I’ve hotcoated a new board recently and I had several small craters where the hot coat didn’t stick across the board. I was able to do another hot coat in these areas once the initial hotcoat dryed. I just did the bottom tonight and had several craters on it. Any thoughts on what created this?
PS: The hotcoat was over waterbased paint on the lams.
Sounds like fish eyes. Contamination causes them. Even from your hands. I wipe down with a moist (not wet) clean cotton rag with denatured alcohol. Let it completely evaporate and dry before proceeding.
Thanks. Yes. Little fish eyese all over. I tried to upload a pic but having issues. Is hotcoating these spots the best way to fix?
Actually if I see a fish eye forming I take a drop of resin and put it right on the eye while everything is still going off. May end up a tiny bit high but it sands right down.
When I did the bottom tonight and saw these forming, I tried to rub it with my glove and then brush over (move) more resin over the spot. However, it would ultimately move away from this spot and I still had the crater. Maybe something go into the paint when I sprayed it???
I’m trying to figure out the best way and place to paint and then protect the art work.
So you didn’t paint the blank, you painted the cloth?
Try hitting it with a few short blasts from a heat gun while the resin is still wet. The little bubbles will go pop, pop, pop. This works better than working it over again with the brush.
was anyone spraying wd40 nearby? sounds like a contamination in the air or from your handling. sometimes I use automotive wax and grease remover before doing my hot coat, it works great.
Yes. I didn’t realize I could paint the blank. I’ll do that next time. I actually used pigment in the resin when laying down the cloth but thought the “red” looked to pink. I found Liquitex paint, tested it on sample skim blank and it seemed to work. However, not exactly the same on the board. It looks great I just hate these spots that I have to hotcoat again.
Johnny Fever has the simplest solution. You can just drop resin when it’s pulling apart, don’t brush it, just let it fill the void. That’s the thing about epoxy fill coats, you can get it clean as you can and still have it happen. Make sure you use adequate amount of Additive F or equivalent. This increases surface tension and helps prevent fisheyes.
Fish eyes..fish eyes.FISH EYES!!
Hello people, listen up. Fish eyes come from polutants, either airborn, or from the host.
If you painted something...and there are fish eyes on the paint..err, guess what? Your paint sucks, maybe your paint was never intended to be covered in epoxy
Or maybe your fish eyes are exactly where you grabed it on the rails to flip it over after sanding? Maybe you went inside and ate a big ol sandwich smothered in Mayo, maybe you wiped you big o pie hole with yo jelopy hand, den grabed and flipped you bord.....Bang Mayo fish eyes.
Or maybe you masked off only half of the board, and sprayed something suspect in the garage...Or maybe your wife or girlfriend snuck into the garage and was huffing your WD40 in a plactic bag.
If it's over the entire length of the board, then something got into the epoxy. if it's one spot in one area, then something dropped out of the heavens, if its a area the size of a hand on the rail..den guess what? If it's only on the painted surface...err den guess what.
The screw ups are endless for those with there spider senses down. All I can say is a freshly sanded board, with fresh sand paper, wiped off with a clean paper towel, with freash clean grease free hands will never....never, never produce fish eyes.
I never get fish eyes. Because my spider senses tingle......and I run off bad dirty people in my shop.
Thanks everyone for your feedback! I’m new to shaping and loving it! I actually used two capfulls of add f this time.
One more thing....Don't wipe your board down with DNA, or don't cut your epoxy with DNA. DNA depending from the manufacturer is not pure, you can have all sorts of fish eye causing stuff in it.
remember what we are doing here. Epoxy and Poly for that matter is at it cleanest state when it is freshly ground down (sanded). The clock starts ticking the second that surface is exposed to the elements. Rinsing,wiping, touching, licking, etc will only speed the fisheye clock up.
And hitting it with a heat gun will only make the fisheye bigger and thinner at the bottom. heat makes epoxy flow faster...makes it thinner...makes it kick off faster. Heat also makes you EPS blank therm off gass, heat also melts foam. Unless you know what you are doing, keep the heat gun away from a surfboard..To get rid of a specific fish eye, you need to wipe the ares of the fish eye...this is possibily the only time i use DNA. Put some DNA on a Qtip. Wipe the bottom of the Fish eye with the Qtip.....Then run the brush over the board again....Sometimes this works...sometimes.
So you say that i am possessed by the fisheye devil...well maybe, but he hasn't visited me in a long, long time. And I am sane because of it.
Spider Senses.
I hate Seals.
Thanks. After reading your post and others, I did wait some time before I put hotcoat on this board compared to my first which didn’t have any problems. Well, other than pilot error LOL. What do you recommend wiping your board down with if not DNA?
Another culprit I have run into is a dirty air compressor. If you blow your board off with a compressor that has water and/or oil in the tank. This eventually gets into the air lines and then you are blowing it all over the board.
Most people paint the blank. And Liquitex usually works like a champ but only thin with distilled water. Then allow to dry thoroughly.
I bet this was it. I blew it before I started and remember seeing some “dampness” hit the board and evap. I didn’t think much of it but given when I drained it a few weeks ago, the water etc that came out…I’m sure this was it.
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What do you recommend wiping your board down with if not DNA?
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A sanded finish, wiped down with a paper towel...that's it.
Why wipe? all you need to do is get the dust off...it's already clean as long as you don't smear those mayonaise hands all over it.
Or the sticky side of some quality 3M tape, such as 233.
Always buy Quality 3M products
Bmatthews,
Just chalk this one up to a learning experience. In the future, never paint the lam. Paint the foam or tint/color the lam resin. That and some basic cleanliness as decribed above and you shouldn’t have a fisheye problem.
If your paint was a gloss, you will get fish eyes where the surface is smooth and shiny. Same thing will happen if you wait too long to hot coat the other side…the resin will separate from any shiny place…all about surface tension. Contamination is not always the culprit, though it often is.
Resinhead is a proper guru! As my board building is obviously more sporadic than his I have to clean off my boards sometimes if I've had to delay between lam and fill coat. I've always used DNA (meths in UK parlance) and never fish eyed. But thats just my expeirence and I've probably just jinxed my next board :o(