HI Jeff,
I use a rag to wipe on the floor sealer, it does tend to dry unevenly. I’ve tried a foam brush but it streaks. I have not tried using a roller.
If you are concerned about the look, it may not be the best. I use a scotch brite pad and end up with a matte finish, not a glossy finish.
I also use an inexpensive portable paint sprayer Bernie gave me. Sometimes, instead of the floor sealer I’ll spray a polyurethane clear coat that you can get at the hardware store like a Varathane paint. I usually have some Varathane at home for wood work I do. I don’t spray often because I need to make plastic walls to keep my garage clean, and then I have to clean up the sprayer.
The down side is later when you have to fix a ding. Sanding is harder. But I recently refinished some old PU boards and they were quite a pain to sand down to the weave. The resin seemed a lot harder than any of the epoxy boards we’ve made.
I have also used the pour on self leveling epoxy for table tops. That one takes about 8 hours to get past tacky, and you need a clean room, but the finish is like a mirror. I can’t say how much weight it added because it was a long time ago, maybe 15 years.
I should probably make PU/Poly again, quick, easy and good results if you do it right. A guy I surf with was run over the other day, ended up with a foot long smash on the bottom of his EPS board and the glass was cracked open. Looked like a rail hit his board pretty hard. I told him he had to go in right away or the board would get waterlogged, and we were at a beach where it takes about 10 minutes to paddle in. That’s one reason I am afraid to ride hollow boards here, by the time I get in the board would be full of water.
I hope you find a good solution, your boards are pieces of art as much as they are a surfing tool. My boards are tools for riding waves, I used to think that if they were good in the water, I could refinish them to make them look great, but I’ve learned that re-doing the finish later is a pain in the okole.
Enjoy Halloween with your family. Bernie was born just before midnight on October 30th, a little later and we’d be calling him pumpkin.
Did you ever find the cleaning cloth you were looking for? I could send you some of these little squares I have and maybe you could find something similar but larger. If you want some I just need your address. FYI, I found some old individually packed type (sealed with alcohol) that are no good anymore. The brand was Textwipe. Not sure if there is a market for these except in electronics repair shops. I don’t know what brand the plain white pieces of cloth were.