I am in the middle of a Restoration Project on an early 70s single fin (Its a “Design 1”, Id like to know who shaped this sled as well!)- The Deck (which has the laminate) is in decent enough shape, but the Bottom is Funky. Its a Clear Bottom that has way too much browing/dents etc etc. I have sanded and filled all said dents and have a level clean surface now. So I want to color the entire bottom, up to the deck lap- If I opaque tint the hot coat I am afraid my sand out is going to be to streaky, showing the Bottom funk underneath- Is this a correct assumption? The next possibility might be an over-all spray out with water based acrylic, on top of the Hot coat. My questions are- What grit do I take the hot coat down to prior to spraying? Do I need a primer coat before the spray- or better a couple of lite coats of the same color- and finally, I want to give it a gloss coat of resin- Do I need to lay down another fine coat of clear acrylic, before the gloss to prevent bleeding of my paint- With all of this paint/Clear coat- will my gloss still stick well enough? I have sacoured the archives- But was hoping to get some feedback from those in the know, on the cosmetics!- Thanks all- Steve
Steve. If you want to do an opaque hotcoat use pigment not tint.Tint will not give you an opaque finish. On the restorations that I do I normally do two coats. The first is basiclly a fairing coat and I dont worry about sanding through the colour. The idea is to get a nice fair finish to put the final colour coat on.I use a mix of 75% hotcoat and 25% neutral spray gelcoat. Add the pigment.The pigments I use are mixed at 10% but I would check with your supplier as to what % to use.The reason for adding the spray gellcoat is. Gelcoat is designed to stick to vertical surfaces without sagging,adding it to the mix helps to stop the resin seperating and sagging on the rails of the board. Treat the mix as if it were normal hotcoat,dont over catalize, because if there are any pinholes they will become alot more obvious with a pigment coat.The pigment also slows he gell time slightly. Sand and finish as as normal.I sand 400,600,1200,1500 wet and dry and polish.But there is more than one way to skin a cat.Use what ever way you are comfortable with finishing the board. I am presantly restoring a Michael Peterson 6’9" single fin. The bottom of this board is as you describe your board. I have filled all the dings,and it is ready to paint. What I plan to do is,undercoat and paint it with automotive acrilic paint.Then do a clear glass job over. I was going to do a pigment glass job, but I did some test lams and you could see the filled areas underneath, even though they were the same colour as the pigment.So I decided to paint it. This is the first restoration I have done this way, so it is new territory for me. I have hotcoated over acrilic in the past with good results. The reason I am glassing the bottom is because of its condition.If it were strong enough I would paint it and hotcoat it only.Hope this helps, good luck. David.
Great information David- Have never added the spray Gelcoat to sanding resin before- sounds like, in principle it will help to enable me to do the Bottom and lap in one coat with better results than I have had in the past- Does it mix well with the sanding coat? I generally try to mix enough of my color batch that I can do a second coat or touch up the next day with the same batch of resin- If let sit in a sealed container, is it going to get hinky (technical term) on me? Have you (or any one else) glossed over a solid acrylic painted hotcoat before? Any tips or suggestions to prevent paint bleed, and provide a decent bond? Steve
I’ve painted over a hotcoat on the bottom of a restore last year with disasterous results. I sprayed an automotive acrylic (not too heavy)over a 120 sanded surface. Everything was fine for a couple of months until a rail got dinged. As I sanded the edges to repair, the hot coat started flaking and then came off in big sheets. I took the rest off with just a putty knife! Anyway, I sanded the board down until the weave was showing and then did an opaque color lamination with 6oz. I also tinted the hotcoat the same color which effectively hid all the fills. The lamination added a little weight, but if you sand down to the cloth it isn’t bad. Most restores benefit from the new glass anyhow. Repairing a painted board is a lot more work than a straight pigment color, so keep this in mind if you’re going to ride it regularly. I think the problem with paint is that you need a lot of coats to hide the repaired areas. By the time you’ve opaqued them, the surface is too smooth for the resin to get a bite. If you still want to paint, only use Nova Color but beware it’s very expensive.
Steve, I hav’nt had any problems mixing the two together. When I do the pigment coats, I tape the rail as if I were doing a regular hotcoat.The mix is not thick enough to hang upsidedown without getting drips forming.99% of the boards I do have 50/50 rails so I tape to the apex of the rail. It means sanding the edge the tape leaves, but that is easier than sanding a whole lot of drips. I have heard of people spraying topcoat clear automotive acrilic to seal the paint, sanding then glossing. Another option would be to gloss the board with topcoat clear.It polishes to a very high gloss. I use it on repairs to gloss boards where you need to paint the repair.David.
Thanks for the info guys- Think I will shy away from the paint under the gloss scenario! I will attempt an Opaque Pigment job- should it not cover well enough I will spray the finished product and do a clear acrylic finish! Aprec. the input- really speeds up the learning curve! Steve