Board repair advice

Best paint- can't say from personal experience as I don't paint over my repairs. Don't really care about that sort of thing. But I got this helpful little booklet called "the ding repair scriptures" that suggests "testors model" paint before glassing. Don't really know what that means though.

Getting the glass to lay smooth- Do you mean how to get a flush looking finish or how to keep the cloth from bunching up while glassing? When you sand the repair you want to sand down the area surrounding the ding a bit so when you glass, it's flush. As for actually applying the cloth, I use a popsicle stick to hold the cloth in place and a squeegee to make it smooth. Hope that helps

Wetsand- if the repair looks clean enough, hit it with 400 grit, then 600. Small circles by hand. If it needs to be cleaned up a bit first, that before wet sanding with 220 grit.

I'm no pro and there are others who can give better advice. I'm just a back yard repair my own boards type of guy. I concern myself more with getting a solid repair then having it look professional. As long as your repairs are solid, I wouldn't worry about the look personally.

That book I mentioned, the ding repair scriptures, is a good one. I got it as a present after I had already learned how to repair, but it still proves useful from time to time and covers all aspects of a repair. I'd suggest picking it up

 

Just do a hot coat with resin tint in it, much easier than painting and doing a gloss coat to seal the paint. keep your catalyst amount lower than normal cause if it gets to hot from the reaction you get these little air bubbles that come up and need to be sanded out, wet sanding is easy, do the majority of your sanding with 120 then 220 then when it feels smooth hit with 400 then 800 grit, keep decent amount of water on the board for wet sand only. If I can do it anyone can with some patience

 

I got a pigment mix from green light surf,they ship quick, just a dab will do it. If you put to much in it gets hard to mix thoroughly, honestly it was trial and error. My last couple came out great, but be careful sanding it's easy to go through the hot coat cause of how thin it is and you see the color underneath. Good luck

 

Pics would help, but in general...

Major ding repairs using filler will always be whiter then the rest of the board. I avoid using filler if at all possible, and try to build up layers of cloth with clear resin so the repair doesn't jump out at you, and ends up much stronger in the end.

Getting the repair smooth isn't so much about temp and humidity if using poly resin (much more important with epoxy). Kick time will be affected, but how smooth the repair comes out has more to do with prep and fairing. Sand the surrounding area down to the weave, then lay your cloth layers out so the edges are staggered stepwise toward center of the repair. Don't build up the cloth higher than the surrounding area. Once cured, fair the edges smooth. This means making the out edges disappear, and the weave of the overlapped cloth fading smoothly into the repair. Tape off the repair area, and hotcoat. Pull tape when the resin hits the B stage, then sand the edges down with 80 or 100 grit. If your repair is nice and flat, go to the sanding steps below. If it's not nice and flat, block it flat with 100 grit.

For a good finish, take your next highest grit and sand out the scratches of the 100 with 120, then 150. Sand until the scratches from the lower grit are gone, then stop and move to the next higher grit. When you get to 220, sand the entire hotcoated area until all the "shinies" are gone. Then go to 320, 400 wet, and finish with 600 wet, including the surrounding area to blend it all together. As said earlier, lots of water, and rinse off your board inbetween grits.

As for color... I swear by Benjamin Moore. If matching color is important, invest in a fan deck, and use it to match the color of the board. Take it to the paint store, and have them mix you up the smallest volume you can get. You'll have that color to do repairs for the life of your board. The trick to using paint is paint the repair just before the hotcoat stage, when the repair is fully faired and smooth, with no edges, bubbles or lumps. If you don't have a compressor and gun, take a 2" natural bristle chip brush and cut the bristles flat with a razor blade and straight edge. Shake your paint, pop the lid off, and use the paint that clings to the lid. Dab the ends of the bristles into the paint, then dab most of the paint off onto a rag. Paint the repaired area by "stabbing" the flat bristles of the brush onto the repair. Concentrate on the repair area, but fade the paint out into the surrounding area to blend it in. Do several (5 or 6 at least) coats, drying with a hair dryer in between coats to get it done in a single day. Once the area is opaque over the repair and blended in around the repair, let it dry indoors over night. Hotcoat the next day. The painted area can also be sanded lightly with 400, but don't go too far and sand the paint right off. It won't look perfect once painted, but when you hotocoat over it, the imperfections will disappear.

 

Resin tint in HC has not worked well for me, unless I'm after a certain effect. I think the HC is too thin to put much color down, and it generally sands unevenly. I'm sure others will disagree, but that's been my experience.

Paint bubbling up under the HC happens most often when the paint is not fully cured. It may feel dry to the touch, but under the surface it's soft. The paint must be fully cured, and acrylic flat. I stick to Ben Moore acrylic exterior house paint and it never fails, poly or epoxy. And I get a damn near perfect match using the fan deck. Epoxy might fisheye over some paints, but good quality acrylic, if fully cured, should not react adversely.

Spray can paint doesn't have much accuracy, and has too much splatter for me, with a lot of big droplets and small droplets. A compressor with HPLV gun works best. Thin the paint with water, and mist it for best results.

The "stabbing" technique works well. If you combine that with a sort of scumbling technique to fade the fresh paint into the surrounding color that's a basic way to get good results. To take it a step further, take a clean paper towel, cloth, or even your finger... and blot the wet paint out to fade. And that's the trick... get the fresh paint to fade away into the surrounding color.

 

LBCrew - I was going to PM you the same type of questions for my broken board, fabric inlay repair. I have to match the Qcell to the old yellowing of the board. Going to try paint or coffee grinds in resin. I also btoched the inlay and I'm going to have one hell of a thick pinline - lol.

 

My other question is the Qcell - I needed a bunch on the deck to repair the pits caused by the delam. Board feels heavy up front now - could I have screwed up the balance?

 

Repaired boards are always heavier... and on major repairs, noticeable so. As for balance... you probably won't feel a difference up and riding, with board on plane... but you're gonna find out! Lol!

As for that thick pinline... better to do a double, or even triple pinline instead of one big, thick one. Double/triple pinlines are old school, and if you vary the thickness of the lines and the colors, look really sharp. I like thicker brighter colored lines, with thinner dark or black lines.

 

I glassed a board last month and got the best finish yet. I wetsanded 400, 600, 1500 grit. That will get it smooth and scratch free but it won't really SHINE. So I rubbed it out with this stuff on a clean terry cloth...night and day improvement over just wetsanding...and takes about 5 more minutes. Not sure I'd bother with all this effort on a painted repair, but if your curious how much of a shine you can get,...