I am getting ready to paint my first board. It is a walker blank and I am gong to use tempra paint. What is the dilution ratio for paint and water in order to spray the tempra thru a spray gun and still coat nicely. Thanks.
Howzit zcruisers, When painting with tempra dilute some elmers glue and add it to the mix, this makes the paint adhere to the foam better since tempra has a tendency to lift off a little when lamminating. You get these little specks of paint on the squeegee and they will smear as you lam.Aloha,Kokua
If I were not to use tempra what should I use. I was just thinking of tempra because that is what I tought I had read on this site.
Thanks!!!
Createx airbrush paint, have fun.
I have had good results with the water based 2oz acrylic bottles you can find at Michael’s/Hobby Lobby. About a buck apiece, and dilution varies by brand. The ‘Folk Art’ brand (one I am most familiar with) I add about 1-1.5 oz water for the 2 oz bottle and mix, strain and spray. May need to thin more for a smaller tip on the spray gun, less for a larger tip. I use a 0.6mm tip harbor freight gravity feed touch up gun, or a 1.2mm tip with a harbor freight siphon feed touch up gun, and each gun needs slightly different thinning. The 1-1.5oz H20 per 2oz bottle is for the 1.2mm tip. Test spray is still the best way to see if you have the paint the right thickness.
Here’s some pics of a board done with these acrylics (note, all artwork done on top of hotcoat, so if I screwed up, it would be easy to sand it off).
I don’t have any info on acrylics on foam, I have yet to try it.
JSS
just finished painting two knee-boards with behr house paint(waterbased acrylic)…i use a roller!!!..are those paipos???..how do they ride…im building a couple with bodyboard templates…interested to see how yours work…how big/thick/tall/wide are yours?
It sort of was a ‘skimboard’ that I built before I attempted any surfboards. I decided that if I was going to screw something up, it would at least be small, so I can do it right later and not have it kill me in materials costs. It was a good thing that I did too. I made TONS of mistakes on this one and its twin, which I gave to a friend. The other board is much thinner, and actually skims OK, but doesn’t have enough rocker to do that well. Was about 1" thick, and didn’t work well as a paipo either…oh well. Tough as nails, though, 2lb EPS with 6/6/6 deck and 6/6 bottom, and it still came out much lighter than some ply skimboards.
The one pictured above is WAAAAY too thick to skim, at least for me (I suck anyway), it had just too much bouyancy, so I am now going to put some 4wfs boxes in it and play around with fin combos with it as a paipo. Even without fins, it worked better than I thought it would, but I want to learn to put in the 4wfs boxes, so it is the ‘experimental’ board that I try to learn how to do new things with.
This board had a screwed up sealing job (done with talc and epoxy, do not try this if you care about aesthetics), tried to cover it up with a poor coating of pigmented epoxy, sanded that off (fisheyes galore), so I glassed it with highly white pigmented epoxy, turned out well. Then it was 1 botched hotcoat, one poor sanding job, one good hotcoat, a decent sanding, and then I learned all about what kinds of mistakes you can make with acrylic paint and a spray gun. Sand back down, paint again, and I learned the ins and outs of Rapidograph pens, and how denatured alcohol can ruin an acrylic paint job when trying to fix the mistakes done with the Rapidograph. So, sand and paint once more, and gloss coat. Now it is awaiting install of the finboxes…we’ll see how that goes.
Dims are 4’ long, 24" wide at widepoint, and now I have to measure the thing, I did it all by eye, since i thought it would end up in the trash anyway…
Turns out it is an 18.5" tail, 15.25" nose, 1.875" thick. 1.25" nose rocker, .75" tail rocker.
If it turns out to be fun with fins, I’ll let you know. Again, if it works well, it was completely by accident, but it served its purpose well.
JSS
I just use kids acrylic paint. Right on the foam. Spray it or use a brush. Not too thick to avoid crystallization. Lots of info in the archives. Mike
I’ve sprayed acryllic onto foam without any real problems. Always do a test panel with every mix.
I generally used 70mls paint and 30 mls water.
Spray from all angles as this will fill the holes in the foam and give you a more consistant colour coverage.
Wet paint always looks darker than dry paint so don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’ve not painted enough.
Allow each coat to dry and reapply one more coat.
Lam as usual.
Good luck
Lots of good info so far. Take some time and do a search. I mix my water based acrylic paint by feel not by ratio. Not some thing that I can put into words. Use bottled water not tap water. Some swaylockers use an acrylic to thin their paint.
Get a big piece of cardboard and experiment with the following…
Line pressure from compressor. I use 30-40psi with a spray gun ,much less with a small air brush
Paint mixture more water / less water
Gun setting volume fan size more air /less air play around with it…
use light coats
spraying something pourous like a blank is very very different from spraying something like a hot coated surfboard
try it with the gun close to the cardboard ,try it far away. tilt the gun for a different effect…
I love painting but I’ve screwed up more than I care to admitt !
Cardboard is free !
Have fun
Ray