Hello! Recently I picked up an old 9’ longboard. I am interested in restoring it. I’ve never restored a board before…so I’m looking for some advice. The board seems to have been painted a teal color (not original). Would you suggest carefully sanding the board and then doing another clear coat? Sand by hand? What should I do - I dont want to ruin this board! Any advice will be appreciated…Thanks!
Is the color work under the glass, or on top? If it is under the glass, and there is open dings, repair all dings,re-color where necessary, then re-gloss. I like to 60 grit the old hotcoat off as it generally lightens the board back up, both color wise and weight wise, then re-hotcoat. This coat if applied properly, can be re-polished. This gives the board a new (feel), without effecting it’s integrity. If it is hotcoat color, meaning just under the gloss,and there is some ding work, you might have problems.
The color work is all on top of the glass…I’m excited to see if anything is under the paint…I want to disturb as little as possible…
Then do your dings, and try not to break thru the gloss but in the areas that you fix dings. Match your color,spray(keep it small). Then 220 or 320 the whole board and shoot a thin glosscoat,then polish. Trust me, you don’t want to know what’s under that color, if it was put on to hide things.
Is that the reason that people painted over their boards back then – To hide dings and repairs?
I have a 1965 longboard that im sanding the paint off the bottom of now. its almost new underneath, although there is some dings that the paint may have been used to hide. nothing like the dings on a 2 year old modern glassed board though.
Any marks as to the shaper on your board? I havent started sanding mine yet - but I’ve heard a lot of older boards dont have any marks as to the maker… How are you going to restore the board? Nate
I’ve done a few dozen 60’s resto’s for some folks. Here’s my take. If you want a wall hanger quality ie, perfectly flat baby butt smooth heres what I do. Power pad flat with 80 grit, take all the old hot coat off. Fix the dings with the new Herb Baby Diaper Filler trick(HBDF). Re hot coat, then sand it down again with 80,100,150,220. By now all the heal dents, scratches etc will be filled and perfectly flat, some weave will be showing but no problem, they used to wrap those tanks with 4 x 10, 15 or 20 oz. Now you have 2 choices. 1 gloss and polish, showing all the dings and scars and just surf it, or 2 my favorite tape off a 60 color scheme hiding as many dings as possible. Use 3M fine line automotive tape, and paint with any flat acrylic cheap paint, I use Delta, or Apple Barrel from Wal-Mart or Michaels. Spray it on real light with a HVLP of Hobby type sprayer with a double action gravity feed, and use lots of light coats. Let it dry, and re hot coat over the top of it.(I guess you could gloss coat, but I like the extra thickness so I don’t sand through the color). Once it kicks off, sand and polish the hot coat like a gloss coat, yes it will polish out nice. Or you can do the same thing laying down a new color pigmented hoat coat. Lots of the 60 boards way back just pulled the tape on the hot coat and left it as is, bugs, hairs and all. Story: I restored this old Hobie that a buddy of mine found in a trash can. Someone had painted it red to hide a pink resin opaque. It’s nose was split and it had a few rail gashes, but it wasn’t too bad. I tried to talk my buddy into keeping it pink, that went over really well. So I ended up grinding off the color hot coat. When I got down to the clear board it was as bright as the day it was new. 2 inch Balsa stringer, perfect lam etc. Turned out so nice the guys hanging it in his living room, can’t bear to ride it…go figure, a surfboard that can’t be ridden? kinda like a cold beer that you cant have? Not even a sip, go figure.
Bling-bling!
Well, I just finished sanding all of the paint off of an old longboard…I hoped to find a Bing but there were no markings of any kind…I think I’m sick of the teal color it was painted. It appears there was alot of work done to the nose of the board - looks like it was cut to give it more point…the stringer stops about 1.5’ from the nose (Its still there - but covered with glass). Otherwise its in pretty good shape. I’m wondering what I should do now…re paint? Gloss coat it? Any advice would be great! I’m kind of leaning towards repainting it… So far I’ve just sanded the paint off with 60 grit…I don’t have much experience so any basic advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!