Hey,
I’m building my first board,
I’m at the glassing stage. I have some questions:
-can I use any type of polyester compatible pigments?
-What ratio’s should I use?
–> I’m going to do the top in orange and the bottom in dark orange. Using 4oz fiberglass
-I’ll add some pics.
Kind regards,
Hi Stijn,
Color looks good. What did you end up for a pigment percentage to resin?
You have an interesting shape going on there, looks like some ‘stealth bomber’ type lines…
I am jealous of the shop space…tell us more about that and the build.
Everything out there is pretty much Poly compatible. I use and sell Dura-Tech colorants. I put enough pigment in my resin to get the color I want. The more pigment, the more MEK. Heavily pigmented laminations will sometimes not set at all. In that case the only way you can force it to set is apply a really hot lam resin cheater or a HOT hotcoat. I shoot two, three or four times as much MEK into a heavily pigmented lam as I would a clear or a lightly tinted lam. Seems that every color is different. Dark opaques need a lot of MEK. Lighter colors less.
Used about 6-7% pigment in the mix, came out really Well.
Haven’t run into problems yet except the transition between my color and white top isn’t really ‘clean’, so i’m thinking about using a black marker and draw a line on top of thé transition.
I ‘designed’ the shape myself, using inventor. And used a laser on a mold. I’ll add some pics.
Looking good, thanks for the additional information and pictures.
.Ah, Inventor, the older brother of Fusion360. At work I use Inventor and at home I use Fusion360.
There is another thread going now from Jo_V where we are talking about Fusion360 and moving data from BoardCAD.
-Did you make simple solids in Inventor and apply tools like fillet and chamfer or did you use lofting?
-Did you use the laser on the foam or use the laser to cut out the template for the outline?
I guess I am interested in those things…
Hopefully some of the others can offer tips for pinstriping the joint between orange and white.
Those little divots and separations should sand out. Hope it waxes up a bit or it’s going to be some tough sanding for you. 2880 is a tough acrylic and doesn’t sand as well to begin with. That’s the big reason it hasn’t been widely accepted by the Surfboard Manufactuers. What did you do to the deck and cutlap. Good job on the color. Had you done the deck the same color you would not be able to see the cutlap poobahs. Yeah I don’t understand all of the laser cut talk; but whatever you used to cut out that tail, sure worked good.
Yeah, got everyting smoothened out pretty good before hot coating. Few weird spots at the tail, nut overall it’s working out okay. Next weekend I’ll be doing the pinstripes, sanding and finbox (twinfin) installment.
Finboxes, leash plug and pinstripe are done, gloss coating bottom and top.
If someone has tips and tricks for final sanding and polishing, please share 
For tips and tricks, use the Search function, else you’re asking “tell me everthing”.
Aside from using UV-cure resin (the best thing since sliced bread, unfortunately not useful for heavily pigmented boards such as yours) is to carefully measure the amount of resin, and the amount of catalyst used each time you glass. Write those ratios down and keep them handy. It will help avoid mixing too much resin (saves money) and keep you saf(er) from the dreaded “hot batch” going off while you’re still laminating.
I found myself using about 0.75 percent MEK catalyst in my poly resin, under conditions of local temperature in the mid-80s (Fahrenheit) which gave me about 20 minutes for squeegee work. I made a spreadsheet of how may milliliters of catalyst to use per cup of resin, and made sure I made measurement marks on each old container I used. Some will say they are so used to it that they just batch it up and they never have a problem… but then you watch waterfalls of resin falling off the rails… and think of the dollars falling on the floor. With a little experience and practice, you can mix a laminating batch to the point where almost NONE of that $55/gallon resin hits the floor.
(Edit) one more thing: pigment does not add strength, in fact the opposite. Think of it as “thinning out” your resin. Your heavily pigmented board will not be as strong as if it were glassed clear. Thisi suggests putting the color in water-based spray paint, directly on the foam. It’s a different effect, though.
