ok, so i have read the posts in the archives about sealing eps before lamming. which is better for using tints?
spackle? seems like it would accept the color better due to its porous nature, but what about delams?
microballons/resin seems like it wouldn’t accept very much color, or would show through tints, and i would have to stick with opaques.
and not sealing? how much weight does not sealing really add? bearing in mind i am making stubs/eggs/fish so a little extra isn’t that much of an issue.
thanks to all sways for lighting a fire under my ass to try something new…
If you’re planning on tints, why not tint the lam epoxy resin, and glass the board at the same time as installing the color? I wouldn’t, it would come out streaky. Pigment maybe, but better to paint over the coat after the lam coat.
Sealing is more something for bonding and lightness, maybe something not exactly set in stone, and open for disagreement.
What kinda epoxy? Some turn yellow/brown with age.
If you’re planning on tints, why not tint the lam epoxy resin, and glass the board at the same time as installing the color? Well, that was my plan, tint the resin just like doing a poly lay up. just wondering which sealer would accept the resin and color better i guess.
What kinda epoxy? Some turn yellow/brown with age. well, greg says he has his RR availlable here in brazil now, so if i can track that down… if not, i’ll just go with what i can find, and go opaque with pigment and forget about it. thanks for the reply,
The epoxy microballoons I have been using is very white. 3m glass bubbles. At least it looks bright white next to corecell foam - have to admit I haven’t used it on eps yet but i think it will match very well.
Here’s an idea I just had- when I apply a resin microbaloon filler, I squeegee the stuff on, use the squeegee to scrape off as much as possible, then laminate immediately. After scraping the filler with the squeegee, it only fills in the little pores in the foam. For a resin swirl I think it would be interesting to try tinting the microballons a color that contrasts with the the other colors in the swirl.
on eps I’ve just been doing paint swirls on the foam, which seems to be working out well, but it deffinatley looks better if I seal with spackle first.
I’ve always sealed my blanks, first I’ll seal with thinned ultralight spackle, then I’ll roll over the whole board with a few ounces of resin to really seal everything up. Found that after I spackle I usually have to go around and do some light sanding, therefore no seal in some areas. Ultralight coat of epoxy solves this.
With pigments you can do them just like a poly glass job. With tints, it’s a little trickier because yes, your blank will take colour up differently based on density in the particular area.
Easy solution is to wet your glass out with your tint on a piece of poly, carefully measuring your resin so that you don’t have an excess. Then, once your lam is saturated, you can transfer it to the board. That way most of the resin stays in the glass and gives you that uniform colour distribution. You can just use the same roller that you used to saturate the glass while on the poly to get the lam down nice and tight on the blank. You’ll only need a squeegee to lap the reliefs near the nose/tail/wings if you got’em.
Just finished lamming a board done this way. Gotta say, I’ll be going back to pigments…they’re easier to work with, but I did manage to get a relatively uniform colour this way; the only blotchy spots I got were intentional, where I’d applied un-tinted resin to the foam with a logo/graphic lam.
The one time I sealed with microballoons and then did a tint over top, the areas where there was alot of fill took up lots of pigment…
If you are going the spackling route you are looking for
Shrink-Free ultra light weight Spackling. One application, will not shrink or crack, lightweight, dries fast, Interior/Exterior. One Qt weights less than a pound. There are several manufacturers in the US like Red Devil, Dap, Sherwin Williams, Glidden to name a few. I have no clue internationally though ICI may have something. This stuff has Micro Balloons in it along with other ingredients like Water, Vinyl Polymer, Acrylic Polymer, Ethylene Glycol, Ethanol, Ethyleneoxy, and possibly other stuff depending on the manufacturer. You can piss it down with water or ethanol.Water is cheaper and more forgiving allowing more open work time. Ethanol dries much faster and would probably be more suitable to high volume production shops.
Very thin coat works best. So it should be pourable like melted ice cream.
This provides a smooth white surface and a good background for tints.
LeeDD is right, not the heavy stuff known as joint compound. Not the blue or green lid stuff. It can be confusing because the blue lid, Plus 3, is called lightweight, but it’s still not the right stuff.
Someone got it wrong a few months ago and used what I think was either Joint Compound or Vinyl Spackle. Basically ruined his board. If the container has any weight to it, put it down and keep looking.
If you have any doubts post here before application. Someone will check the specs for you.