I just painted some pin lines on my first board and realized after the fact that I was supposed to mix the pigment with gloss resin and not just paint straight pigment on the board. Rookie mistake. Now before I break out the acetone and sander, will these things ever dry, or is the pigment simply too dense to cure? It’s been 2 days and they’re still looking pretty wet. What to do? Thanks!
-Hanlon
Clean it up, and start over.
tape it off again before you use any solvents… to keep the pigment from “staining” the surrounding area.
Yeah, tape it first so you don't contaminate the rest of the board. Use gloss resin with a good amount of pigment so that it is completly opaque. Kick it kinda fast so that it doesn't run, you want to add more MEKP too cause of the extra pigment. Pull the tape as the resin begins to gel. watch your cup, and check its viscosity so that you know when to pull the tape. too soon and it'll run, too late, and it can chip, or you will have sharp edges on the edge of the lines. remember to lightly sand before laying down a gloss coat so that the wax in the pinlines is gone, and the gloss coat will completely adhere to your pins.
According to the master glasser video you can pull the tape right after you apply it. Walk the board out with a paint brush, brushing on the gloss resin with the pigment. After circling the board twice applying the gloss resin, go ahead and pull the tape while it’s wet. He swears it will never run. I’ve done this a few times and have never had it run either. Wait for it to cure and then lightly sand. Another tip, to give the pin a really solid edge, take some sandpaper (I believe that he uses 600 grit) and wrap a little piece around a razor blade. Then take the blade at a 45 degree angle to the board along the outside of the pin line on either side. Basically you are making a tiny little sanding block using the razor blade to clean up any little weirdness on the edge of the line. This is all after the pin has cured of course. I really cleans up the line and makes it “pop”. Apparently it was a trick he learned from Jim Philip.
Thanks for the advice. I’m going to tape it off and start cleaning it up now. I was just about to re-watch the pin section of the master glasser video and thought, “Oh it’s just pins. Paint em’ on!” I’m such a jerk. :)
I find that my gloss resin runs easily as compared to lam resin because of the increased styrene content that thins it. on a really curvy surface such as the deck side of a board with exaggerated down rails, my pins will run on me. when I pull it at the right time (inbetween liquid and gel), it stays perfect, and the edges of the pin line seem to lay down flat instead of curing sharp from riding up the tape line. another way to prevent pinlines having sharp edges is to press the tape down firmly with a popsicle stick.
I havent seen that video, so i'll try that technique sometime. Jim Phillips makes crazy good boards and knows his stuff.
Good luck
When I made the video I was using Reichold Gloss resin. it has been the industry standard for many years. I don’t know what they are using now. I never did like Silmar…it took too long to kick. I like to shoot pins pretty hot. I have never had a pinline run when pulling the tape on wet resin. If you pull the tape wet you get a domed pinline that has less of a pronounced edge. If you pull the tape when it’s jelled you get a harder edge that you can clean with the folded sandpaper over razor blade trick. When in doubt forget the resin and use acrylic paint. RB
Thanks RB, your video was great. It certainly made me try things like a resin swirl bottom and pin lines that I otherwise would have been gun-shy to try. I just removed and redid the pins and they came out great! Partly because my taping must be getting better due to all my screwups. I let the gloss resin sit for about 20 min and then did a wet pull with no bleeding. 'Looks pretty sweet! Now on to the glossing. Thanks…
-Hanlon
Howzit Mr Clean, You forgot to tell them the trick about glossing the board after the pins kick but no sanding. But then again maybe that's an advanced trick of the trade that we will just keep to ourselves. Aloha,Kokua
Howdy Kokua old buddy. Yea that’s an old school deal. I don’t think anyone around here is in that much of a hurry so it’s best not to get in to it too much. last time I used it was on an opaque resin panel.
Anyway…you can (but it’s risky) gloss a board without sanding the pins. You have to apply the gloss right after the pins have jelled and the wax has risen. Big production shops used to do this all of the time. I don’t recommend it. All you have to nowdays do is cut the wax surface with red scotchbrite. Only takes a minute. I am stoked to see all of these boards using resin color work. When we made the video everyone seemed to be using acrylic on foam for the color.
I love looking at the Cooperfish boards. I follow them on facebook every day. I am sure there are other builders doing the same quality but I am not aware of them. Gene Cooper was very cool and actually came on Swaylocks and shared his techniques. A couple of those tricks are amazing.I also like Austin’s boards.
I mainly do antique furniture work nowdays but I am stll addicted to board building. I wish I lived somewhere where there were factories I could go play in. I dig doing resin color work and would probably do it for free. “Have brush and tape…Will Travel”. Any takers?
maybe that is why mine sometimes run. I use silmar. Mine come out nice and domed if I time it correctly right inbetween liquid and gelled. the edges seem to slowly droop as it cures.
I have only use Reichold for pins as well. That probably explains it.
Seems like I remember someone around here was using waxed lam resin and bumping it with cobalt. It sounded good. I used cobalt back in the 60’s but can’t recall the specifics.We could always get Reichold so I stuck with it. If I don’t have 3m tape and reichold resin with good pigment I am at a loss. Not to mention a round tip artists brush and small dixie cup…some acetone and bounty paper towels. Yep…Bounty…no other brand.Cheap paper towels are for Kooks.
I have been accused of being set in my ways but it’s total bullshit.
Whatever floats your boat i guess. I screwed up a bunch, and finally got it to work.
Along the lines of that trick, could you make your own gloss resin, but leave out the paraffin( just PE and styrene), and skip out onsanding the wax off? You'd have to lay down som good pins (ie. no mistakes to sand off) but it might work.
3M tape is the best, but you can use a lesser tape and get away with it if you're quick AND... I always finger smear a light coat of UV lam on the edges of the tape. Let it gel and it will seal the edges of the tape (colored resin running/seeping under the tape is your biggest enemy, you will very soon discover this). After gelling brush on the pigmented, catalyzed resin.
I like to pull the tape as soon as possible. If the pinline resin gels, the tape edge won't be a clean line.
Pins wider than about 1/4 inch on sloping rails are prone to sagging and light areas not adequately covered due to drain-off. Most pins are narrower than that.
Add surfacing agent if you use lam resin (I do). If no agent, the styrene-thinned finish coat will bleed color from the pinline lam resin.
Pinlilnes eat up a lot of tape. I use 3/4" wide but have a roll of 1/4 and 1/8 for tighter curves. The green tape seems to be what 3M is producing nowadays, the old beige tape seems NLA.
Y'know, a SEARCH would have turned up all the info you could ever need. and more.
G'day everyone.
I have read this thread from start to finish and seen some common methods for pin lines. I decided to have a go .
I have done an acrylic line before and I dont think I waited long enough after doing it before I put down the top coat of gloss. It bled and ran down the rails. I sanded it off and did it again and waited a day. Much better the second time.
For thisonoe I wanted to try the resin pin line.
My board has pigment swirl on the bottom and a cut inlay swirl on the deck. I did a 4oz cloth over the deck and lapped under. The cut lap to the deck was a little jaggered so my pin line ended up about 6mm (1/4 inch) so I was not sure if this was to wide. It wasnt.
3M green 12mm tape for the curved fit. Good suggestion as I have found the wider tapes buckle and create steps in the tape.
I rubbed the edges with a pop stick and could see the better adhesion at edges.
I used Selmar resin , other post's had mentioned that the Selmar runs a bit more , and added navy blue pigment . Heaps of pigment to make sure it was a full opaque.
The question on how much catalyst came down to how much confidence I had with my ability to get resin onto the board. I should have trusted my self and made it hotter as it took about 20min to gell. I got the resin on within about 4-5 mins and was left scratching my balls waiting and hoping.
The brush I used was a long plump to point bristle , 12mm long.
I was a bit worried about pulling the tape when the resin was wet so I tried the inside edge tape first so if it did run it would still run onto tape. It came off very clean and no trouble.
With the confidence of the first tape peel I did the bottom edge tape and it came off very clean. I had let the resin sit for a bit longer until I peeled. I had a bit of resin down so I noticed it flowed onto the tape and created a bump/lip on the tape. It looked even cover so I then peeled the tape while still wet.
It gelled after peeling the tape with no runs and a crisp rounded edge. I dont even need the sandpaper/razor edge cleanup.
First pin line done and it looks great.
I learnt that pin lines are mostly harder in your head than actually having a go. At worst you can sand them off.
Things for the next time.
1. cut lap should be better to reduce pin line width ( cleaner prep makes better finish job)
2. make the pot a bit hotter so it cures in abut 10 mins.
3. you can peel the tape with wet resin.
Grab your balls and have a go.
This forum and its contributers , both novice and pro, have put questions and answers that provided me with enough info to get an all round opinion on methods and tricks learned by years of doing the job.
Thanks for the advice you have made available.
Now for the top gloss coat.
To tape or not to tape? to many youtube video's with pro's making it look so easy.
Thanks
Woody.
West Oz backyarder.
Howzit Mr. Clean, Sparkle paper towels work really good also, used them for years in the shop. But some other brands are terrible and just fall apart when they get wet from any kind of liquid. I wouldjust wait till they were on sale then buy a enough to last about 6 weeks since that was about how long before they would be on sale again.Aloha,Kokua
