Small cracks on my board advice?

[surf patrol]

I would like some opinions on the small cracks on my boards rail, should I do anything with these?

[dtc]

Nothing, just live with them (probably...). Almost every glassed board has them.

Run your fingernail across the ding - if you can feel edges or are able to pick at them, then the glass is cracked and should probably be fixed. But if no water can get in to the foam core (ie the crack isnt all the way through the fibreglass covering) then no issues

Its a mark of use, wear them proudly.

The are often called 'spider cracks'. Surfboards are foam covered by fibreglass cloth laminated in resin. The glass cloth is a bit rough and the mix with resin allow some bumps from the cloth to show, so a layer of pure resin is used to cover it. and make it all shiny and smooth This is called a hotcoat. Spider cracks are usually in the hotcoat ie just the surface covering not even down to the fibreglass sheets.

If you do want to repair

- put a thin layer of resin over them. Wont hide the crack but will cover the crack with resin ie seal them.

- sand down and patch with some cloth and resin. This is way more work, but is a ong term repair.

Both can be done with a standard ding repair kit.

However, as said, I dont think you need to at this stage unless the cracks are deeper than they look

[Andy92]

Hi, I have the same question. I knocked my board on the way down to beach like an idiot. At the time it felt rough but after being in the water it's became smooth. The foam hadn't discoloured or anything. Would anyone mind giving me some advice on mine? The previous reply was great but I just want to make sure!!! Cheers

[dtc]

Cracks are only an issue (rather than an aesthetic thing) if either

a. they go all the way through to the foam and let water in; or
b. they are located where a weakness will be a problem eg around the fin box or leash thingy (what is the name for the leash holder bit?)

or, of course, you think they may develop into either (a) or (b)

Andy, yours seem neither, although that one right on the edge of the rail (at the 'corner') maybe you sould keep an eye on. Just dab it with some resin

[Andy92]

Cheers dtc, I have a repair kit but haven't done any before and because it's on the rail I for want to make any mistakes. When you say dab resin on it should I use some fibreglass cloth aswell or just resin and sand it down a bit? Thanks

[oldmansurfer]

Decisions on fixing a board depend on many things. How bad the damage, what is the general shape of the board, how much you use the board, how much money you have, how much skill you have in fixing boards, what the surf is like right now..... Ideally you would sand it down to lower the contour so that you can add some glass then add a small piece of glass over the crack. If you just resin over it that area will be weaker and prone to damage but if you have never used resin and fiberglass then just smearing a thin coat will suffice for now till you can get better instructions. However if the surf is perfect with no one out ...grab that board and go surf fix it later. I bet there is a set of online instructions for doing a simple patch somewhere. One thing you need to do is make sure you have the right type of resin for the board. I haven't patched a board in a while but if you have polyurethane resin then what follows is a brief description of how to make a patch (probably similar for epoxy resin) The area would be sanded down and tapped off then a piece of glass cut to the shape of the hole in the tape, mix the resin, then you could either dip the glass in the resin and smooth it with a flat piece of plastic (they make a tool just for this) or you could hold the glass on the area and apply resin with a brush then smooth it down with the plastic squeegee thingee whatever it is called if needed....then wait for the resin to loose it's tackiness and cut the overlap off if any and remover the tape wait for it to harden a bit more then apply a sanding coat and sand it down the finish coat and lightly sand and polish it. Don't leave the tape on too long it will become part of the board..... seriously I would look for instructions with pictures. It's not too difficult but you could just put some resin over and it will be fine for a while.

[Andy92]

Cheers oldmansurfer! The surf next week is going to be great so I'll probably leave it a week. I'm gutted because the board is only 4 weeks old, it's my first non beginner board and I had no idea how easily they damaged. Good description, I have seen a few videos which seem to be doing similar to what you have said. My only concern is that it's on the rail and I don't want to ruin the shape, if it were on the deck I would probably just go for it straight away! I'll give it a go when the waves die down for sure, guess it's something that I need to learn to do properly at some point for when a really serious ding happens. Cheers

[oldmansurfer]

I doubt whatever you do will noticeably affect the performance of the board unless you use the wrong kind of resin and create a huge hole there . A small bump in the rail isn't going to make or break the board but if you are very diligent and do it all correctly it will be difficult to tell where the ding was. If you still have you previous board you might want to try patching a crack in it as practice. I broke the nose off my board a while back and I didn't want to mess around with learning the ins and outs of epoxy resin so I had my shaper fix it. I still haven't fixed anything yet with epoxy resin.

[dtc]

Are the cracks on the surface or just in the resin? Anyway, as mentioned, unless the cracks go from the surface through to the foam, then they wont cause any problems. Of course, keep an eye on them; but the rail is not a high stress spot.

Putting resin on by itself is just to put something on the cracks to cover them up, like you might paint over a crack in a wall. Its not a permanent solution but it may well be fine for several years

[Andy92]

Cheers guys! I decided sand it down a bit, the cracks didn't go down to foam and it was watertight. I didn't sand down enough ( in my opinion) to warrant a new layer of cloth so I put resin over the top and have now sanded it down. Not sure if I should have put cloth down but didn't think so at the time. Here's how it looks now, what do you think?

[oldmansurfer]

That should be fine and water tight. Just be careful of your board and don't whack it there. You know I made my own surfboard long ago and that board I had no problem patching because it wasn't my favorite board unless it was just tubing out. I learned to do massive patches as well as small ones and even though my shaper was willing to quickly patch my bought boards and get them back to me for free I would just make some small patches myself but I surfed every day and shatters I let go till I saw water leakage or if I had another ding. So typically I would do 3 shatters and a ding all at once. I hated to have my board out of action.

[Andy92]

Cheers oldmansurfer! Good price of mind before heading out today! That's awesome making your own board, something I'd like to do but looks like a lot of the blanks cost a lot of money