Tail Ding repair - Epoxy or Resin?

[oldmansurfer]

You can tell it's polyester because you don't add catalyst to epoxy resin. It's a 2 part resin that you mix together usually 2 parts A and 1 part B

[FrancescoWaves]

Help

Does this have all I need to repair? (I have nothing myself to fix a surfboard)
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=surf+repair+ ... b_ss_i_1_9


Otherwise, I can get this one, but more expensive:
https://www.amazon.com/Solarez-Cure-Pol ... 142&sr=8-z


What do you suggest?

[oldmansurfer]

The ding all is what I would use but I hear the Solarez uv kit with 2 ounces of resin and glass may do the trick. You might need 2 of them but basically sand the edges cut the glass And saturate with resin in a room without sunlight or uv light (but on a sunny day) then place in the sun till hard

[FrancescoWaves]

It seems like they do not have enough of those kits in stock:/

If I were to buy the bare minimum needed, do you know how much would I spend? And where would I find all, Lowes, Home Depot, ...?

[billie_morini]

Francesco, all is not lost. Mixing "real" resin is not a big deal (and you need it because solar curing resin is not adequate for your repair). Check the air temperature and mix resin and hardener according to directions. Please heed this advice: More hardener is NOT better.

When it comes to fiberglass, know that 6 ounce (oz) or thicker is too thick. It'll add weight. At maximum get 4 ounce glass. Get some 2 oz, too, if you can. I'd put one layer of 4 oz on first followed by one layer of 2 oz. If you can't get 2 oz or you want to make repair stronger, then apply two layers of 4 oz.

You'll do alright and as they say in Oz, "She'll be right."
billie

[billie_morini]

oh, just saw your post about where to get materials. Forget traditional retail stores like home depot and lowes. You need to look for surf board and small sail boat suppliers. You can get resin and hardener at some traditional stores, but not lightweight glass.Try these:
http://www.uscomposites.com/mat.html
https://fiberglasssource.com/

Don't worry if you have to buy more material than you think you need. It's always handy to have more material on the shelf. You will need it eventually.

[DrDave]

Here’s a good video that shows a tail repair with even worse damage than yours. They’re using epoxy instead of polyester resin, but it should help you see how to prepare the area and how to lay out the fiberglass cloth. https://youtu.be/aHkbq4Wstyw

Nice video. They are using polyester resin instead of epoxy. With epoxy you don't need a hot coat

Yeah, I misspoke about the epoxy. Hadn’t watched the video through recently and confused it with another one. So it’s an even better match to what the OP will be doing.

[FrancescoWaves]

Mmm. Ok. I am in New York and I do not have those kind of surf shops near me, the ones here are 2 hours far from me.

I want to work on the surfboard on Thursday/Friday. My options are Amazon or an Hardware store. Lowes not an option? :/

I do not have any knowledge when it comes to those products... anyone feel like sharing a few amazon links of what is needed?
Would much much appreciated

[oldmansurfer]

It's difficult to say how much resin you will need as a beginner. If you can estimate the right amount it goes further however at first you want to overestimate because it will be worse to not have enough resin. The sun curing resin may be a benefit in that aspect because you can use a little and add more if wanted without having to mix catalyst into it or worrying about your first pour going off. So as you could see in the above video the first part needs to be the part with Q-cell mixed in to lighten the the resin and fill in the foam deficits. then sand down and glass over that. If there isn't much foam deficits you might get away with not doing that part but you have to make sure all the deficits are filled with resin. It's a big job for a novice. Where I live you can usually find resin and glass at Walmart or hobby shops or hardware stores but not the sun curing kind.

[FrancescoWaves]

The foam missing is not a lot. I just cut a few edges since it was dirty. If you see the images, I just removed the hard part, but the foam under was intact.
Given that, wouldn't the "Ding All" kit work?

Sorry if this is getting long, I get so many different ideas and I have no exp with these products that I do not know what to do now lol

[waikikikichan]

The Solarez Pro travel repair kit has 4 oz. dual-cure resin to laminate the fiberglass cloths down with. It does come with catalyst if you’re doing ding repair at night, but I would just wait until day time if I were you. ( I got a UV light flashlight for my repairs )

Question: have you laminated fiberglass cloth before ?

[oldmansurfer]

The foam missing is not a lot. I just cut a few edges since it was dirty. If you see the images, I just removed the hard part, but the foam under was intact.
Given that, wouldn't the "Ding All" kit work?

Sorry if this is getting long, I get so many different ideas and I have no exp with these products that I do not know what to do now lol

I just went back and looked at the board and it is missing foam that needs to be replaced. What you want to glass is a shape similar to the original shaped blank. I don't know how much of a deviation from that it is but if you end up with big pieces of glassing resin it will be weaker and if you have air pockets under the glass it will be way weaker. In the picture there is a chunk of foam out of the rail that most likely needs to be filled in and while you are at it maybe all the little gouges too. The ding all kit would work but as Waikikichan said the Solarez pro kit (it probably has Q-cell as well) would probably work as well and you wouldn't be under the gun of setting up resin to get the job done right before it hardens. Long ago I made my own surfboard. It was a real good experience but prior to that I observed a surfboard being made from start to end so I had a clue as to what needed to be done. The difficult part for me was wrapping the glass over the rail edge. Also on the first layer of glass while I mixed enough resin I wasn't careful about squeegeeing it off and wasted a lot ending up with me having to quickly mix up another batch before the first batch hardened. It's tricky stuff and making the cuts in the glass in the right places so that it folded over without too much excess glass hanging. If you use the UV light curing stuff you can take your time and make good use of what resin you have then once you get it all perfect take it outdoors to cure in the sun (hopefully it's sunny).

[waikikikichan]

The ding all kit would work but as Waikikichan said the Solarez pro kit (it probably has Q-cell as well) would probably work as well and you wouldn't be under the gun of setting up resin to get the job done right before it hardens.

It comes with a tube of Ultralight Filler with you use in place of Q-cell, resin and catalyst. It really easy to work with and sands down easily. It is white ( like the blank ), has no fiberglass in it and I believe floats when it goes off. The regular yellow fiberfill goes off clear.

[waikikikichan]

I wouldn't try to fill in the small surface scratches, and I don't see the need to build up the edges with Q-cell or the Solarez ultralight filler. Just laminate over ( taking care to avoid air bubbles ) , build up an edge after, do a top coat, sand correctly and go surf.

Sorry if this is getting long, I get so many different ideas and I have no exp with these products that I do not know what to do now lol

I’d like to fix this myself since I am quite handy and enjoy doing these things. It shouldn’t take more than 1-2 hours but I may be underestimating the job.

I wouldn't have taken off the bottom fiberglass. I would've just filled in the void, and re-connect the seam ( like I recommended to do previously ) You made the job much more difficult and expensive ( which I warned you about ). Just get it water tight and go surf. What you really need to worry about is the Glass-On Fins. When those crack or snap off, you got a way bigger problem.

[FrancescoWaves]

Yes, waikikikichan. I probably could have done less than what I will actually end up doing. I was getting the impression from all the videos and other people's posts that I had to go through the longer process so I bought this:

https://www.amazon.com/Solarez-Cure-Pol ... 353&sr=8-3

I will get this done Friday and I will post here the pictures of the process. Stay tuned!

[waikikikichan]

You still didn’t answer my question if you laminated fiberglass before ? Because if you haven’t, I am worried you will run into another problem. If you do it improperly, and the cloth “floats” up, when you go to sand, you’ll sand the fiberglass off, and all your efforts will be wasted.

Oh, and remember your relief cuts in the cloth when you wrap over the rail.

[oldmansurfer]

While I think it's a good idea to fix the ding well, I think the concerns of Waikikichan are the board is going to fall apart anyway since it is a glassed in single fin board and probably ancient and if you do the repair poorly then it will fail as well. If I had the board you have and wanted to fix it, I would do as you have done but I don't need help knowing what to do. So the cloth floating up is a result of too much resin? so the glass floats on top of it I guess. I have never had that problem but that is what the squeegee is for to remove the excess resin and spread it out. You want the least amount of resin to do the job. The resin is actually brittle. It's the fiberglass that adds strength and it needs to be 100% saturated for that but the least amount of resin beyond that will be the best fix. The resin also needs to take up the space between the fiberglass and the foam so that is why I would smooth it out with the filler first but I think Waikiki is thinking the end result won't be worth it which may be true however the learning gained from doing it might be worth it. The foam under the glass may be brittle and may pull off if the foam is old and degenerating. If it feels brittle you need to sand it down to where it is normal. An old junk board is the one to learn on. Just my opinion However keep in mind that the whole board may fall apart once you start using it so that is more work for a board that is going to fall apart anyway. I think learning how to properly fix a board is worthwhile don't know if that board will be worth the cost of the repair materials when it's all done but learning to fix a board will be worth it in my opinion. Also you need to sand the resin off the glass around the edges where you intend to overlap the fiberglass to make a better bond and a smoother finish in my opinion.

[FrancescoWaves]

You still didn’t answer my question if you laminated fiberglass before ? Because if you haven’t, I am worried you will run into another problem. If you do it improperly, and the cloth “floats” up, when you go to sand, you’ll sand the fiberglass off, and all your efforts will be wasted.

Oh, and remember your relief cuts in the cloth when you wrap over the rail.

Never done it before, but I am a very quick learner when it comes to this DIY thing as long as I have directions.

[FrancescoWaves]

While I think it's a good idea to fix the ding well, I think the concerns of Waikikichan are the board is going to fall apart anyway since it is a glassed in single fin board and probably ancient and if you do the repair poorly then it will fail as well. If I had the board you have and wanted to fix it, I would do as you have done but I don't need help knowing what to do. So the cloth floating up is a result of too much resin? so the glass floats on top of it I guess. I have never had that problem but that is what the squeegee is for to remove the excess resin and spread it out. You want the least amount of resin to do the job. The resin is actually brittle. It's the fiberglass that adds strength and it needs to be 100% saturated for that but the least amount of resin beyond that will be the best fix. The resin also needs to take up the space between the fiberglass and the foam so that is why I would smooth it out with the filler first but I think Waikiki is thinking the end result won't be worth it which may be true however the learning gained from doing it might be worth it. The foam under the glass may be brittle and may pull off if the foam is old and degenerating. If it feels brittle you need to sand it down to where it is normal. An old junk board is the one to learn on. Just my opinion However keep in mind that the whole board may fall apart once you start using it so that is more work for a board that is going to fall apart anyway. I think learning how to properly fix a board is worthwhile don't know if that board will be worth the cost of the repair materials when it's all done but learning to fix a board will be worth it in my opinion. Also you need to sand the resin off the glass around the edges where you intend to overlap the fiberglass to make a better bond and a smoother finish in my opinion.

This makes me feel a bit better, thanks

The foeam may be brittle, I will sand it as you said. We'll see. A shop quoted me $120 to fix it, so I had no choice anyway

[waikikikichan]

I am a very quick learner when it comes to this DIY thing as long as I have directions.

When it comes to ding repair, the most knowledge comes from past mistakes. “Oh that was bad, I won’t be doing that again.” Almost all of us have gone thru the mistake of adding too much catalyst, laid the mixing cup of resin on the board, and then watched it slowly melt down into the deck from the tremendous heat created. You’ll learn, the hard way, like we all did.