Surfing Waves

O deer! av damaged my surf board , cant belive it was having a boss sesion then think a wave landed on my board on a wip out went to go back out and noticed my board had a big crack across it.

It is one of them Circle 1 epoxy Xcome with wood stringer, can I repaire it? av beed drying it out since yesterday, the board feels heaveyer and some water has come out

Any advise would be much much appriciated

kinell johno,that musta been some wipe out .where did you do it

looks like you best get emptyin your piggy bank for new stick imo

A secret reef break in north walse! he he no at sands in the channel, with a 40 mph off shore wind the wedges were massivie and heavy, dont realy know how it happened but I was trying to get out around that big bloody rock in the middle after taking some big poundings got out walked back up the beach to get in the rip and noticed my board had a big crack across it the end of my session was having a good one 2, am thinking of repairing it and riding it till it totaly snaps

Must have been a bad one...those boards are tough. I put my heal through the underside of my own on xmas-eve on a weird wipeout! It's only the glass on mine that's cracked....local repair guy is fixing her up before I sell her on...typical last session on it and I bust it! Bring it to your local repair guy and he should tell you if it can be fixed up and what it'll be like after.

I dont know any local repair guys, was going to have a crack at it myself any one got any sugestions how to go about it???

Man that sucks looks real bad from what i can see that board will never be the same again even if u do repair it. Its always going to be hevry at that point. Sorry no idear how to repair it but sure ks will be along to post at some point.

Ouch!

Right first off you need to get the glass off the deck around the crack to see how bad the damage is under neath. For speed i'd use an angle grinder for this. Carefully cut a line 50mm back from the crack and try to carefully pull the glass back to this point. You will need to do the rails as well.
Or if you want just do the area by the stringer first just to have a look see. Take some more piccies and post them up.

KS

Hmmmm,,, that one looks like a golden BB !! I think it's dead and your in the market for a new stick. Even if it does get repaired correctly it won't be the same.

Oh it's fixable but it will be faster and easier (but more costly) to buy a replacement. I would fix it out of principle because that's the kind of person I am.

That's not a real stringer, it's a "false stringer. And your board is epoxy over EPS, as opposed to a full composite board.

From what I can see the damage looks worse than it is... You have creased the EPS core and damaged a lot of glass. If that was a poly board the stringer and core would have snapped in half.

I wouldnt use a grinder unless you have a real steady hand an a lot of experience. Rather I'd cut all the loose glass away with a sharp "carpet knife".

Now it's heavy because it has soaked up a bunch of water. So next you need to let it dry thoroughly. Hopefully the removed loose glass exposes enough of the core for it to dry. If not we usually drill a hole in one or both ends and hook up the vac pump to drain it (but I doubt you have one of those). Keep it somewhere warm with moving air if you can. You can usually get 95% to 99% of the water out fairly quickly with the right tools. You'll never get it all out unless you completely strip the board, dry the core and reglass it.

How do you know when it's dry? When it stops losing weight! if you knew it's original weight you could just weigh it from time to time until it's back close to that weight.

If you take it to a repairer with all of the above done it should be a cheaper job. But not every repairer knows how to fix damage like this. You can do it at home yourself too. But it will take more time and effort. And probably won't look as pretty.

Post some pics once the loose glass is cleared awat - especially closeups. Then we can see how bad it really is and go from there.

Cheers for your advise am going to do this operation myself, ride it till it snaps completly then buy a new board, am an engineer so can handle a grider no problems,

regarding drying out? at work av got a de huwmidifier was going to put it in a small room / cubord with my board! would that work to dry it out??? whats a vak pump? could proberly get hold of one

Johno,once you've got rid of the excess material you can run it up to our works and we'll suck the water out......a vac pump is just your normal vacuum cleaner......we do a more industrial model.....possibly suck your foam out aswell

OK then grind all the loose and cracked stuff away. The aim of the game is to remove the damaged glass without touching the underlying foam at all. If you take chunks out of it it'll be trickier to repair. Which is why I use the knife.

A vacuum pump is a bit different to a vacuum cleaner. They are more like compressors and designed to suck high-pressure vac for prolonged periods of time without breaking down. You average home or industrial vacuum cleaner won't do that. They also vacuum at a lower rate, as a rule.

With access to a vac my plan changes a bit. I tape a plastic seal around the damaged area to make it fairly air-tight. Then I bore a hole about 1/4" or so in the nose and/or tail (avoid the rail lines please). Lay the board so one side so the rail is down and attach through the vac lead plastic (make sure you use a moisture trap or you'll get water in your vac pump).

Start the vac and wait for the water to drain. The bad news is how long it'll take depends on how long the water has been seeping into the EPS beads.

Once the core is dry the actual repair work will start. First youll need to sand/grind a feathered band at least 4" wide along each side of the damaged area. Then you may need to reseal the EPS. You'll need to decide what you are going to do about the aesthetics. And then it'll be time to start laying in your replacement layers of glass and EPS while incorporating your aesthetic fixes.

The tricky bit is making sure the rocker doesn get all messed up. Because with damage like that the board is going to have a certain amount of give in the center. But that's doable too.

BTW check out the work of "the Board Lady" at http://www.boardlady.com/. Massively inspirational! Most of her repairs are on composites but the principles still apply.

Some shots of the stringer, SNAPED






Is it Fxxked

[quote="dougirwin13"]
That's not a real stringer, it's a "false stringer. And your board is epoxy over EPS, as opposed to a full composite board.quote]

Proff of the puding!!!!

I was questioning it my self esecially because O shea paint a fake stringer on there boards, what is the point of the stringer in an epoxy board??? surf tec etc. dont have them

hehe! Funny that they went to the effort to make it look fake tho

A number of epoxy companies do that so the borad is more "consumer friendly".

OK you are gonna have to splint along the sides of the stringer. Same deal with the rocker tho...

How'd you go getting the H2O out?