I have an old 60’s board that I am cleaning up a bit. It was a nice yellow-orange but it had faded a lot. I fixed the dings and sanded it to 120. I have some Reinholt gloss resin, and was planning to put on a bit of close-to-original color in a gloss coat, and then scuff this with a 3M scuff pad and put on a clear gloss coat. Then buff and polish.
Am just trying to make it look a bit nicer–I know it won’t be perfect but perhaps a little cleaner looking. Is this a reasonable plan to achieve what I want to achieve?
It’s hard to comment about what you should do without seeing a picture of the board. When it comes to surfboards color glosses are about the hardest thing to do right. I’m guessing as soon as you put it on you’ll wish you could turn back the clock.
I usually think one’s better off color-matching the dings, cleaning the board up as much as possible, and then simply regloss if you’d like.
Most of us, at one time or another (or lots of times…) have sanded, added resin panels/full color to vintage boards, and then glossed. At one time, that was pretty normal. But the boards lose character and history, and unless done really carefully they gain a fair amount of weight and rarely look “just right” in the period correct sense.
If a board is broken, has huge areas of delam or water damage that require major surgery… that’s a different story.
Good advice. A battered old board that has been cleaned up, dings repaired, reglossed and polished will have more value than a full pigment cover up any day.
Yes, I understand. But I can’t help myself–I’m going to try not to ruin it, but I think I can improve the look a little bit (without fully changing it’s character). Famous last words, maybe.
I don’t have a good picture of what I started with. But it pretty much looked like this all over. I fixed what was needed and lightly airbrushed over most of the brown spots. Yes, I do have a good bit of time on my hands right now.
