did someone ever tried to go through the whole process of sanding a surfboard wet-sanding?
and thus avoiding dust?
I don’t know about that, but I do a large majority of my sanding with wet sandpaper. I just make boards for myself, and I already have plenty, so I’m in no hurry. I hand-sand all my boards cuz its more enjoyable to me than power sanding, I get in the zone. But I don’t like dust, and I do like wet sanding. The hardest part is finding wet/dry paper in the coarser grits. For really rough sanding, I will use 50 or 60 grit, by hand, with a sanding block. I bought some 100 grit wet paper, but its difficult to find. Maybe someone here has a source for coarse grit wet paper? At any rate, the dust is not very fine with coarse grit paper, so it sn’t really bad. Mostly falls to the ground you can sweep it up.
If you do every step in the process perfectly then it might be possible. Great shape, Tight Lam and amazing hotcoat. No bumps/drips/streaks etc… Then you can start wetsanding with 320. But you wont be ableto do a gloss coat if that is something you were interested in doing because it wont bond properly to a hotcoat that is sanded to 320. Getting a hotcoat to go on that smooth is tough. If you can find wet/dry paper in 220 or 120 that would be good but I havnt seen it around. You can always do a spray finish on the board in place of a gloss coat.
yes,
I was thinking on even going for it with regular sand paper. Just adding water when i’m sanding with heavy grits 50/60 and so on
maybe regular sand paper would disintegrate in 20 seconds. Never tried that.
Yes done it many times when using Poly resin just like sanding car bodywork I sometimes used to spray a light sanding coat to make sure it was perfectly flat , but havnt used Poly for 15 years , Epoxy is better in every way except for shine . Wet sanding has its own problems , lots of water needed , wet floors , loss of fingerprints , that could be an advantage to some : )
Home depot sells quarter sheets of plastic backed wet/dry sand “paper” in coarse grits.
All the best
Home depot sells quarter sheets of plastic backed wet/dry sand “paper” in coarse grits.
All the best
Let me know; How that works out?
I sanded a board over the weekend. My hotcoat wasn’t that great on the bottom and was a little tacky. So I started with 120 and then went to150. Finished the whole thing off with 180. Then for good measure and to make sure I had absolutely no “scratches” ; I Made one pass over the whole board by hand with 220 wet. Not a scratch in it. Wiped it down with two coats of Behr. Burnished it with my Ryobi and a grey finishing pad. Wa-La and lawdy-da! The problem for a lot of guys is that when they stop at a coarser grit and then gloss, is that they don’t see all the scratches they have created in the hotcoat until after gloss. Then there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. No amount of rubbing compound and wet&dry sanding is gonna take scratches out of a hotcoat that has been glossed over.
And; I have done some great gloss over the years, but a little out of practice. I have never had any adhesion problems at 220 Wet. Have even gone to 400 to get rid of scratches before I got my hotcoats and sanding dialed in. Never had Reichold chip or peel. Never,Never,Never!
My first epoxy laminations were on 3 Cedar surfboards all glassed the same day, and the first one I sanded, I started wetsanding at 180 grit, then noticed very small white specks, that would not go clear with alcohol or compressed air. I was quite irritated and lucky the board owner was not much fussed by them.
The other two boards I did not wetsand until after they got their epoxy ‘gloss’ coat and had no issues with white specks.
I’ve been using the 60 and 80 100 and 120 grit red 3m sandpaper at home depot wet, without issue. It does not seem to fall apart any faster.
