I know there's a few board builders/repairers out there. Thought someone might be interested...

I've been making my own boards for a few years, but made the ugliest ones for a 300km radius (at least) using expoxy with tints. I got tired of this, and bought a $50 airbrush, expecting to make ugly airbrushed boards.

It turned out easier to do an ok paint job than I thought. The pictures below are of a surfboard I bought a few years ago for $110, previously repaired and covered up with a bad paint job, then dinged and had fin ripped out by me.

Now patched up, $30 worth of airbrush paint done in the back yard, topped with automotive clear coat from a repco spray can. (Two pack epoxy is better but a bit tricky and toxic). In the photo you can see all the remaining dints, but in the real world the pattern camouflages that pretty well.

If anyone's interested in details, I could send more info.

Before...


After...


Oh, it does actually work as well...

i am impressed . . . surely not first time airbrushing . . .

please send me info

when was that video made.. I live at that golden spot. and have seen you out there a few times over winter. but that has got to be a nor easter. will come and say gday next time i see you out..I ride the black + white T3

holy **** man that looks sick.....you MUST have done that before
i would love some more info on how to do that. also where did you get the $50 airbrush from???

That board is as sexy as ****.

Well done.

Some more details....

That was my third board, but first was ok (practised on a bit of chipboard first) - picture sequence below...

I bought the airbrush from a local hobby store, but I've since seen similar ones in Bunnings. It is a 0.3mm nozzle, but 0.5mm might have been better for kiteboard sized work. I think gravity feed is best. Plenty available on the net (see site below). Of course you need to own or borrow a compressor.

I've been using AutoAir paints from www.airbrushwarehouse.com.au/ They have been good to deal with. The paint is water based and not toxic. The blue flames needed 'Sealer - Dark', 'Semi-opaque White' and 'Brite Blue Candy Colour' using about 90ml, 5ml and 60ml respectively for surfboard size.

I took some sequence photos of my first project. What I did was a base coat (or two) of Sealer Dark. Then a layer of flames using SemiOpaque White. For this I copied a few templates from www.chuckbauman.com/true-fire-stencils-templates-shields.htm and just cut them out of plastic folder dividers. The paint drys to touch in seconds, so you just hold the template against the board in one hand and spray around the edge with the other a few times. Wait a second or two, move the template and spray again. You have to wash the airbrush out with water between coats.

When done, overspray the white layer with Candy Colour - Red for normal flames, Blue for blue flames. It's like a dye and you can't see it on the black areas. Then do another layer of flames on top - similar but offset a bit. Then another layer of candy colour - Orange or Yellow for normal flames, the same blue again for blue flames. The extra layer of candy colour over the bottom layer makes it look darker and sort of 3-D. When done, an hour or two in the sun to cure, then clear coat.

I found the clear coat the hardest to get right. The air brush paint looks a bit dull and flat till the polyurathane clear coar soaks though it and reacts. Thin layers of clear coat don't form a continuous layer and are bumpy and 'orange peel'ed. Too thick and they fog over. Either way (and I had both!) you can sand it out with wet and dry. About three coats if you don't sand it and it looks ok. If you start with a good board finish (ie wet rubbed surfboard finish) you can use maybe six coats sanding in between coats with 1200 grit W&D and get an automotive quality finish. (But too much effort for me)

Finish with a rubbing compound on a rag or sheepskin polishing disk.

Is it worth the effort? Probably not unless you enjoy the actual process, but there have been plenty of windless days to while away!



There are lots of airbrushing techinques out there, this is just one - some websites with info, or try typeing airbrushing tutorial into youtube and stand back!:

www.chuckbauman.com/true-fire-flames-how-to-instructions.htm

What type of camera did you use to film the footage from the kite with???

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milko said...

when was that video made.. I live at that golden spot. and have seen you out there a few times over winter. but that has got to be a nor easter. will come and say gday next time i see you out..I ride the black + white T3

Hi Milko. Thanks for letting a ring-in kite at your local! Your part of the world is great and keeps me sane in winter with a bit of surf. Was up near there last Thursday.

The video was from a couple of sessions back at the end of May during one of those week long east coast lows. One session easterly wind, smallish SE swell, the other SE wind, big SE swell. I think you might have been there for the second one, with Baz? Hope to be back again soon.

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lotofwind said...

What type of camera did you use to film the footage from the kite with???

The camera is the standard W20 Pentax - it's lasted a few years and a few dunkings. (W30 is still the lastest model I think). It's mounted in a cheap side zip camera case with a hole cut out for the lens. (Like in the article www.seabreeze.com.au/Articles/Kitesurfing/Setting-Up-a-Kite-Camera_1190269.aspx)

was just looking at buying the pentax w60,not sure of the difference between the w60 and w20,,will have to start doing a bit of research.
cheers

A great job done on both the boards and the vid.
you must have spent a bit of time editing the footage to get such a good result, which soft ware are you using?, all the woobling and turning is gone, amazing.
Can you give a bit of info on how you did it.

Cheers

Ray

nice vid. thanks for putting it up. such amazing colours from the air. some nice waves too

Nice work. have you done any paintwork on kites? I'm trying to find paints that hold. I just sprayed my kite after some repairwork but it's flaking off in sections

What a great job on the board. I to have one of those cheap surf boards that has been picked up for next to nothing, and looks like crap. Just a few questions if you could answer them that would be great.
-How well did you clean the board off before you started?
-The finishing spray, how well has that sealed the board and paint job?
-Does it hold the wax or do you personally relie on the foot straps.
-If i was to do the blue fire, what paints did you use specifically
-And to do with your video which was great, i to have the W20 great little camera, what progra, did you use for the video editing? and can you only capture in quicktime?

Thanks
Shane

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RayQ said...


which soft ware are you using?, all the woobling and turning is gone, amazing.
Can you give a bit of info on how you did it.

I use VirtualDub (www.virtualdub.org/) with the Deshaker Plugin (www.guthspot.se/video/deshaker.htm) to do the stablising. They are both well known free public source programs. VirtualDub is a program designed to read in short bits of video in various formats, filter them (ie rotate, brighten, resize, crop, zoom etc) and save them in various formats. Deshaker is a filter you add to VirtualDub that you run in two passes - the first pass works out the up and down movement and rotation from frame to frame, and the second pass smooths out the movement. The camrig website has some kite specific info on this, but they make it a bit complicated - you don't need the commercial software that they mention.

I normally cut up the raw kitecam video into little interesting bits, de-shake them in virtualdub, and them assemble them in a video with something like moviemaker or sony vegas.

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fleurieu said...


-How well did you clean the board off before you started?
-The finishing spray, how well has that sealed the board and paint job?
-Does it hold the wax or do you personally relie on the foot straps.
-If i was to do the blue fire, what paints did you use specifically
.... and can you only capture in quicktime?

- I cleaned all the wax etc off and sanded the board before painting. The quality of sanding is up to you. I didn't try too hard on this board as there were so many bumps and defects. However, the clear coat finish won't be perfect unless you sand it, and because it's so thin you can't sand it unless the underlying board is very smooth. You can spray an automotive filler coat first if you want to improve the finish.
- The paint after clear coat is completely water proof - it's designed for cars. It's too thin to cover cracks and defects in the board - that has to be repaired before painting. Spray can clearcoat isn't all that scratch resistant (I just throw the board in the boot with the rest of the gear, and now has a few dings), but two pack epoxy lasts years.
- It holds wax fine, I mainly use a strapless board (also airbrush finish) - the blue one was meant for a high wind board as it's a bit small. Only problem is black finish gets hot in the car and melts wax. I should get a board cover I guess.
- I've been using AutoAir paints from www.airbrushwarehouse.com.au/ The blue flames needed 'Sealer - Dark', 'Semi-opaque White' and 'Brite Blue Candy Colour' using about 90ml, 5ml and 60ml respectively for surfboard size.
- The Pentax records in quicktime, but VirtualDub has an addin to read quicktime files. In general all video/still cameras record in a compressed form (like MOV files) and you should extract the bits you want to use into a lossless or uncompressed form for editing, then compress the finished product when you're done. MP4 format (h264) is good for youtube/vimeo.

Have put my spray job on, and are at the sealing stage. I used some epoxy resin and used a roller to put it on. Gives a nice even finish. Will need to apply about 3 coats to get some thickness to it. For an old piece of crap board is starting to look like something i can take out in public. Photos to come.