I never done a tint job without a cut-lap…if I want the entire board with an uniform tint job do I still have to do a cut-lap?
Hey Cappio,
With the overlapped rails creating a darker color shade, yes. Could do tint in the hotcoat/gloss but that presents the diffifuctly of keeping the color uniform during application and sanding.
Best,
Herb
If you are doing a transparent tint, then you willl always have color variations wherever cloth is overlapped. You’re better off spraying the blank and glassing clear.
Or…an opaque tint would allow you a uniform color, Though I mainly only do transparent tints so I am not the expert. In theory the opaque resin will not get darker at the rails where you are overlapping…if that’s the case then you wouldn’t have to cutlap either. BUT even the most opaque tints still might get darker the more layers of glass with the same opaque resin batch are glassed over one another.
Drew
uniform color = Mix up a large batch of resin and pigment. Use half and save half. Do a cutlap for the bottom layer, then tape off your rails and do an inlay with the resin tint. then come back and glass a clear free-lap over the two resin tints. this gives you uniform color and you just need a pinline. Hope that helps.
Austin S.
Thank you guys…I am just gonna do a cut lap then.
right on, unless there’s a specific reason for getting a uniform tint job, do the cut lap.
The darker rails look way cool, especially on a red board.
I’m not an expert but I want to do it on my next surfboard (EPS/Epoxy). My approach is to apply a coat of tinted resin over the fooam and then glassing clear. I don’t know if this is a crazy idea, I hope someone correct me.
ahhhhmmm - few things.
First off, that coat of tinted epoxy won’t be perfectly even, so you will want to sand it to a perfect uniform thickness all over, something I wish you a whole lot of luck with. Cloth, laminated properly, pretty much forces you to have a uniform thickness of resin. Just painting it on, not so much.
You’d probably want to sand it all over in any event, to get a barely decent mechanical bond with the lamination.
And let’s not forget weight. To get enough strength such that this unreinforced resin doesn’t crack like sugar candy ( and probably delaminate nicely shortly after) when it’s stepped on you would want to lay it on pretty thick. You will note I said ‘barely decent mechanical bond’.
Next, expense. Epoxy ain’t cheap. You’re more or less doubling what you’ll need.
Plus, any little drips and drools and what have you will make your job interesting when you laminate it.Kinda makes for a lot more work.
So, not necessarily a crazy idea, but not a really good one. That’s okay, we’ve all had them. My first wife, for instance.
What to do?
Paint the foam. I’m not a fan, for several reasons, but it’s cheap, light, well understood tech and if you don’t lay it on too thick or too dark it won’t compromise how well your glass bonds to the foam underneath it. Or delaminate on a sunny day.
Option B, as has been mentioned, laminate with an opaque pigment, ideally something light , say opaque white plus a very little color…Blue is nice. Can make quite a good looking board. And not too hard to color match when it gets dinged.
hope that’s of use.
doc…
[1] A tint, by its very nature, is transparent
[2] There is no such thing as an opaque tint. It’s either a tint, or opaque. Cannot be both.
There are degrees of “Opaque”. If you can see the stringer through the color but barely the foam; Is it an Opaque or a Tint?
Epoxy tints almost never come out perfectly even. Take a lesson from one of the top EPS shaper/manufacturers; “Stretch”. Spackle the blank, sand and paint with your favorite pastel.