Surfing Waves

Hi All,

I'm completely new to surfing, surfboard repair, etc. However, this morning while throwing out my trash, I happen to come across someone who threw out an Al Merrick Flyer II board. It appears they had it mounted on their wall with a piece of wood glued to the bottom of the board. When I removed the wood the fiberglass/resin came with it.

I've done auto body repair in the past with some glass work, so I'm confident I can repair the board myself. Plus I enjoy teaching myself new skills. Since I was able to get a free board, I have no problem teaching myself on it. But figured I should get some feedback from a forum on ideas of how to repair it.

Below are pictures of the board and the damage. Thanks for any advice you can give!

It’s definitely repairable. Some fibreglass and resin and sanding.

Whether you have any realistic chance of being able to learn to surf on it is a totally different matter (ie pretty unlikely). Have a read here, or google up, ‘best board to learn to surf’

But if you do a good job on the repair you could probably sell the board and put the money toward a more useful learner board

Depending on the depth of the void area where the foam blank got ripped out, it might not be worth trying to fill it. Usually with a mixture of resin and Q-cell. But in this instance and the age/condition of the board, I would just cut out 2-3 layers of fiberglass clothe the shape of the void and used it to fill it in. Wet it in, then glass over that.
Question: I wonder how/why the fins were on the board if they mounted it flat to the wall ?

I was in the surf shop yesterday and saw this book at the checkout. I skimmed the first couple pages. It might be worth a read and come in handy as a backup to YouTube How-To videos.

https://www.amazon.com/Ding-Repair-Scri ... B000728TZY

Thanks for the input. I'm going to attempt to repair it and teach myself along the way. If I mess it up, well it's not like I'm going to be out too much. Been watching a lot of youtube videos on repairing, glassing, and painting. I'm going to make a project out of the board. Worse case it becomes something I hang on my wall.

And I was wondering the same thing about if it was mounted on the wall why are the fins are it, who knows.

make sure you use the right kind of resin. Make sure all the damaged separated glass is removed.