I started sanding the X6 before I realized I needed to fix a couple of issues with the hot coat. Once those were handled it was time to go back to sanding.
The board is always so smooth and shiny after a hot coat. I always feel slightly sad to sand that away since no amount of polishing will get it quite back to where it was before.
I’ll kick things off by sanding out the fin boxes. Futures fin boxes are raised around the slot with the intent that you sand them down flush with the surrounding board. Make sure to get all the tape out that you used to seal off the slot. For my first pass sanding I’ll be using 60 grit.
Next I’ll sand down the tail and make sure it’s square with the edge. Use a square and sand until you can’t see a gap. It’s likely that edge may not be even so you should run the square down the edge to find the spots that are sticking out.
I’ll usually hit the bottom and deck next. What you’re looking to do is get rid of the shiny spots which are great visual indicators of where the board isn’t even. For this board there was a bit of a ridge on the bottom near the nose where the cut lap ended. I had to put some extra effort there to get that even.
I keep trying to talk myself into a nice sander/polisher but I’m using a $30 palm sander. I added a foam pad to it to go over the board contours. I also pulled off the dust bag and added a hose to my shop vac. This made a huge difference in airborne particulates that sanding creates so I haven’t been able to talk myself into a pro sander that doesn’t have that dust collection capability.
Other tools that are super helpful include an air compressor and a cyclone separator. The separator drops the dust into a bucket and will save you loads on filters to your shop vac. An air compressor is just handy to blow off your surfaces and to refresh your sandpaper. Sandpaper goes a lot further if you can unclog it.
For the rails, I’ll take it a bit easier. I’ll use the palm sander or a detail sander to take out the big drips and lumps but will switch over to doing it by hand so I can wrap the paper around the rails to keep from creating planes on the curve.
The thing to be careful with is burn through. This is when you’ve sanded through the hot coat and expose the glass weave. As you sand you will start to see the weave in some areas from the dust particles blowing across the board. Usually this doesn’t mean that you’ve burned through but that you’re getting close. It’s a good indicator to start taking it easy in that area.
After you’ve sanded out as much of the shiny spots that you’re comfortable with, felt the board up and sanded out the lumps, and are done with any sort of shaping on the tail. It’s time to start stepping up the grit. What you’re doing is several passes across the board using increasing grit sandpaper. The finer grit will smooth out the scratches from the previous grit sandpaper.
On this board I went all the way to 3000 grit on the bottom and edges of the deck. The rest of the deck I only went to around 400 grit. I’m going to add a traction pad to this board which is going to cover most of the deck so I want it rough enough for the pad to stick well to it.
Once you’ve sanded it smooth, you can give it a polish pass with some care polish.
At this point you’ll start seeing reflections in the board again. Once you’re happy, wipe and wash off any lingering polish residue.
You’ll never get it as shiny as the hot coat, but you can get it close. Here’s the final polished board next to the original hotcoat.
