I have two designs in mind that I want to try and replicate. I hear foam stains are easier to do but I’m not sure if these could be done by that method. If it is a foam stain do I just tape off the sections, paint it on, and wait for it to dry? Btw I will be using pu/epoxy combo with opaque pigments.
Hey Ryan,
Only have done three boards so far, but I tried to do a foam stain with epoxy. Two main problems,
1)It is hard to get the epoxy to not soak under the tape a bit, when doing directly on foam.
2)If there is any clear epoxy on the board, say around fin boxes the color will be different there and not look good.
A good tip I received was to do a real opaque coat of white pigmented epoxy, and then you have a pretty nice white canvas to work on.Make sure the board is sanded smooth, and all the dust is removed, I didn’t and it ended up being a very rough surface.
Point being I had a hard time getting really clean lines just using epoxy. This could also be remedied by using the epoxy when it becomes a little thicker, so is more viscous and doesn’t seep under tape.
On the last board I ended up just doing acrylic pinlines and coating with clear epoxy.
If anybody else has figured it out, feel free to call out my noobness:)
Melikefish, thanks for the info. I’m not too concerned about getting perfectly straight lines. In fact, I kinda like having them a little wavy. Good point on the fin box resin though. Do you think I could set the fin boxes with the pigmented resin? I’m not trying to waste a lot of resin so doing a white coat first isn’t ideal for me.
Agree on that one, the white coat adds an extra step. When I messed mine up, it wasn’t that they were wavy, the seepage really looked bad. It might have been bad tape though. Also I am using Fiberglass Hawaii slow Epoxy, so if you are using fast, it will cure quicker and have less time to go under the tape.
You got me thinking, next batch of resin I mix up, I am going to try a couple different tapes on a scrap piece of foam and see what works best, and post a picture.
For the fin boxes, just do the foam stain then route out the boxes and install them. I was just mentioning anytime something is done to the foam, it shows in the epoxy, i.e., a little indent in the foam. You really have to mix alot of pigment to get it opaque.
Letme know what ends up working for you.
So far I really like using the epoxy+ pu blank combo, and my boards have come out rock solid.
On a tricky exit from the water, managed to bang the rail of my board on reef. No cracks just some superficial scratches. This was a 6+4 on top and 6 on bottom.
Watch The Fiberglass Hawaii Video on doing foam stains. For the stain se poly resin tape off the design make sure that you have the tape down so that it does not bleed. if it sould bleed it is an easy fix with a razer blade.
I already routed out the fin boxes the other day but haven’t set them yet. I think I will just try to set the boxes at the same time as the stain or change my design to not include the finbox area. I’m glad to hear the Pu/epoxy combo is working for you and please upload the test panels whenever you get around to it!
