Have this 12' Dusty Rhodes that is in suprisingly good structural shape, but pretty tanned and marked. What would be the best way to go about coloring the board? I fixed all of the dings and sanded the entire board, so the choicewould be to paint the board and hot coat it, or do an opaque gloss coat. Anyone have any suggestions either way?
[img_assist|nid=1046073|title=d2|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0][img_assist|nid=1046074|title=d1|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0]
Clear gloss it. Wet and dry sand it and polish. You will be supprised how good it will look.
platty.
Hi David -
I was over on your blog and kept seeing the nice wooden board at the top of the page. Can you elaborate please?
[img_assist|nid=1046082|title=Dusty|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0]Thanks for the feedback, but I want to color the board. You can't see in my picture, but there were holes drilled in the board in different spots. I need to know how opaque I can get a gloss coat to "color" the board or just paint it and gloss it. What kind of paint was used on these original boards, for the competition stripes and deck patches
.
I’d go with pigmented gloss for the color on a board of that vintage. I had a Dusty Rhodes Spider back in '67 with color and I believe that was how it was done.
For what its worth, here are my two cents worth. I’d stay away from a paint and gloss, especially if you’re going to ride it. The main reason for this is that its not ‘historically correct’ and the second is that unless you prep perfectly and have great equipment, well, it looks like a paint and gloss job.
There’s lots of good info in the archives on how to do a tinted gloss, or a tinted hotcoat followed by a gloss. That’s what you see on the early color jobs. Get an opaque tint (semis work fine, but you will still see all the crap you’re trying to cover up) and do a couple of small test batches until you figure out how to get an even, opaque surface. Use a very good brush, good tape, and a very clean room and it’ll come out fine. The prep work will really pay off, since the less sanding of little tits and tape-line rough spots, the cleaner your result will be with less risk of sand-throughs. A tinted gloss will polish up well, you just need to use extreme caution to not tear through it. If in doubt, just fine sand carefully and then gloss, another few onces of resin won’t matter on a vintage 12 footer anyway.
Enjoy.
And to respond to how opaque you can go - think of the Black Cat for example. Even in lighter colors, I’ve had several vintage boards on which the gloss was completely opaque. As stated previously, you’ll need to test to find the right proportions without getting so much tint that your resin dries rubbery and impossible to sand (Been there, done that, thankfully a long time ago).
jeffery has hit the nail right on the head. Ask your supplier for pigment rather than tint. With pigment you will get a complete opaque finish. Also ask them what percentage to use. Different colours have different percentages. Remember pigment will slow your gell times a little. Getting a good clean pigment coat down is a skill aquired through experience. I'm not trying to discourage you. But they can be hard to get right. Use filler / hotcoat resin rather than gloss. It is thicker and will not flow off the rails easilly as gloss. It will pollish up fine. I normally do a cheater coat on the rails before the main coat. If you are going to get any thin spots it is going to be on the rails. platty.
Hi John. I don't know much about the history of this board apart from it was in the loft of an old chicken shed for many years and was covered in bird droppings.
It is ply on a cedar frame. Looks like a professional build. I dont think it has ever seen the water. I had to replace some of the ply. There was no evedence of ever having water in it. No water stains or salt residue. It was still full of wood shavings and dust.
It is 10' x 22 1/4" x 4 1/4" The nose is 16 3/8" and the tail is 13" the pod is 8 1/4". It has 50/50 rails through the mid sections. 80/20 on the nose and tail. 20 on the bottom at the tail and 20 on the deck at the nose. A fair bit of camber in both the deck and bottom flattening out to blend into the /20 rails. Not sure if it ever had a fin in it. The bit of ply I replaced was were the fin would be. But there was no structure within the frame for a fin. So all i did to it was replace some ply at the nose and tail and varnish it. Not sure if it was even varnished. platty.
Tint and opaque are two different things. Tint is just what it implies. The resin will have color in it, but still be ‘see through’. So, I’d go with a pigmented coat. Use sanding resin, not gloss. As others suggested, do a few test batches before you commit to the process. Keep it clean as you can. After doing your color coat, a careful sanding followed by a gloss coat is the way to go.
Gotta wonder why that thing is 12’? Must be a tandem board?
PS: those tiny photos don’t help.
Thank you all for the good advice. I tested a repair area with some white+blue+red pigment and have a nice "Barney" purple opaque that was not translucent. The question will now be how much resin should be mixed for each side of the board? I also have some bigger pics. I also am curious of the behemouth dims on this board along with a relatively small fin (7" with a 11" base). At worst it will be a great glider for waist high or less glassy surf.
Looks like some serious stringer rot in there. Fin looks about normal for the era.
The board that I recently did for the Billabong auction was gloss color, it was over new construction and most, I say most of the new pigments do NOT have the coverage that the old Ram pigments had, but we have a whole new set of regulations in effect concerning the heavy metals that go into making them.
I loaded the color up to the point I was worried about bleeding when clear glossed over, but added a bit of cobalt and some additional wax solution to be sure the surface would seal over.
It did not bleed, but during the handsand prior to gloss, the paper really loaded up with very red sanding residue, this made my butt pucker even if it went off very hard, I got very lucky.
In your case, being a resto, load up the resin with pigment, try out a sample spot to see if you get coverage or do not get what seems like improper gel and cure, you may have to sand between coats and double gloss the color on really old discolored boards.
If you have not done this before, it might be you apprenticeship to frustrating and very hard work, good luck
