I just picked up a sweet 10’ Phillips noserider by Jimmy the Genius Phillips. It’s a beautiful board but it has a textured deck that is discolored from wax and feels really rough. I really don’t want to wear holes in my wetsuits or make my nips bleed. I was told it’s done by using sugar on the gloss coat while it’s wet. I want to get it off there and just use wax. Is it as simple as just sanding it off? It’s been waxed over and has wax still in the texture so I’m sure that will have to be removed first. Has anyone dealt with this before? I’m just trying to figure out how to proceed. Any help will be most appreciated. Thanks
It could bea number of different things. Sand, micro beads used for boat decks. But in short the best way is to use a disc sander with a semi soft pad and sand it off. Of course clean off the wax first.
Me, I’d remove the wax, and then wet sand the deck with 220 grit paper. Sand just enough to take the texture down, then wax up. If you want to do a second pass of sanding, go to 320 grit. After waxing, sanding will not even show. Holds the wax better too.
Bill
Sometimes textured deck are done by squeegeing most of the resin off when hotcoating. It exposes the weave and holds wax like a bulldog. First time I saw this was in the late 60’s on a Hobie Superlight.Very cool board shaped by Terry Martin. Around 8’0" with a very flat deck. Remember these Sammy?
From what cleticskunk said It is most likely ploy-beads used for doing non-skip on boat decks,silica Or perhaps sand. Neither will be removed with 220. have sanded 1000s of Decks to re apply a non-skid coating. I have also experimented with ploy beads for doin a non skid nose and tail patch. Never even considered a full deck.
It’s way worse than I thought at first .Definitely not done at the glasser, it’s a homemade mess, the resin was just brushed on and not very neatly, it wasn’t even taped off at the cutlap line. It’s thick and stained and even worse, they used lam resin. I took my sander with a medium pad and 36 grit and it barely smoothed it. I don’t care if it’s perfectly smooth, I just want to sand off the look of dirty filthy wax. I found that the random orbital sander works best with 80 grit and just got back from Home Depot with a 50 pack of disks. It’s getting there, but really slow going. Thanks for all the advice, I’ll just keep plugging away…
dedication! would stoked to see photos before/after if you have them.
I’ll post up some pics when I get back home. I put in 4.5 hours and some 20 sanding discs, but was well worth it and a nice board like this one deserves it.
Here’s the before and after pics. In the pic where it looks dirty, it wasn’t, it was just textured lam resin with schmutz on it. It looks way better now and just had one minor mishap when I sanded an inch or so of the pinline off by the nose. I’ll repaint it and seal it with clear spray. My garage looks like a kilo of coke blew up in it. Here’s hoping the pics show up.
haha! the board looks great. well done, thanks for sharing the pics
that sure cleaned up nice
worth the effort
Did you get the board from Cardiff surfer Tom Stern ?, it did NOT have a textured deck when I built it, it is extra thick, shaped out of a Clark 11’3"
Jim: I could tell it wasn’t built like that with the poor texture job. The deck wasn’t taped off and you could see the resin was just slopped on. The guy I bought it from lives in San Diego and he was selling it for his buddy who bought it from the original owner. Yes it is very thick, I measured it at 3.75 inches. I’m going to ride it for the first time tomorrow and feel lucky to have a board as nice as this one, it’s a beauty. Thank you for your comment.
From The Photos It sure looks like some fool just throw sand into wet resin. You did a great job on cleaning that baord up. If ou want to change careers and go into the non-skid deck business I can put you in touch with some people. On second thought It would be better to just slap you up side the head. It’s a nasty job.
The non-skid boat deck biz has been disrupted by SeaDek, which is the Wilson brothers, who came out of Jim Phillips’ Magnolia Street school of surfboard building. Funny circle we’ve got going here…
The Cocoa Institute of cultural studies managed to turn out an amazing series of surfers and craftsmen, The Wilson bros., Mike Daniel, Johnny Lucas, Richard Chellemi, Darrin Craig( Tosh.O’s personal board builder), Kirk Brasington, Billy Knapp, Pat “O.D.” Finney, Charlie Kuhn, Robbie Persan. In '93 - 18 out 23 places at Hatteras went to riders on my boards
I rode the board in 2-3 ft kind of bumpy but fun shaped Oceanside beach break today. This board is fantastic in every way, paddles like a champ and is oh so smooth. It is very responsive and felt very natural and suited to my style. I now know why they call Jim the genius. Best board I’ve ridden in over a decade.
A JKP longboard is a work of art. Period, full stop.
Everyone take a closer look at that ad scan that Jim put up. That is a chambered FOAM blank, as made by Jim and ridden by Kurt Wilson, circa ~ 1979. The Wilson brothers (Jim Wilson took the photos) went on to found Wilson Fins, then X-Trak.
X-Trak morphed into Sea Dek because of higher margins in the boat/marine industry.
Jim and I would tell some stories about the old Magnolia St. Days but I’m not sure the statute of limitations has run out yet…
In The way back. Pat Flecky did a chambered Foam Board and used ping pong ball to give the board a little straight.