Monday, August 13, 2007

Sanding Techniques







I've recently delved into Swaylocks and have been reading up on sanding techniques and OH MY GAWD there are a ton of tidbits to remember! I need to make like a diary of stuff! One of the most important ideas that struck home was NOT TO USE DULL SANDPAPER because it will burn your resin. I've been doing this as I am broke as no joke and noticed that this has been the case. So no more. I'm looking into the best ways of doing so.

If anyone has any tips on sandpaper quality and costs, please feel free to help me out here.

I've been rebuilding (when a board has two broken fins and 20 plus dings, that's what I'm calling it) two boards. I did the first one (a 7'8" "longboard" ((as my bro calls it)) ) quickly and sloppily using.....ahem...........bondo auto resin and the second one, well is pretty much the same. On the second one (7'2" thruster fun board...........7"2"x 21 1/8 x 2 7/8) I employed Q Cell for the first time to fill holes and actually took a little more time sanding. I took on these projects just to get my ears wet with the whole sanding thing again. I didn't make them pretty, or polish them up (as the rubbing compounds and paper is too expensive for me know), but I did go out of my way to strengthen the rails as these boards are from the 1980's and made extra thin to begin with but on top of that, the res has browned and turned brittle. K Man should be able to get a few more years out of them now and hopefully the tail rails (a real bitch to repair) will be a bit stronger than they were.

I've got a couple of pics from the garage for your entertainment.

The last pic is a pic of the bridge to NYC on the way up to Mystic Conn. My pop has better pics. I'll try and share them.

The first pic should be labeled "stuff"...........the second pic as well!

1 comment:

Slim said...

Good to see things are still cruisin' for you, Fish. Good luck getting into boat building school this fall!