I poured my first epoxy hotcoat last night, and may now qualify for the World’s Shittiest Hot Coat Award.
I could probably chalk this one up to:
Using spray paint on the deck.
Poor surface prep.
Using a shitty foam brush.
Never performing a hotcoat in real life.
But then I wouldn’t be able to blame anyone else. :D
This is my standup/prone board that I do want to get back on the water.
So, where I go from here…
I’m thinking I could sand all the way back down till the whole surface is uniform smooth. I think there’s enough coverage that once it’s uniform I could go up through the grits, then polish or use a floor sealer.
Or if there’s not enough coverage, get a real brush, and run a test before doing another hot coat.
Was this painted over the lamination before you did the fill coat? It looks like it’ll need a complete sand off and that’ll likely take off the paint too.
If painted, what kind of paint? On recoat, consider painting on final coat outside the sanded fill coat. Use decent automotive paint. Keep everything clean.
Man, I feel your pain. A ton of work to get it to that stage…
Yes, painted on the lam. It was your normal Home Depot rattle can Rustoleum/Krylon stuff.
And, yes I’m thinking sanding back down will cut through to the paint again. If I decide to paint again, you’re saying do it after the sanded hotcoat? If I do a floor sealer on top of the paint should I have an issue?
Do you mean floor sealer on top of paint before epoxy fill coat? I’d advise against it… epoxy can be finicky with lots of stuff, including even epoxy if it has a blush on it. Most anything foreign can affect bonding, fisheyes, etc.
Best bet is to set up some test panels and make sure that whatever method you are going to try is a solid result.
Another approach might be to scuff the heck out of it, shoot a light layer of water based paint and after that’s completely dry, try applying polyester resin for your gloss. I’ve had poly lay down better than epoxy over paint. A heavy layer of paint will probably flake off eventually and take the resin with it - a light coat is best. Try for something that will allow the resin to soak through and bond with your inside layer. A heavy coat of paint is asking for trouble.
If you shoot an automotive color coat on the outside, you can follow that with a catalyzed automotive clear coat. That will likely bond to your paint OK but it’s toxic stuff so use a good organic vapor mask at the very least.
What’s the back story on this pic? This is your first glassing job on a newly shaped blank? There are lots of posts in the archives about glassing with epoxy, working with paint, fish eyes, etc. You would have been better to paint the blank with water based acrylic before glassing, or using pigmented resin.
Worth mentioning: if you post up a pictorial thread on a new project you are inexperienced at, and ask questions ahead of time, you can avoid a lot of mis-steps (collectively there is a ton of experience in making mistakes on this forum, haha). I personally think black and dark blue are the hardest colors to work with.
And apologize for my tongue in cheek snarky response. Was intended as humor because of my own multitude of f…k ups. I’d sand it back down to the weeve. Blow of as much dust as possible, and reapply fill coat(hot). No more paint, Nothing. Sand, wax, go surf it. Mike
Wow! Bummer! Yes sand it all off. I don’t think you can do that without damaging your paint job. But that’s probably the source of your problem anyway. Rattle can spray jobs are always done on the sanded hotcoat. Then they can be sealed with the Acrylic Sealer.
Krylon makes an ‘H2O’ paint in a spray can that is water based. It actually works OK on surfboards. Several people here on Swaylocks have used that type with success.
The word latex on that can of paint would scare me away. Liquitex and other brands do have water based acrylic rattle can paints that you can use with confidence.
I may do a full thread on the entire project. Had issues on the top and the bottom. So a full thread might bring some context. Away from home for the week, so I’ll start up on it again over the weekend.
Oh god, rustoleum. I watched a beautiful color job crystalize right before my eyes as my epoxy hardened over rustoleum paint. It was terrible. I’ve done spray paint a handful of times and every one is a crap shoot. I know now, don’t ever use rustoleum. You’ll have better luck with the el cheapo home depot matte (not gloss) spray paint than you will with rustoleum. And, I bet I could give you a run for your money with the world’s worst hot coat (and 2nd and 3rd hot coat). Did you by any chance handle the board, feel the rails, eye the shape multiple times before your hot coat? If so, that is one cause of your terrible orange peel. And I get it, I always handle my boards after every sanding, but it’s a great way to get oils and whatever on your board.
It sounds like you’re going to sand it all down and re-glass; which is probably the best course of action, especially if you want the lightest board possible. If you don’t want to sand too much, you can always throw on 2 or three extra ‘hot coats’ to try and fill in some of the voids. If you do this, it will still require a sanding but maybe not as labor intensive. Also, if you go this route, make sure to wipe down the entire board, especially the divots, with denatured alcohol before you glass. Honestly, I’ve done both and they both have pros and cons.
But hey, look at it this way. There is no way you can do a worse glass job than this, so your next one is gonna be 100x better.
Just want to add to this thread & to the answers that I’ve never been able to hotcoat over any type of aerosol color without fisheyes, using epoxy (have had somewhat better results with UV poly by applying then sprinting into sunlight before fisheyes can fully develop, but that was years ago – have been almost solely using epoxy for about 4 or 5 years). Have tried: Montana (both black & gold), Liquitex water based, MTN water based, and as well Liquitex water based pens. Fisheyes have been least omnipresent with MTN aerosol and Liquitex paint pens.
When I use aerosol color (reqardless of what stage), I always do a squeegee coat of Kwik Kick over it, even when directly onto the foam, both because I want the bond to the lam to be as dependable as possible and because if you don’t do a squeegee coat, color can move with resin and end up moving into places where it’s not wanted. Thanks to bad experiences doing a squeegee coat slowly, I do it as fast as possible. Normally, after a squeegee coat, even on top of the lam, fisheye problems are minimal.
Fisheyes with epoxy over paint seem to be worse when it’s hot & humid. Possibly both moisture staying in the paint & the resin being less viscous are both issues there. Dunno. Only can say humid heat = death wish. OTOH I’ve also hotcoated outdoors, under a carport, with rain pouring down and mist in the air, with the smoothest hoatcoat ever. Can’t say why, only what.
