'ive read a lot of different stuff in the archives about gloss coats and etc…
but can someone please tell me how to get the boards glossy like at www.cooperfishsurfboards.com ? we’re using eps boards and epoxy resins…resin swirl on bottom with cutlaps next were going to do hotcoat and glass on fins and leash loop but after all that how do you make the boards glossy and shiny
Hate to break it to you, but if you’ve read lots of stuff in the archives then you already have all the answers. Read anything by Kokua. take his advice and you can gloss up pretty much any board close to Cooper standards
Last I checked Cooperfish sufboards are glassed by Clyde Beaty’s shop. They are master craftsmen.
But what they do is really not all that different from what you can do. Just takes lots of practice, right tools, right technique, and the right environment.
Drew
i’d hate to break it to ya, but you can’t really get that liquidy mirror finish with epoxy. that’s not to say you can’t get a nice gloss with a good showroom shine, but it isn’t going to be quite like the poly gloss.
greg’s RR epoxy + additive F is great stuff…use it, and see how good you can do with the gloss coat…i’m sure you’ll be more than satisfied.
that being said, if you wanted to try it on a polyurethane blank glassed with poly resin, gloss with reichold gloss resin mixed up with kokua’s “secret formula” (a little extra styrene and surfacing agent). lay it on thin and smooth. sand it to at least 600. polish it up (this part takes awhile).
Drew, I thing Gene, and Sammy do all of the glassing at Cooperfish. I"m not real sure about this but I think you may have a little more trouble getting epoxy to come up to the same finish that Gene Cooper is getting.
we did use rr resin with additive f on our board we resin swirled and it does look pretty shiny and nice.
are you saying that just doing that and then maybe using some of our leftover polyester hot coat resin it should come out pretty showroom nice?
i did a longboard not too long ago that is yellow and i took it to 120 grit in the sanding after a hotcoat and haven’t done anything to it recently.
anyways, anything else i can do with these epoxy boards to get them looking glossy and shiny? any buffing or sanding techniques or just gloss coat or something? thanks
There are epoxy glosses available. Has anyone tried one? Or are you just saying RR or FH epoxy, when heavily polished, will not achieve the glassy look of polyester gloss resin?
heres a picture by the way
grobeyy, I’m sorry I’ve never worked with epoxy resin, so I can’t be of much help. I would think that if you coated with poly gloss coat resin and sanded and polished you could come up with a polish that would suit your needs. Nice looking board.
as dumb as this sounds…
how do you “polish”?
after you have sanded to at least 600 grit, you use a polishing compond and with a high speed polisher you polish the board with a polishing pad. I use a Lambs wool pad for this and fibergalss polishing compound.
i’m not so sure about using poly over epoxy. if memory serves, epoxy resin will bond to poly, but poly will NOT bond to epoxy. from where you’re at right now (epoxy lammed board), i’d just do an epoxy hotcoat, and then an epoxy glosscoat (same as hotcoat…just another layer), and polish it up. it won’t look like a cooperfish, but it’ll look great.
You can gloss poly over epoxy, you just gotta rough it all up first.
I’m still curious about the use of epoxy glosses…
I asked my Mom and she said
MopN’Glo will add a glow and polish to anything.
it would certainly stick on a rough surface, and more or less “envelope” the rest of the glass job, but it still isn’t a true chemical bond…i’d be worried about it peeling. have you ever done it before? i don’t doubt that it’d work…i’m just curious…it sounds like a good way to get poly shine with epoxy strength.
hey drew, when was the last time you checked?
the CF boards are polished by jeff pupo and occasionally by steve huerta. they’re the master craftsmen behind that work. i don’t know where to find any more like them, i just pay them and stay out of their way.
we use straight glossing/finishing resin. i don’t know if epoxy could render the same result.
btw, steve’s hard to get since he’s alway’s busy building his own boards(start to finish) which have that kind of craftsmanship thru and thru.
I’ve done swirls, pinlines and gloss using Greg’s Resin Research Epoxy and it is possible to get a good luster. You can use RR epoxy for the gloss coat, just be sure to double the amount of Additive F. There are two major phases to getting the epoxy shiny, rubout and polishing.
My typical rubout goes like this: 220 grit with Med Power Pad dead flat on the board. Just do the flat areas, don’t touch curved areas or the tips. Also, use 220 to sand the tape line away. This takes skill, you just want that thing to still show (barely). 320 grit dry with Ferro grey sponge pad. Sand 100% of the board. Rails are sanded using a wiping, diagonal stroke. Sand right over the tape line you already hit with 220. Do this again with 500 grit. Again, very light pressure (the weight of the sander is too much pressure) and the pad is flat on the flats. Low rpm’s. 600 grit, as with the others all dry over the entire board.
My polish sequence: Schlagel #2 lambswool buffing wheel using Surfboard Polish #2. Watch for heat build up so “waffling” doesn’t occur. Schlagel #1 (looks like orange fur(!?)) using Automotive Polishing compound. Same heat precautions. Lastly, hand-rub using Lemon Pledge. Somethng about that stuff is just insane. Other brands won’t make it bling… HTH.
Gene,
My apologies mi amigo. Been a while indeed.
Is Sueño Steve’s side label?