Wondering if any others out there have come accross the problem of water based acrylic sucking up resin during lamination( on black and super dark colors only) and creating a “cyrstalization” effect. I am having some boards glassed in Santa Cruz and they are at a stand still before they can start laminating the boards.
Anyone have any ideas on laying down a super thin layer of lam before lamination?
Local Motion surfboards both on Oahu and SoCal never did. They sprayed their airbrush art, waited 2 days for complete cure, and glassed right over the physcomodelic color jobs.
Do a little search of the archives. There’s quite a bit of info about sealing arylic paint before lamination. Some guys use acrylic sealer, Some have used a thinned out coat of lam resin. There’s alot of info in the archives on this topic. Sealing dark colors done in acrylic is a precaution against possible crystalization. Without it blacks, blues, purples could crystalize. It’s a crap shoot with those colors if you don’t seal.
…here Magenta and other dark colors; I never ever put any sealant; airbrushed and dried with a hairdrier. I use temperas because with some acrylic brands you have possibilities of cristalization with Reds, Violets.
Ask the laminator to go back with a little extra resin and apply in the dark areas or just put a extra coat on top. Yes it is a little more work. Maybe buy him a beer. Being an airbrusher of surfboards for 30 years. And working as an laminator, I’ve been on both sides of this problem. I’ve had other laminators tell me my colors crystallize. Why does it not do that everywhere else on the board? The answer is simple, most crystallization problems are a lack of resin. Ever wonder why it always happens on the vertical surfaces like the rails at nose and tail? Where it is hard to keep resin there?
When the laminators complain, I love to show them with some resin on my finger, after rubbing it on the problem areas, it goes away. But you have to do it shortly after you lam it. Not the next day.
By lack of resin I mean it might be just too thin. On light colors, you don’t notice it as much. The darker the color, the more it is noticed.
You can seal blank with resin first. You run the risk of moving paint around or scratching it. A thin coat applied just after resin has kicked will prevent this problem.
It works for me. I paint and lam a lot of my boards. I do a LOT of black. Especially on the rails. I use Nova-Color paint, and NO crystallization problems with this method.
Barry----------- I never thought about it until you posted your idea about the extra resin. Makes sense to me, Some shops use a “cheater” coat on their lam. I’m assuming if you did a cheater coat on an entire lam their would be no crystalization.
Now there lies a very good bit of knowledge that I never knew but immediately a light bulb went on when I read it…thankyou for that Acqua…
cheers
Rich www.thirdshade.com
Hey BarrySnyder, the other day I was laminating the deck of an egg, a bit before it kick I put a thin layer of resin on top of the stringer to prevent “gassing” that looks very similar to crystallization; I do that normally on plywood stringers or like that; all was ok, however next day I put the board under the Sun then in the racks the stringer wanted to delaminate…so I grind that all down and laminated again.
A solution for that is to seal only those stringers with styrene before glassing, the other day I did not do it cause I thought that with the “after pouring” trick I just made it.
Hope this help another to prevent possible problems.
I felt much the same when they told me they couldnt do any work on my boards before they were sealed…I figured if they were worried they would just use extra resin and make sure that the glass was supper saturated and either kick it off quickly with cat. or use a uv cure resin as to not allow resin to drip out of the cloth and into the paint, especially on the rails nose and tail…should I just tell them to go ahead and glass those suckers up…I am a fan of using more resin to make sure there are no bubbles, so the board is truley sealed, and more ding resisdent…I dont mind the extra wieght!