Hey there. im currently repairing a red tuflight shortbaord, basically the paint had chipped in several places and left white patches. now i bought the matching red tuflight paint lightly sanded the patches and surrounding area and paint first several light coats then when that didnt work heavy coats.
Now the problem is that i pant it on and it dries and everything but when i go to sand it so it blends in the the board i keep getting discolouration and bits of white reappearing? now this is the one and only tuflight board iv ever repaired i usually stick to good ole polyester boards, so iv little to no knowledge of how they're built, repaired or painted all i no is i need to get this done to a resonable standard so i can give it back to my mate (who owns the board).
il post some pics when i get home from work. Id really appriciate any advice Thanks!
What grit sandpaper are you using when you sand the painted repair? Surftech teaches in their repair seminars to use 1" tape around the repair and you peel back the tape so that it creates a fence so to speak. This way you don't get the distinct edge to sand down. Use 600 grit for to sand the primer (if used) and up to 1200 to knock down the paint. Use some detergent in water for the wet sanding. If the Surftech paint matches consider yourself lucky there. Car paint should be for cars not surfboards.
once you have sanded the damaged areas with 600 use a good quality white primer and spray just past the damage and fade the primer out, this will lose the harsh line between the red paint and old primer and make blending the new paint in way easier. The rattle can paints from surftech are pretty poor quality and don’t set up hard enough for a good finish , i use lechler paints and get them mixed up and colour matched at my local body shop supplies. Good materials make things so much easier.
I think that's funny, but beware the Asian Justice Patrol will get both of us for being anti-tuflite racist pigs.
I have two suggestions for the OP, neither of them very helpful. 1) Put wheels on it, take it to a body shop; or 2) Paint a flower over the repair, no one will notice.
Thanks for the responses! ive been using 340 and 400 grit to prepare the area and then wet sanding (with just water) with 1000 grit. Iv being trying to minimize the area im sanding as its a high gloss finish surfboard so maybe im not sanding enough of the original paint? im picking up a sander polisher tommorow so it’ll make polishing the board much easier hopefully eliminating that particular problem. Iv no spray gear(yet) and i usually work with polyester so iv only acrilic paints… Thus im only using one of those small repair bottles of tuflight paint and ya it doesnt match colour its considerably lighter. How is that they are both supposedly “tuflight red”
Thanks Again il post pics when iv given it another bash!
Fading color over a spot repair is tough. TufLites have a very thin color coat so sanding/feathering the edges is a sketchy proposition.
Most bodyshop guys try and find some sort of boundary like along the edge of a door or fender or maybe where some trim strips are to mask off for the paint. A surfboard obviously doesn't have boundaries like that so you can match the color as best you can and fog over the patch or paint the entire deck or bottom and maybe mask it off at a pinline somewhere.
Some body shops have computer matching capabilities and get a much closer match than standard touch up paint. A custom color mix will be costly... $50-$100 per quart(?)
In California there are VOC regulations that resulted in non-glossy paint. They require a clear coat for a good gloss... another $50 or so per quart.
Check Boardlady.com - she is good at color matching and after a good buffing her patches are hard to detect. She uses a color mix chart to determine what combination of tints are needed to match a color.
Without spray equipment, the next best option is rattle cans. Krylon worked for George Greenough. A tip is to cut a small round hole in a piece of cardboard and spray through that to direct the paint and minimize excess overspray. Some rattle can paints match TufLites pretty close.
I take the boards into Home Depot and they scan the bottom. The lady at the paint counter takes the scanner head appart. We hold the board against the glass for the scan. She said lots of people bring boards in for paint matching.
For $10 I get a quart of house paint that matches “perfect”. I dilute the paint with water and airbrush. I airbrush some polyurethane over that for gloss.
I tell people the paint will be fragile for a couple of months. Then give them the can of paint.
Ok so finally got around to taking a few pics, thanks for all the feed back let me know what you think after seeing the pics… im not looking for a miracle because clearly the reds dont match despite what surftech say but any advice on feat[img_assist|nid=1048399|title=Tuflight paint repair?|desc=Blending Problem with Tuflight Apint|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=67][img_assist|nid=1048399|title=Tuflight paint repair?|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=640|height=429]hering or making them blend better would be great thanks a million gu[img_assist|nid=1048400|title=Tuflight Paint|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=441]ys!