1st try glassing, seemed to be going pretty well until I sanded out the hotcoat. Got a few pretty big “smile” shaped gouges in the hotcoat on the deck. Definately not through the lam, as a matter of fact I don’t think I cut into it at all as I can just see the weave. Question is, should I do another hotcoat to fill in the gouges? Rest of the board came out pretty decent so I want it to come out right.
Of course you can fix the hotcoat! Be sure you scuff the area so the new hotcoat resin will adhere and so it will fair in well… …kind of a wierd occurance.
are you sanding with a power pad?
You know what, that reminds me (Power Pad shaped gouges) of a time a guy I know (not I of course) lammed a board with hotcoat resin (okay, it was me) and then hotcoated over it. The brushed hotcoat easily separated from the lam, in “smiley”-shaped [sic] crescents the same size as the outer edge of the sanding pad I was using… …(it was a long time ago).
Not a power pad but a hard 7" disk. (should have shelled out the $38 at Tool Depot for the right tool.) Sanded the deck with 80 then 120 last night and will put a new hotcoat on today. By the way, sanded the bottom of the board with a 1/4 sheet orbital palm sander instead of the disk sander. Came out perfect but took forever.
jmevansjr,
get some 5 min epoxy glue, a plastic harbor freight backing disk for a 5/8 arbor sander, some semi hard padding…like the stuff they put down in play grounds, or something like 3/4 inch thick and can be cut with a razor blade. Epoxy that to the backing pad. shape it round when its spinning with 60 grit. Now 3M 77 spray adhesive some 100 grit to the pad and stick it on. You’ll never have to wory about smill gouges again, and you will never have to worry about using a orbital sander again. Orbital sanders are used for light ding repair.
Be on the look out for all kinds of soft,med,hard foams. You can make tons of different densitiy pads, and they shouldn’t cost more than 3$-5$ each.
-Jay
You can also spot fix the gouges without having to re hotcoat the whole board. Just paint some hot coat resin down to the area, and use a hard squeegee to feather out the edges for easier sanding later. Doug
Power pads.
Make the investment. The’ll last for as many boards you are ever going to make in your life.
Roght tools = job done right
Drew
Could you supply a link for the backer pad that you use? When I asked at Harbor Freight they looked at me like I was high.
Howzit jmevansjr, For sanding the decks and rails I use a Ferro soft pad ( $ 16 ) with the sand paper cut larger than the pad about 1/2 " . This gives you a softer edge which won't have a tendency to make those smile cuts, the other way you can cut the paper is to make it 8 sided which means no round ed edge cutting. Fir the bottom use a power pad since you want the bottom to be nice and smooth. As for the damage done just rehot coat the area and sand, it's not that hard to blend the new resin coat into the previous hot coat. Aloha,Kokua
Thanks all, I’ll let you know how it turns out. I guess the best lessons learned are the hard ones!
G*dam Kokua you continue to amaze me with simple solutions - like a not-round soft pad which won’t cut arcs in the hot coat! Concept!
Gotta make me smore soft pads, hex, octo, who knows what, but will they balance at speed?
cut the pads round, but the sandpaper that you stick to the pad you can cut like an octagon
Howzit Honolulu, Leave the pads round and just cut the sandpaper like soulstice says,that’s what I meant.Aloha,Kokua
Thats a good tip guys… I had some smilies in my sanded finish that I couldn’t get out. They showed up on the blue bottom only. So cut the paper a 1/2" bigger than your pad and use and octagon shape.
Good stuff. I love this site!!