I suggest you take Mr. Cooper’s advice. Sand the board, do any color work on the sanded hotcoat that you want and then gloss it. No need for acetone at all. Just get a piece of clean tape and run it over the board a few times to get excess sanding dust off of it. Make sure your hands are clean when touching a sanded board before glossing it. I would kick your gloss at 2%
I remember reading a while back about Acetone being of highly suspect purity. And it is a good point about it dissolving something in the rag or Napkin/ paper towell and applying it to the surface trying to be decontaminated.
In non surfboard related tasks I have found that attempted degreasing with Acetone or even denatures alcohol would have water, not spread out on an even sheen, but it would separate. If I rewiped with just water, let it dry then put on more water it was not repelling. So the stuff they put in ethanol to make is DE natured alcohol, the denaturants to make it undrinkable and therefore untaxable, likely leave some sort of residue which might or might not be an issue.
Gloss coats are stubborn female dogs. Me thinks many efforts regarding wiping the surface with solvents to prevent issues, introduces them instead.
I don’t understand why you’d use something similar and not Windex if you following this advise. Are you located somewhere where Windex isn’t available? I know Windex works and I can’t vouch for something else. Small changes in materials or procedure can cause big problems.
If you look at the patterns in your gloss you can track your acetone strokes, a lightbulb must have come on when it was mentioned. It’s not about the breakdown of the rag or applicator, it’s about the acetone on the sanded surface and changing the properties of that surface. The resin flow and curing are slightly affected and that’s enough to cause a problem.
A clean paper towel to wipe Windex or just clean off the board is least likely to be contaminated . Even after using paper wipe off surface with clean (or dusty) hands and drag tape over the surface because the paper towel shed, especially when hitting exposed weave. The higher the quality paper towel the less shedding.
Another option is to stay away from applying anything to the sanded surface and just wiping down with dusty hands (from doing the sand job) then dragging tape over the whole surface, several passes. Then tape off the apex and gloss.
That all makes sense. Lightbulb didn’t come on as i went in circles with the acetone and the gloss stripes were straigt, but could still have been that and if you say it was then as far as am concerned it was! Lesson learned thanks. Oh and I am in UK, but I have a few friends in States so I may just get a bottle of the real Windex, so long as it’s not a flatulence potion. (I have a cork for that) 
Interesting, I am gonna get off the alcohol now and see what happens next time. Fingers crossed Gene helped point out the culprit
Well she’s all done and the wife loves it. Polished up beautiful in the end. I lightly sanded the nasty lines with 400 grit abrasive net, just enough to flatten those lines. Then I wet and dried through the grit range to 1500 (i know i know!) then compound twice and polish. came up a treat. Thanks for the tips everyone, as always much appreciated
Thanks. I didn’t actually use tape, I usually blow (many times) with air and then acetone. Will go for no acetone and tape from now on, thanks
wow super quick turnaround and nice save. I knew it would workout for the best result. A build to be proud of.
Good advice from Surfer and Gene. I would use the tape trick or just blow it off really good with the air compressor. You are overthinking the delamination stuff. I have wiped boards down with a painter’s tack cloth. Which is nothing more than paraffin wax gauze. I have also wiped them with plain old gauze. Very nice work on that board. A lot of this stuff is pretty straight forward and just a matter of following directions without overthinking.
Yep. I guess not many people around here have seen the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” . Otherwise they would know about the miracle known as Windex.
Yes an excellent job. Sometimes when you can see little things in the gloss like you did, the best thing you can do is proceed. Sand, rub out and polish.
i use same source materials (seabase but in france), poly finish on epoxy lam, suspect your finish resin first than your process here. have same problem on some batch. Now i double or triple check my bottle of resin before use, sometimes if it look a little thicker i had a bit more of paraffine styrène in the bottle and re-check.
I live a sheltered life, thought Windex was universal. Test what ever the equilivlant is there in the UK, I’m sure it’ll work out. Let us know how it goes.
From what I understand, Windex (unknown of in Europe) is your basic glass-cleaning spray, isn’t it? If so, I guess that any other european brand should use the very same ingredients (most of the time iso-propyl alcohol) and should be safe to use for this particular application.
I personally use the air compressor (or clean vacuum cleaner brush, the small round type) and/or micro-fiber cloth. But micro-fiber, as Gene said, tend to get stuck in areas where fiberglass cloth has been sanded through.
Good job! I love Betty Boop…
Curious about the paper towels. You mention better towels equal less shedding. How about shop towels? The blue ones auto mechanic stores offer. They usually are tougher quality. Any experience with these?
Duplicate. Why do I keep getting duplicates and when I try to delete it I’m not authorized to do that?
Interesting thanks. I was talking to them last week and they have serious trouble with a current batch of gloss resin. I had to go and swap my bottle for another one as it turned BLACK in the bottle! They said someone else had same issue too so its definitely a batch thing. Someone told me the gloss resin has changed, I think I have this right, it used to be silmar based but the new batch isn’t. Something like that anyway, maybe next time you see Seabase France you can ask and see what they say! I am going to try using normal hotcoat resin next time as I always get great results with that (ISO 10x + 5-10% wax in styrene for gloss)
Ha, I think it’s me who lives the sheltered life! Thanks for the tip, I will find it and get it
Thanks, that’s a compliment indeed!
My wife’s childhood nickname was Betty Boop (not for reasons you might imagine!) and that was the least suggestive one I could find. I could have gone with this one, then again I could have had my jaw broken when it wa unveiled - https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/vxQAAOSwpdBbLPLq/s-l640.jpg
