 4-6 oz. poly lam because there’s always too much surface contamination imbedded on old boards for epoxy. Do all the repairs (just fills, no cloth), sand the whole thing to #120, mask for painting, paint with acrylic (24 hr. dry between different colors), let dry for several days before laminating. Hotcoat, gloss and polish. Restore the fin separately and install after the hotcoat. If this is just a wall hanger, skip the lam and just glosscoat and be careful sanding.
Pete thanks. Painting before the lam makes sense as it gives me room for sanding without getting into the paint. I’ll probably order some lighter cloth for the lam 3-4 oz. Have you tried using epoxy before and had it fail? I’ll be doing a deep sanding as there’s probably a 20 oz lam on the board > 1/8". I’d rather not work with the poly if possible and I already have some RR on hand.
I’ve done a lot of restorations, and even after sanding to the weave I’ve had my share of fisheyes, pinholes, etc using poly resin. Old glassing has cracks, pinholes and other openings where wax. dirt. etc goes deeply in. Personally, I don’t like to epoxy lam over any paint since it cures too slow and may screw up the paint where it’s heavy coated. If you really want to use an epoxy lam on this board, you have to use polyurethane paint, not acrylics.
How about painting the board with epoxy mixed with a lot of pigment and white to make it opaque? Mask and paint the stripes first, then do the yellow and lam while the yellow ‘paint’ is still tacky. RR with additive F should be no problem to lam over anyway.
Definitely looks like a popout. Sam Ryan’s ‘Longboard Collectors’ Guide’ has two entries for “Islander Surfboards”. One listing is for a Los Angeles based label, described as “not a popout”. The other entry says ‘popout’, with no locale given.
Whatever it is…
I wouldn’t bother putting so much time and materials into it. I did a re-hab on an old 60s longboard that had little value. It wasn’t a popout, though. I merely repaired all open dings. Sanded down to the hot coat, and then sprayed with epoxy paint. This adds a minimal amount of extra weight, yet seals and improves appearance. Costs very little, too.
Was the fin really trashed? Just curious as to why you removed it.
