Spray painting is a quick and easy way to personalize a surfboard with your own personal design and color scheme. If your surfboard is old, worn or lacking any true sense of style, you should consider giving it a makeover using spray paint. With a little bit of ingenuity and a can of spray paint, you can instantly transform the appearance of your board. In this post, we’re going to walk you through the steps to spray painting a surfboard.
Prepping Your Board
First and foremost, you’ll want to prep your surfboard by thoroughly cleaning the surface and removing any old wax. Even small amounts of sand, dust, salt or wax on your board could have a devastating effect on your design. In order for the paint to stay on, you must clean the surface of your board. Use washcloth and either some acetone or Goo Gone to wipe down the surface. Either one of these chemical products should make easy work of even the dirtiest surfboard.
When you are finished cleaning the surface of your board, smooth out any textured areas of foam with with a piece of low-grit sandpaper. Just rub the excess foam off by hand to create a smoother, more even painting surface.
Creating Your Design
Now comes the fun part — creating your new surfboard design. If you haven’t done so already, pick up a sketchpad and some pencils from local art store and start creating some rough draft designs. If you feel stumped and don’t know where to start, hop online to Google some various surfboard designs. You don’t have to necessarily copy someone else’s design, but you can draw some inspiration from it. Just remember to keep it simple and basic on your first spray paint design attempt; otherwise, you might end up biting off more than you can chew.
Using either a utility knife or X-Acto blade, carefully cut out your design. Once you’ve sketched and cut out the design, tape it over the desired area of your surfboard. Depending on the size of your design, this may take several sheets of sketch paper. Just remember to keep them properly aligned so they design goes on correctly.
Spray Painting
Before you start spray painting over the design, you’ll need to cover the exposed areas of your surfboard with newspaper. It’s not a bad idea to use several layers of newspaper to avoid any accidental spills. When you are finished, take your surfboard outside and apply the spray paint directly over the design. Give it several hours to dry and remove the newspaper and tape. Voila, you now have a newly designed surfboard!
photo : californiapixie.com/2012/05/16/spray-painting-stripes-up-surfboard