A No wind Project!
I had an old Tabou Da Curve 85L lying around and one windless afternoon while sitting in the pub with my mates we decided that it would be cool to attempt to do a custom spray job on it. As a board its good but I never liked the retro graphics and high freeboard on the rail. Be warned though, this project quite like windsurfing took over a lot of my time. While there was no wind and my poor neglected girlfriend was hoping to spend more time with me, I was down in the garage tinkering away - trying to draw designs, figuring out what to do.
Here's what I've done so far: (maybe not textbook but its my first ever attempt)
The first thing I had to do was go out and buy a small handheld mouse sander to sand off the existing anti slip paint. Around the deckpads and the tail it was very thin from use so I had to be careful with the abrasion of the sander. In some parts I sanded by hand using a mixture of wet & dry paper and grains.
After sanding the antislip off, the vinyl graphics left a sticky residue. I used cellulose paint thinners to remove this. This was a very lengthly job and the dust was everywhere. I'd recommend doing this outside with a mask as its extremely bad for your lungs, eyes and skin. In some cases I used my girlfriends hairdryer to gently heat the sticker up and remove in one go. (I hope she doesn't see this!) 
I placed the board on an old table with a bodyboard underneath to protect it. A roofrack strap helped to secure it to the table and stop its sliding all over the place. Once I sanded off the bulk of the antislip and graphics the glue was remaining. You can see the glue next to the deckpads. 
This was stubborn to remove and required the use of some paint thinners (cellulose). Before plastering the board in the thinners I did test the board first to make sure it didn't ruin the Gelcoat. In this picture I soaked the sponge in thinners and left it on the glue for a minute to soak in. Then after a minute or so I used the kitchen fish slice to gently scrape the glue off. It's probably best to throw the sponge out after, just in case your better half decides to wash your lovely sportline t5 kombi with it!!! 
Once I sanded the board right back and it was really smooth with no glue or small holes I started to prime the whole board with white primer. I gradually built the layers up using thin coats and allowed them to dry for about 15 mins each time. I removed the footstraps for this process but in this picture I screwed them back on to see how it was taking shape. Notice the earlier repair to the board at the nose.
After applying two coats of white primer, and allowing them to dry for 2 days. I started to apply a white stripe from nose to tail. This was done using Alpine White - Mercedes Car paint.
. I taped off the deckpads, and covered everything as paint gets all over the place. Then I gradually added thin layers every 15mins to build up a nice clean coat. It's best to wear a mask when sprayig or sanding boards.
The next stage was to start applying the design and get the metalic blue paint on (Nissan). I masked off everything here: the design, the rails, and the deckpads. Getting a fine flowing rail was very hard to do by hand and was done without beers. In the end I got Karl to do it as he's great at art and has a steady hand. (Cheers man). Once all protected I started spraying nice long strokes in very thin layers. Allowing up to 10 minutes to dry it started to come together..jpg)
This is the board with the first spray done with metalic blue. The Iphone Camera 
is'nt great but the board looks great in the sun and speckles and shines very well with the human eye. The design isn't messed up but has the maskin tape still on it. One tip - Make sure you get good masking tape. I had two brands. The 3M stuff was great for getting straight edges and stuck really well ensuring paint didn't get blown underneath the tape. The other brand was crap.
This is the board with the final metalic spray done. The masking tape from the rails and design have been removed. I added the footstraps just to see how it was taking shape. There is still a layer of masking tape running along the deck. The white line will go from tail to nose. As its my first time ever spraying anything I wanted to keep it simple. My next spray job will be a little more adventurous.
The next stage is getting some antislip on it with UV varnish. As soon as I get it done I'll upload the pics.
At the start I was going to borrow my dads sprayer and compressor, but found it much easier to use standard paint aerosols from Halfords. (Not the cheapest by far but handy at 7.30pm in the evening)
When I finish I'll tot up the total costs and the errors I made along the way. When its finished I'll get a pic up to.......
Stay tuned....
Cheers for looking - Mick.
Any constructive criticism then email me at michael@downoutdoorstore.com. I'd like to hear more stories about custom paint jobs.
Created: May 22, 2009
