So I shot my surfboard as an experiment, thank god. The first side came out... eh. But the second side came out pretty damn good IMO. I learned a lot from shooting the first side.
So what do you guys think? Be honest, if I'm looking at it with loving eyes I need to know. Obviouslly I didn't spend a lot of time on body work. I just used up my old Bondo and hit it with a DA, didn't want to waste the good stuff. You can see shrinking around the filled spots, but I knew it would look like that when I shot the primer. I just wanted to get it done. Also, I didn't sand the primer. I just sanded it with my hand, yes my bare hand, that is similar to high grit sanding believe it or not. BTW there are three nats, hair and dirt in the clear. Anyone who shoots a car outside is crazy.
Things that I learned:
1) Having a clean gun is NECESSARY for a good paint job. (I cleaned Bill's gun with a method called percolating that I saw on youtube. You loosen the cap on the front, take off the lid, fill with about a cup of lacquer thinner, cover your eyes and pull the trigger. This caused chunks of old paint to float into the cup.)
2) Adjusting the pressure and flow of the paint is critical. Without enough paint coming out of the gun, it will probably look blotchy. I backed out the paint flow screw (Not sure what it's called) on the HVLP gun about 3 turns. Then I brought the pressure down from 37 to 30 psi.
3) You need to get the surface wet. You can't spray paint on like you're using a spray can, the surface needs to get wet so that the paint can flow out and look even. Don't worry about orange peel, you can always sand it. Well... obviously you can lay it on too thick. Which reminds me...
4) Never leave the gun in one spot. Never stop abruptly, shoot past the edge or flick your wrist when changing direction.
5) You can't run the same line every time, alternate. I shot over the edge of the line that I had previously shot for good overlap.
6) The tip of the gun needs to be perpendicular to the surface. Some say you should hold it about 4 fingers away from the surface, some say 8-10 inches. I can't get away with holding it 8-10 inches away, the gun I was using just didn't shoot enough paint to do that. I might buy a better gun for my car.
7) Finally, once you think you've shot enough clear. Shoot more. The clear thins out more than you'd expect, this is the main reason the bottom of the board looks better than the top. After you're done shooting, it should look like someone soaked the surface with a hose. It needs to be WET.
I haven't done any color sanding or polishing.
Would you ever guess that I paid $2.50 for the color coat?
So I'm thinkin kinda sorta maybe that I should shoot it myself.
Surfboard
