I have without a doubt a lot of research
and testing to do.
I originally mentioned I did not wanted
to spray paint the board, I meant directly on the foam. I think the board might
heat a lot and therefore increase the probability of delamination.
Spray painting the blank with a thick
layer to achieve the desired results will certainly make the cloth and resin
not grab properly the foam.
I’m going today to check a car painter
and see my possibilities with solutions like ALSA Chrome Paint.
you can use a silver mica powder to dust into the tacky resin. This will give an iridescent silvery finish. The drier the resin, the closer to a mirror finish it will be. This is a common gilding technique used by sign guys. It will not be as cool as the nickel plated board, but is is inexpensive and easy to expirement with. You can check out the mica powders at www.letterheadsignsupply.com.
Spraying the foam will not be silver…just flat gray. Auto paints are really the only way to go. You have to spray them and they are toxic. I found a small body shop doing custom cycles and hot rods that was willing to do it.The board was a 9’8" As I recall it was going to be $80 for both sides in lime green. I was to do the tape off. All they were gonna do was spray it. I would also supply a stand (like a glassing rack) so they could spray one side…flip it…and spray the other. The paint was to be urethane. You can gloss over it after scuffing with scotchbrite.
This was before I set up my spray room. Just giving you ideas. Sometimes it’s best to let the pro’s do the stuff you are not used to.
Here’s some shitty low light pictures of an old asymmetric kiteboard I built 10 years ago…
If you’re interested in seeing what the metal flake silver really looks like is sunny daylight, you’ll have to wait until this weekend when I can take some better pictures. It’s cold, dark and covered with snow around here right now.
I assure you it’s not grayish like the pictures depict… But a really nice silver color, the metal flake burgundy looks nice also in the sunshine, much brighter…
Unfortunately the paint is a two part polyurethane called EX 2C and needed proper spray gear as well as PPE (organic vapour cartridge minimum)
The paint is barely scratched after a couple of seasons hard use and 8 years of storage… This paint is the toughest I’ve ever used. It’s called Endura and it comes in 40,000 colors! They make a Low VOC mix now if you desire, they didn’t have that available when I painted my boards…
After so much help and positive ideas I would like to say thanks to everyone that shared their opinion and gave some contribute to this topic. In the end, I realized I would never be able to do a real silver shinning surfboard that would look like I pretended, therefore, the client went for petrol color!
I’ve just had the pleasure of sanding off a bunch of this type of tape of a board use to seal about two dozen cracks. Only way I could get it off. You might even be able to sand down overlapping edges to blend them the way this thing sanded.
(only kidding guys) What’s old is new again… I might even take this one out again this spring.
