I’ve only used regular epoxy on PU about three times. Worked nicely each time.
Been there, done that…apparently he has developed a new formula…will want o check out. Hey, no styrene stink!
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woulnt be mick by any chance would it? he does great work with a roller or squeegee. im suprised you even used 80 grit…
yeah!! lol
really only would have needed the 80 around the nose and tail though gave it a quick all over, its a real shame he missed the tints era.
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G'day Deadshaper,SNIP
Aloha Entity
If we are honest about it these positions are messy, hot, smelly, itchy and extremely low paying. From memory, and please correct me if I’m wrong, the weekly wage in this country for a qualified laminator is somewhere around $400 per week, this will hardly attract or keep the best or most highly skilled person for the job. The people who do these jobs either love it or use it as a stepping stone to something a little easier and higher paying.
I don’t know about Australia but $400.00 per week is way under what the going rate is in this country. Since we are talking “piece work” here it depends, of course, on how fast the worker is and how good his quality is at that level. Sanders in Hawaii are getting between $20.00 to $25.00 per board. Those paid under the table will be getting upwards of the higher end. Those working in legal shops that pay according to the law, will be getting paid toward the lower end but will also get in return; health insurance, workman’s comp, temporary disability, social security, unemployment insurance and their taxes calculated, taken out, and paid in for them. When I had ProGlass going full steam 20 years ago, my head sander earned about $30k to $40k per year with full benefits.
Assuming equal service, glass jobs from legal factories, should costs at least $25.00 to $35.00 more per board then illegal underground factories, just to cover the costs of operating legally. This will be about 10% to 15% more per glass job. Will customers respect the craftsmen and embrace this?? If the income a craftsmen (employee) gets isn’t sufficient it is because customers are finding cheaper places to get their boards done and not economically respecting, so to speak, the “laws of the land”. Of course, these same cheap customers would be suing their own employers in a heart beat, if their employer didn’t abide by the very same laws and provide their expected legal benefits!
Good sanders, with proper tools, supplies and facilities, can easily do 10 boards per day. At the lower rate per board that would be $1,000.00 per week if the sander could stay busy. Staying busy, of course, is a factor of many things. Not the least of which is the quality of the finished product the sander produces. But this is not singularly in the sanders hands and is the reason you need a very tight crew of master craftsmen to produce consistent quality at speeds that will keep customers coming back and everyone in the factory busy and profitable, with the least amount of drama! This is very hard to achieve and should be worth a lot to customers needing quality and their deadlines met. But sadly few recognize this, making it very hard for factories to create the necessary economic environments that will attract and sustain a full crew of responsible, master craftsmen, void of drama queens.
Please dont think I’m putting down anyone in these positions, I just give them the same credit and praise that I’d give anyone for any job well done .
Cheers
Daren
Production sanding got a hell of a lot easier since fin boxes replaced glass-ons. I was suprised when a friend who sands told me what he was making $$ wise in the same amount of time I spend spraying. Then again that might change if this sanders nightmare became the standard…
Amen. Catching a pad around glass ons is a real nuisance. I just did some glass ons for a friend who also insisted on bright lime tint rather than a spray. The tint I got from FH was ugly as the blind date I had in high school (I was a gentleman and kissed her HAND at the end of the evening…nice girl but, what a face! I was told later she slept with the rose I had brought for her).
Oh, yeah, uh boards…butt ugly green tint…had to use lime opaque…a helluva lot of it. It still didn’t turn out as good as a spray I could’ve done quickly and for less. Glad he didn’t ask for a resin pin line. I can do them but I can also hit my thumb with a hammer really well. Expert in fact.
I know a bunch of you guys are out there taking pride in tints and resin pinlines and all that retro stuff, and that’s just fine. But in the REAL OLD DAYS, we actually were trying to make pinlines that you couldn’t feel under the gloss and polish. Now there are guys that WANT TO FEEL the pinline…
Chuck Vinson called me way back when, good craftsman…Thought Surfboards and later on shaped for Lightning Bolt. He called me and asked “how do you do your pinlines??? What am I doing wrong?” He and other guys were trying adding cabosil and all these other things…Peter Pinliner of course had cobalt before dinosaurs and had no problem He also told me “get this iin your mouth and you are dead”.
I didn’t use cabosil or cobalt, I just timed it. It’s all timing…just like love.
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I know a bunch of you guys are out there taking pride in tints and resin pinlines and all that retro stuff, and that's just fine. But in the REAL OLD DAYS, we actually were trying to make pinlines that you couldn't feel under the gloss and polish. Now there are guys that WANT TO FEEL the pinline........
I used to polish boards right around the time that the industry transitioned from resin pins to spray painted pinlines (mid 70’s ). Boy did that make my job easier!! Our glosser at the time was Gary Brummet who was one of the best resin pinliners around. The move to spray painted pinlines made many glosser/pinliners transition to becoming airbrushers as well (Gary became one of the best at that too). Because of that transition, airbrush graphics started to evolved away from the freehand and stencil mural style to a more taped off graphic style (early 80’s).
Howzit Atomized, Fin boxes do make sanding easier but there are still some who prefer glass on fins. Back when there was only 1 fin it really was not a big deal but now with thruster set ups it’s a new ball game. Getting the sanding pad in between the fins with out hittting a fin is tricky for a novice. Then there’s getting the hard edge right where the rail fin area is can also be a problem for those not used to doing them. The bottom line is to sand the board so it is back to what the shaper gave you before the glassing/ hotcoat process started. Shapers can get very upset if the board doesn’t end up the way it he shaped it. One thing I tell guys who are beginners is to take several pictures of the shaped blank and keep reffering to it as he sands. Aloha,Kokua
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Getting the sanding pad in between the fins with out hitting a fin is tricky for a novice
Back in the early 80’s, I was polishing one of my own personal boards which was a 4 fin. I had the misfortune of snagging one of the fins with the buffing wheel when polishing the narrow space between the front and back fins. The torque of the polisher flung the board across the room into row of boards waiting to be polished. Even though I had been a rub-out guy a few years earlier, this was my first attempt at polishing a 4 fin. Anyway, I should have let the shop rub-out guy do the board instead of trying to save a little money by doing it myself.
Howzit Atomized, When I learned to polish boards I was taught to use the pad so if I caught a fin the board was pushed towards my body so it didn’t go flying around, it’s all in the technique. Aloha,Kokua
"Shapers can get very upset if the board doesn’t end up the way it he shaped it. "
A good glasser is so vital to the overall finished product.
Oneula scored a 5 fin board from Griffin that Grif said he couldn’t sell cause it came back from the glasser twisted. Grif sold it for less than what it cost him to make it, then Oneula gave me the board for helping him work on a few he’s making now.
I took it out during the last south swell, and while I could ride it, I wasn’t getting that magic feeling I usually get. I went back to my first 5 fin, and it was a big difference. The magic was there as I remembered.
I have to give Grif kudos for knowing that the board wasn’t going to work the way his boards should.
How many other people would eat the cost of a bad board instead of sending it off to the buyer?