I hotcoated my board this morning. I ran out, so i made a small batch and patched up some areas i missed. I was thinking it’s better to have more than less, I can just sand it and fix it. Now I have this. A nightmare sanding job, little popped bubbles on the nose, and some sand throughs where the cloth wrinkled up. Can I re-hotcoat or gloss coat it, to make it smooth again? This sucks.
Another hotcoat isn’t going to stick to any shiny areas…
I would cut my losses and stop sanding the high points into the blank. Fix the holes, rough it all up with 220, hotcoat the board, and take it surfing. Don’t even bother with making it pretty.
Right it off as experience and make another one. Next one will be better.
not sure exactly what happened here, but…
i’d say the above advice is pretty much spot on.
or you could always sand the hotcoat off, and do a new one. just be careful hitting that cloth.
For a gloss coat does the surface have to be completely sanded smooth?
Not smooth , just level.
I sand only to #120 then gloss coat.
Sometimes #240.
I know of guys that sand to #80 then gloss coat.
Good Luck
Daren
Edit.
Oh yeah, as for what happened, it looks as though the resin kicked before the wax came to the surface. Is it hard to sand and just gums up the paper ?
If its too difficult to sand put another thin hotcoat on , then sand the bejesus out of it.
then when its level do your gloss coat. spray alittle patch on the sand through to the foam with the colour you used and fix the ding as per normal before you gloss.
Hope that helps.
Your ok, You just laid the hot coat on a bit thick, and you didn’t level it out very good. Next time you’ll do better, right?
Get a good sanding pad…keep it flat, and sand the heck out of that board til it’s smooth. I’m assuming that the lamination is pretty flat? keep the sander moving, use light presure, and don’t use any heavy grits…use 100 or higher.
Those holes can be filled with gloss resin. go through the archives on how to sand a board.
Hey I’ve seen a lot worse than that.
-Jay
No sanding isn’t a problem, it’s just super irregular. It’s really difficult to get all the little bumps out.
Thanks for all the advice.
just sand the shit out of it.
I gave the advice that I did because it looks like the lamination isn’t flat. Without a tight flat lam you have the chance of weakening the board as you sand through the glass. Not to mention it is supposed to be fun and rewarding to make your own board. Dealing with a bad glass job will send your frustration level through the roof. Got to take the time to do a proper lamination, without that it all becomes a train wreck.
If your still dead set on making it right then do as Resinhead says and use it as a sanding trainer. Looking at the pictures I’d say 60-80 grit with an 8" pad to get it flat and then re-laminate the board with 2 or 4 oz. You could even do a resin swirl to hide your mistakes. Just remember to keep it fun and interesting. Don’t let it bum you out. Besides you really only need to do the bottom anyway. Once you wax the deck no one but you will notice.
Hey Cafka
Anything can be resurrected…
Don’t give up on it, you learned something out of this, fix her up and ride it…
now that is a quote that is going to stick in my head 
just sand the shit out of it.
What resinhead said. Sand it flat (no shiny spots), then threat every hole, sand through, etc. as a ding repair. Then read the archives and do a new hotcoat. Been there… It does get better with practice, thank God.
Use a fairly hard pad with #80, preferably 8". Just get it flat and level on the first passes. Don’t use high rpm’s and keep it moving; don’t stay in one spot. Slow it way down and do the rails very carefully. On the areas where the cloth in torn and foam exposed, mix up a batch of cabosil with the pigment you used. Fill these, sand level, and lam a piece of 4 oz. over it with clear sanding resin. Blend in the edges. Also clear fill any of the big hotcoat holes left after sanding which are not through the original lamination. Go over the rails by hand with #80 to remove any flat edges left from the disk sander. I recommend that you hotcoat it again, using the same pigment from the lam. Not too much, just enough to give it a tint. This should hide most of the rough areas. Check the achives for the correct mix of catalyst and brushing method for hotcoats. If the hotcoat went OK, sand everything again to 100 or 120 with no shiny areas. Do the rails again by hand. Check the archives for the brushing method for glosscoats and use Kokua’s mix of styrene and SA in the gloss resin (also in the archives). For both the hot and glosscoats, make sure you use at least a 4" brush and enough resin.
Hey Cafka
Anything can be resurrected…
Don’t give up on it, you learned something out of this, fix her up and ride it…
Hicksy, looks like you got too much starch in your sheets. Were you guys drinking when you did that, or did you just forget that you were biulding a surfboard and walk off half way through the lamination? That’s amazing!..Is that masking tape in there too?
Hey RH,
That’s Chipfish’s Bushfire Fish…
Everything went off really quickly, tape stuck in there and all…
After a lot of work (swearing, threats of scrapping it etc) it came out really good.