just a quick question after glossing i use up about 4 sheets of sandpaper getting the gloss down to a sandable surface due to gumming of the paer is there anything else to use?
thanks
paul
I’m going to assume your using poly not epoxy.
I haven’t had problems with the paper gumming up, it could the lenght of time you are leaving the resin to cure before rubbing out.
Once its kicked I’ll go round and knock off any tits and drips with a razor blade. then I’ll leave it to cure for 1-2 weeks before polishing. start at 400-600 wet and dry then 800 used wet, then compound followed by marien liquid wax. buff and shine.
I find that you get a better shine by leaving it longer to cure and by finishing up with a second hand buffed coat of wax once the first is dry.
it could also be the way your applying the gloss goat, it needs to be thick enough to flow and even itself out, but not so thick that it gets peel or slabs. let the resin do all the work.
adding an extra 10% styrene and 1% wax helps, and adding upto 1/4 lam resin to the gloss helps to stablize it some what.
No Pro by a long shot but hope this helps.
No glossing master response here by any means… but… if your gloss coat… gums… it aint’ gloss coat. Mix another batch, more SA added, don’t sand your gummed up stuff… something similar happend to me a couple boards back… I realised after an hour I didn’t add any SA… just a bit more styrene instead… that’s what happens when you take your respirator off for a few minutes to smoke a butt and don’t leave the room.
didnt know that you had to leave gloss to go off for that long was only leving it over night!
i add about 4cc’s of wax in styrene and 30cc of catalyst as i cant get straight styrene here.
goes off in around 15 mins.
Poly gloss? You should be able to sand it in like an hour, hour and a half minimum and like maybe three hours tops, climate dependent. Not that I sand mine that soon really, I usually let it cure a minimum of a day but usually about three. However, what I mean by hour → hour 1/2 is you could sand it and I do sand it along my tape line in this short a time when I flip and tape.
\r
also, 30cc of cat sounds like a lot. how much resin were you using?
I have a nifty little pattern - 15cc for just about everything.
Give or take a few oz resin depending on length. These are for 6’5" to 7’5"
This is all for 5.5oz glassing schedules so obviously less on lam for 4oz schedules.
bottom lam about 1qt resin + 15cc MEKP
top lam about 1.5qt resin + 15cc MEKP
top/bottom hotcoat 1.5pt resin + 100-150ml SA + 15cc MEKP
top/bottom glosscoat 1pt resin + 150ml SA + 300ml Styrene +15cc MEKP
I increase MEKP by not more then 5cc on avg depending on how I feel.
AND… I could definitely be doing things wrong by somebody elses standards but this glassing schedule took one of my boards for a ride over the reef at lance’s lefts and macaronis with naught but a teeny nic in the nose that chipped the gloss. since then, until someone has a worthy suggestion… it’s my recipe.
Oh yeah, on more thing… I don’t polish, I sand my gloss coats with only 320 dry/wet(use to use 220 first but that took off way too much resin). Never saw the point of polish. The more ‘mirror’ like the surface is, the more of a suction cup surfaces become. not too mention more work, more time to ding repair, more stress about scratches and scuffing… so… all the added strength and sealer of a gloss coat, half the work.
i generally go with the same ammounts for my boards too.
but is that a pint of gloss you use?
did 2 today and they are still tacky 5 hours later!
i only mix around a 300mls of gloss resin for a 10 ft longboard with 2 caps of wax and 30ccs of cat as i cant get styrene, but that covers the board fine
Yes, 1 pint. It’s actually one pint total after I mix the gloss, and on the shorter boards I’m left with, oh maybe an 1oz - 2oz leftover, not including brush off, spill off etc.
So, basically I start with approx 10-12 oz lam, add SA and Styrene. Ends of filling a ben & jerrys container (pint 'O ice cream).
so … I start with about about 500ml LAM
+ about 150ml SA
+ about 300ml Styrene
2 to 1 : styrene to sa
If you’re using the amount of resin I use for styrene I’m either using way too much resin or you’re using way too little… or more likely somewhere in between. But for a 10’ foot board I’d be estimating my use at about 1.5 - 2 pints… all mixed.
30ml MEKP for 300ml of resin sounds … whoa… pretty hot. Seems to me that’d make for a fairly ‘chippy’ gloss coat. That is that it,the resin, would be significantly weakened and flake after a bit of time from nicks and chips and whatnot.
But I digress, if it hasn’t gone off hard like a hotcoat in one hour much less five… something is either dreadfuly wrong with your resin or something is dreadfuly wrong with your resin. Or it’s 40 degrees in your glassing room. ORRR, your MEKP is broken.
I would do this to test first… add more SA!!! If you haven’t got styrene add about twice as much SA as you would to your hotcoat. It almost reads like you’re adding a bit more MEKP to make up for lack of styrene… If I’m reading that right… that’s not what you need nor want to do.
What’s a capful? Around 20ml? add four or five if two isn’t curing hard I’d say… Or maybe your adding too much MEKP, not leaving enough time for your wax to rise… that could be… I think i’ve read that here on sways somewhere… I wish a guru glasser would chime in.
I use a 30ml medicine cup for my measurments… The 30ml line is about 15-20ml from the tippy top and I ‘fill and spill’ with this… so, depending on how much I’m ‘spilling’ on each little medcup I estimate my “50ml” measurement is anwhere from 45-60ml.
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i generally go with the same ammounts for my boards too.
but is that a pint of gloss you use?
did 2 today and they are still tacky 5 hours later!
i only mix around a 300mls of gloss resin for a 10 ft longboard with 2 caps of wax and 30ccs of cat as i cant get styrene, but that covers the board fine