Painting in between epoxy laminations

General Discussion
1

Can I paint a board entirely in acrylic in between epoxy laminations or am I courting a delamination disaster ?

The reason I ask is that  an attempted opaque tint to hide “blue xps” has not turned out very opaque. It was my first go at tinting anything and I was being a little too careful in not adding too much tint and affecting the strength of the lamination.

I was planning to do multiple laminations of 4 oz cloth one at a time anyway and have only put the first bottom one down.

I could try to tint the second one a little heavier, but I’m a bit “tint shy” now.

Any advice offered in regards to this would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Rohan

 

2

Maybe not disasterous delamination, but I would count on fish eyes and other problems.  Use opaque pigment instead, but be sure it’s an opaque pigment not a tint pigment.  You need to use a lot of pigment even with the opaque type. There’s no such thing as an opaque tint. 

3

I like to add a little bit of white pigment before adding my color pigment as white tends to “Opaque out” the resin with less pigment.

4

Thanks guys. I did actually mean to say pigment rather than tint.

It was opaque white pigment that I used (but obviously not enough).

Should I:

1) retry with a stronger pigmented second lamination

2) leave it ugly (the board is only for me anyway)

3) paint it before a non-pigmented second lamination

Cheers

Rohan

 

5

"blue xps"

 

6

You could always do it like they did in the old days and do an opaque hot coat to cover up the blue completely. The benefit of doing it this way is that you won’t have to worry about doing cut laps, which is not that fun with epoxy. All you have to do is do a regular hotcoat, sand it with 80 grit, then do an opaque hotcoat on top of that. HIt the board, and tape seam, with 400 grit and then call it a day. It’ll seal it up, and make it look super stealth. 

7

I’ve painted the rails of a board (rattlecan of 3M vinyl paint) in between laminations, ie lam bottom, paint rails, lam deck to overlap the painted rails. I haven’t had any delamination issues with this. I’ve also used the same paint on a sanded hotcoat, and applied a gloss coat over the top without issue.

Cheers
Paul

8

Just go for the pigment. Do you know how much you used and how much resin you laminated with last time? Either way, write it down and write the results or take photos for future reference. I just did the same thing on a board I was doing, it was supposed to be teal but it’s all blotchy. I just left it and called it art.

9

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. Much appreciated.

I like the opaque hot coat idea. This one saves me having to buy paint or compromise the strength of the lamination with pigment. And it uses less pigment than a lamination as well.

Cheers

Rohan