Kleb's Custom Board Building: Painting

This where your imagination has no bounds, for unlike shaping, you have complete freedom. Well, . . . actually, . . . that's not really true. For one thing, you don't want to make the paint very thick (i.e. create a smooth surface), because then the epoxy is not able to make a mechanical bond to the foam core. This bond is necessary so that the foam can carry shear loads while the glass carries the tensile and compression loads. Unless you use a paint specifically recommended by the maker of you laminating resin, paint a test piece of foam and do a sample layup over it. Some paints will disolve the foam and others will start to bleed when you are spreading the laminating resin around. Be sure you have neither. Generally speaking, any water-based paint should work out fine.

Carefully vacuum the foam
Mask (if appropriate)
Paint (either air-gun, spray-can, brush, sponge, or fingers)
Repeat the previous two steps as necessary

Note: if you are using epoxy resin, you can also opt for painting the board after all the glassing is complete, although you'll pay a slight weight penalty.

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Last modified: Fri Jul 31 22:03:29 EDT 1998