Hey Who...sorry that I've been remiss in posting, we went to the snow today. I am a HUGE fan of experimenting and I would hate to curtail that effort because you learn so much, even in failure. The difference is speed and manuverability beween the coex and the IS has very little to do with the surface. Some, no doubt, but after you buffed and polished that Coex you'd barely find a perceptible difference. The real difference between the coex and the IS is bottom design and the fins...or single fin compared to a twin. If you look at your IS you'll see that the fins have a few unique features the toe-in or angle of the fins towards the nose, the cant or the angle of the fins outwards toward the rails and then also the shape of the outside edge. All of these combine to add lift, drive and the angle of attack that makes the board feel more "grabby" as you turn. Lastly the IS probably has 3 - 4 times the surface area of the Coex and that gives you additional drive. Finally, compared the rocker on the two boards from the tail forward. You should see more surface area on the IS from the rear foot forward to the front foot. If you were going to make any changes to the design of the coex, to match the performace of the IS, I'd look at fins and not worry too much about the textured surface. Now, if you did choose to mess with the bottom, just because you want to tinker and I WHOLE-HEARTEDLY support that - gives you tons of knowledge and that will help you choose boards better in the future. I'd not go with epoxy. Epoxy is a BEAR to get a decent gloss coat with. It pits and develops fisheyes if you look at it wrong. The IS boards are molded and with that impeccable surface and shine, my guess is that they spray a ployester resin on the mold surface before laying in the fiberglass and epoxy. If you've ever been to a surf shop and looked at shiny "epoxy" boards, most of those have a polyester gloss over the epoxy. A polyester hoat coat and then a gloss coat will give you that super shiny surface and it will kick in under 15 minutes. Compared to hours for the epoxy. Polyester flows and if you do it well, you probably won't even have to sand it. Let me know if you need details on how to do a gloss coat. My 2 cents
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