Surfing Waves

ok this is confusing, theres a spot on my board where wax just wont stick. I wouldnt be that bothered but the spot just happens to be where my front foot is. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there anything that i can do to stop it? What could be causing it?

Your deck needs to be cleaned properly.

1) scrape all existing wax off the deck with a plastic paint scraper
2) get a kettle full of boiling water , tip the board up on it's side and pour boiling hot water over the deck
3) scrape off traces of any wax still on the deck
4) Boil the kettle again and while your waiting scrub the whole deck area with ajax or some other domestic scourer-cleaning product. A good hard scrub. spend 10 mins doing the whole surface.
5) pour a second kettle full of boiling water over the deck to remove all traces of debris.
6)Then go & hose the whole deck off throughly with your garden hose, dry it with an old towel.

This should have the whole deck buffed off abit and able to hold wax consistantly across it's whole surface.

Before you re-apply wax just check the area of concern closely. If it looks physically different- is a slightly different colour or the glass feels like it's not cured properly, take it to a board repair shop for further investigation.

dude, if i were you, i wouldn't pour boiling hot water over your spanking new board!! NO WAY!!!

i thought the best way to clean wax was to leave it in the sun for a while

Leave it in the sun... wait for it to melt...... then scrape it off... for the remainder of the wax use alcohol or windex (or any window cleaner) and walla your board is clean.

Yeah man, thats the best way...white spirit from B + Q is dead cheap and might do the job...

Fiberglass is inert temperature wise and not harmed by anything other than petroleum based products like nail-polish remover or kerosene. Actually, I lie, you can use most commercial engine degreasers as well.

Hot water, cold water, whatever temperature will not harm it. How do I know this...I've been doing it for years. Never once harmed a deck. Ever.
Have you guys tried it....nope, thought so.

Brent.

easy mate! i only thought it would harm it as boiling water harms most things! i thought it wouldn't be such a good idea! but thanks for the info! as they say, you learn something new everyday!

well, the fiberglass alone may be temperature inert, not sure about all the other materials that make a surf board.

leave your board out in the hot sun (or better yet, in your car) over a long period of time and watch it delaminate right before your very eyes. there's a reason why all those used boards at the local shop are brown and filled with soft spots (delam). i cringe when I see the same car day after day roll around town with same board affixed to the roof like an ornament.

how about a wax comb followed by a little mineral spirits on a rag finished up with a rinse...easy as pie...

get a pickle

Sorry..Didn't mean to bark...
Fiberglass is used for all sorts of things that involve water at temperature...spa pool liners, sauna seats...you name it. Many of those things involve quite strong chemicals as well - esecially spa pools, the fiberglass is able to take a real baking in those for days (years) on end eh?.
Don't forget that water cools as soon as it hits a cooler object. It may be almost boiling hot in the kettle, but as soon as it contacts the fiberglass it cools dramatically. I suspect from reading the original post he actually does already have some kerosene, white spirits or some other petro-chemical residue on the deck that was never cleaned off properly to start with.

To the poster who commented about de-lam; I'm only talking about washing & cleaning a surfboard within ten mins or so - not leaving it in the sun for months on end. Surfboards de-lam for several reasons, usually it's a combination of strong sunlight (U.V) over long periods of time breaking down the glass itself... being combined with a piss-poor resin job originally. Any glasser will tell you that.
If it was heat & hot water...spa pools would be failing everwhere.

welp, don't think i've ever surfed on a hot tub before. the point is that there is more involved in a surfboard than just fiberglass. let's more accurately call the fiberglass on the board laminate since it is actually the combination of fiberglass and up to three coats of resin (laminate, hot, and on some a 3rd--gloss)

and yes, heat & uv light can effect the final product. as was mentioned earlier, boiling water cools quickly when poured onto a board. well, where does that heat go? into the surfboard. and as with all materials, they expand when heated and contract when cooled. the magnitude may be very small, but it still stresses the bond between the laminate and the styrafoam. any glasser will tell you that too.

and since the effects of uv light on a surfboard are cumulative, why expose your board to extra uv light when there are other ways to clean it.

in the end, it's your $ and your stick, clean anyway you want, but you might want to get an epoxy board. short of baking it in the oven with your dinner (even then it might not do anything), there's not a ton you can do to wear it down.

^sorry, the above post was humbly submitted for your review by tiny2^

Ok Tiny 2,
You can critique a method you've never used but seem to know lots about. Your grasp of high-school physics is pretty limited (when hot water touchs a cooler surface heat radiates to the coolest/ least dense medium first (i.e the air).. heat penetrates the most dense surface (resin/glass)last. Duh.

When I was a student years ago I had a part-time job cleaning at our local hospital, this involved cleaning operating theatres. In this role I learned the principle of "transference". This is...whenever you wipe a surface you might clean off some of the original material...but you'll leave traces of the cleaning product you just used. That's why white-spirits, kerosene, meths, window cleaner etc only leave a thin layer on a deck. If you read the original post again...that's what he most likely has on his deck and needs to get rid of.
If you really want to clean something it has to be washed & scrubbed with detergent/cleaning product & water hot enough to break down & remove the original contaminant.

The original poster asked for advice...I gave it based on personal experience, about twice a year I do each of my boards, and not once have I ever harmed any of them. Ever.
Read from that what you will.
Brent

easy brent...i am obviously humbled by your boundless wealth of surfing/physics/bicycling/and scrubbing knowledge.

sorry, despite my bachelor of science degree, i figured an indepth study of thermodynamics was a tad beyond the scope of this discussion.

a truce: let's stop slapping each other with our purses and get back to the meat of the matter, surfing....

peace and harmony,
tiny2

Not a boundless wealth -far from it, but sometimes, real world skills learned in other areas cross over to surfing. Parallel sporting passions/interests expand your knowledge also. Sometimes it's hard to not earnestly share it. Geek-fest "purse-slapping" arguments are always entertaining - but only for those watching the flaming from the sidelines.
Frankly, here in the depths of mid-winter, daylight saving twilight & nil swell I'd rather lighten my mood by prowling the challenging topics like "surfing naked" etc. True esoteria.
Likewise, peace & harmony.

hey guys, i read this post and realized my board has that spot too. i did everything that you said to, stipe the wax, hot water, white spirte, hot water, then i put a bit of rubbing acohol on it. so far looks like its sticking.

I learnt a trick from a mate on a surf trip once.In the middle of no-where,no boiled water and wanted to take off the crusty old wax. Leave your board in the sun until wax is nice and soft if not runny. Scrape off most of the wax with a wax comb,(if you dont have one just skip to next step,it just takes abit longer). Go down to the beach, soften the remaining wax in the sun again. Then with the hot, dry sand at the top of the beach, cover all the wax liberally and just push and rub the waxy sand off with the butt of your palm and finger tips. My finger tips get abit sore if the wax isn't melted enough so it obviously takes more time in winter but ya can clean your whole (short)board in about 10 minutes.
As for the wax not sticking try some wet n dry/waterproof sand-paper,P1600 should do the trick.