Hola- I found a 12’Dennis Pang Epoxy Paddleboard recently. While it is all there and more or less seaworthy,it had been stored in the sun(splotch brown) and has some ugly repairs. I was thinking of painting it, it is too nice a board not to fix up. I looked through the archives but didn’t find a definitive post about prepping and painting epoxy.What is the best paint for this restoration? Primer? Light sanding? Any tips to make it go better? Thanks for sharing your experiences.
Probably the cheapest and easiest way to finish the board would be to use the products available at a local boat store, such as West Marine, Boat U.S., etc. Namely the Interlux single-part polyurethanes. You can get excellent spray-like results using proper prep, technique and a foam brush. I’d sand the whole board with 60 grit. Knock everything down and give a good surface for the primer. Get some high build primer, and put on two coats, then sand. Don’t worry if you sand it all off, this usually means you needed to anyways. Just apply another coat. You should finish sand whatever final primer coat you use with 220. Thin your topcoat properly so it flows out smoothly and apply very thins coats using a dense 4" foam brush as found at FiberglassSupply.com. (Some of the foam brushes found at Home Depot are crap). You’ll probably need a minimum of 3 coats, lightly scuffing with 320 or 400 wet sand inbetween. The more methodical you are with your preparation, technique, and attention to detail, the better your results will be. The key to a good topcoat is surface preparation. Don’t stop too soon at the primer stage. It’s SOOOO easy to say, “oh, that’s close enough”, only to realize after the first coat of paint that you should’ve put on another coat of primer. Don’t worry about weight, either. You always end up sanding most of the primer off anyways. And put the topcoat on thin, thin, thin. You’ll end up with a board that looks like it came out of the spray booth. Here’s an good link to applying topcoats (in context with homebuilt kayaks covered with epoxy). Look under “Finishing”. There’s a few good articles: http://www.clcboats.com/shoptips/index.php/cart_id=235104965bae83db57fb80246e938499/ http://www.clcboats.com/shoptips/index.php/cart_id=235104965bae83db57fb80246e938499/
Thanks, that is just what I wanted to know. Any differing views out there?
epoxy should be painted because of lack of uv protection.I told GG to paint his stuff with LP and he scoffed at me!!Anyway, the best is with 2 part polyurethanes like you see on all those high tech boards coming out now.I have been painting yachts for 26 yrs now so i know what iam talking about.The best brushable systems are sterlings and awlgrips.The best spray systems are sterling,awlgrip and maybe dupont imron.All these systems came from the aircraft industry.I checked out george greenough’s boards and windsurfing equipment about 5 years ago.His work with carbon fiber and epoxy looked like high tech parts from modern race sailboats.I keep asking myself if someone should try his flex genius and apply it to tow in surf boards!