Glossed board #6 recently using Kokuas gloss formula. Started sanding with 400g and went to 600g using a blue power pad on the bottom and a yellow one for the deck. Wet sanded and cleaned things off before changing grits. Used Maguires Marine fiberglass compound to rub out. IT LOOKS LIKE CRAP!!! I can see scratches everywhere when I look at the board just right. What went wrong?? It seemed to sand out nice and smooth. Have I completly hacked it???
Howzit Richard, First, the scratches are 400 grit which should easy to get rid of. Probably needed to sand more with 600 to remove 400 grit scratches, this is why I rev up the RPM's on the sander as the grit wears down and actually polishes the finish,plus you might not want to use such a hard pad. I use the hard (blue) pad only with the first samding to smooth out the finish, after that I use a soft Ferro pad. You should be able to resand with 600 til you remove the 400 scratches then use Shurlustre for the rubbing out. How many times did you go over the board with compound, 1 time is not enough and sometimes it takes as many as 3 or 4 applications to get rid of scratches. Aloha,Kokua
…after you apply the shure lustre or other compound, change the wool pad and apply 3m imperial glaze, crank up the rev s and the scratches will dissapear…
In the car business I was quite good at a process we called "color sand and buff ". Anything finer that 320 grit we always did by hand with the wet sand method.
I’m new to the surfboard business and see alot of guys using the power tools where I will take a little more time and do it by hand.
Take your time and sand the whole thing with 600 grit by hand using water. My guess is that your machine is clogging the paper and making things worse. Work your way down to 1000 grit or 1200 grit . From there it’s almost gloss. Buff that baby.
I would rather work it down with sand paper than buffing compound. That’s my way but I see alot of quality product done with other methods. If you are in the San Diego area PM me and I will be more than happy to show you my process,
Ray