After I glassed the board I took it outside to cure (UV resin) but because of a surprise shower I had to bring it back inside. Well, it got wet one some areas so I let it sit inside for 4 hours until it got all dry. I applied the hotcoat and when it started to gel I noticed lots of spots where the glass has separated from the foam, about 1/4 inch dia each. When I touch those spots it looks as if there is air trapped inside and the bubble moves. I didnt know what to do so I sliced the biggest spots with an exacto knife and applied low heat with a heatgun. Tomorrow I am going to add some resin inside the slits and see if it fills them up and the bubble dissapear. Anyone has any other solution to this problem? What really sucks is that it happened around an airbrushed area and it would be hard to duplicate if I remove the glass of that area. Any help is very welcomed.
Actually it doesn’t sound like a water problem it sounds more like a crystalization problem where either you have too much paint on your blank or it is possible that you didn’t let the board fully dry after you did your color job. I usually wait at least 24 hours before i glass a board that has be sprayed with color. Or it could be that you just overlooked air bubbles. Either way just cut out the bubble area’s and fill with resin thinned out if needed.
Hey Cappio,
Any chance of a picture?
From your description it sounds as if the humidity was up enough to cause it to rain…
If that was the case your paint may have absorbed some of that moisture before you glassed it, trapping the moisture inside…
While the board was going off (heating up) it got rained on. The raindrops would have cooled the glass surface where they hit the board, turning the humidified water inside the paint into a solid, causing the delam and the bubbles…
No real biggie, open them up and fill with resin…
Thank for the responses guys, actually the paint job had 3 days to dry before I laminated. I forgot to mentioned that the area where it happened was color black. I’ve never done a board with a black in it and I noticed that while it was in the sun the black areas were hotter (duh, obvious) than the rest of the board.
That there my friend is crystalization. Black is one of the harder colors to do. I think anyone will second that. Read up on crystalization. Theres a ton of info on it you can also ask kokoa for info on it he’s pretty good when it comes to glassing and color work. As far as fixing it I would leave it alone. As long as the glass is sealed, your looking at more trouble than its worth. What did you thin your paint out with, and what kind of paint did you use? I use Futures floor finish to thin my paints it has worked the best for me, also seems to dry faster.
Thanks Josh, like I said, never used black paint on foam before so thats been the only variation. I use Bestemp tempera poster paint straight out of the bottle same as have done in the past. Had small issues with crystalization in the past too small to really noticed. This incident was very strange since I can see the resin crystalizing quite rapidly in front of me. I just read some info on crystalization and forgot to mention one additional factor…the temperature difference between inside and outside was 33 deg F…oopsie. I guess it doesnt matter how long one have been doing this there are always new things to learn. Thanks a million guys!
Howzit cappio, Yep that’s good old crystalization. Red and black are the worst colors and the trick is to pre coat them with thinned out lam resin before laminating the board. Also looks like a little on the bottom near the rail in the light red. Precoating seals the paint and will stop the crystalization. No way to fix it now so just rideit and learn from the expierence. Aloha,Kokua
Thanks Kokua, I read one of your posts regarding crystalization and realized thats the problem…too bad I read it after doing the black though. Now, I decided to try a different method and see what happened. Methacrylates is used for filling gaps on window glass so I did a test sample on a piece of foam to make sure it wont dissolve it…it didnt.
Sanded the hot coat as usual then with a small nail I pierced the spots that crystalized and applied methacrylate. By capillary action the liquid went in and made the crystalization dissapeared…no sweat on the circular spots. On the longer areas had to do a lot of tiny needle holes and came very close to make it all dissapear. Tomorrow I’ll do the gloss coat and take some pictures to post over. Once again thanks for all the great info.
Howzit cappio, Is that the stuff they sell for fixing cracked windshields. You may have just come up with the tip of the year. Good one.Aloha,Kokua
Kokua, thats exactly what it is, 
All I know is that I put too much effort on the gene simmons drawing on the bottom of that board to let it get ruined by some crystaline entity, hehehe. As of now it looks like it has worked but I’ll see tomorrow after the gloss coat.
Howzit cappio, Did you rehotcoat over it after filling it,if you did and the crystallazation doesn’t show then it should be fixed. Good luck. Aloha,Kokua
In the future you should probably use a different type of paint as well. I use liquid acrylics (very watery like ink) and they work and look great. They are chemically closer to the foam so they bond really well as long as you keep it thin. I did however have the same issue you have when I had a friend airbrush a board black. not pretty, had to scrap it unfortunately. good luck!
Kokua, no, havent coated it yet. I am gonna let it sit a whole day since there are no guidelines for the methacrylate.
Polaris, never had a problem before like this with any paint until I used black, even purple doesnt give me such a problem…I doubt I will make another black intensive board again. Viva los neon!