Surfing Waves

i just bought a new rawson 6'3 board from my local shop. its used, and i got it for 275. It has one super small ding that i can see on the top(not a big deal), but near the nose, there is a crack looking thing..there are also very faint cracks on the tail. i am in a very tight money situation right now and i would rather wait to use the board until i am sure no further damage will be done..i feel like i am stressing way to much about this, but this is my first shortboard and i am really scared i will break it or something bad will happen. i have a really bad problem with stressing about things like this, and it cost me a lot of money, so i would probably kill myself if anything bad happened to it. what can i do??!?! IM FREAKING OUT.

Dear Mr Bamf64, Uncle Jaffa has some sound words of advice for you.
All boards get dinged, be they short boards, longboards, boogey boards any of them, when you buy a used board it comes complete with its own pre-loved history etched in its very fibreglass.
Some dings are minor and do not need fixing others warrant a repair find out what you've got, post a picture here and learn which is which.
The nose and the tail usually have more dings than elsewhere because that's where the most impacts occur.
But don't stress about it, the price you paid on your student high school budget seems a lot, and in relative terms it is! But based on the pictures you posted of the other board that you returned it was a fair price.
Finding out how to repair your board is one option on how to deal with this it teaches us how to conserve our resources.

Now about your stressing, if you find that you get stressed easily talk to someone you know who is sympathetic and they can help you to become at ease with situations like this.
Breaking a board is not all that bad, just expensive and I know a little hard to explain to parents who buy them for your birthday, but is hasn't or probably won't happen, particularly since you are going to learn what dings need fixing and those you can leave.
Believe me no board or physical object is worth even talking about killing yourself. I put a bit of advice here, if the thought of this is genuine please talk to a counselor as soon as you can. Attempts or thoughts of suicide over issues like this are not clear thinking and friends need to assist you in clearing them. The crew here on the forum are friends.
Many of them are heroes in their own right and if you scratched beneath the surface, you would find them dealing with major health and mental (like depression and bi polar) problems and still surfing.
Look at people like Bethany Hamilton who lost an arm to a shark and is competing on the World Tour. Absolutely courageous, I believe you can be too.

BTW I go into hospital tomorrow for a biopsy to see if I have cancer, so I have to take a little of my own medicine
PM me if needs be!

I bought this on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/SURFBOARD-EPOXY-RES ... 1629wt_905 and I watched this on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_uh41irjLU

thank you for your concern but i didn't mean literally kill myself..haha

so here are a few pics..

tail damage:




near nose:


my friend i went surfing with this morning told me to sand down the cracks and put solarez on it. i will order some from amazon this week. would the yellow bottle of solarez work? it has fiberglass in it and is supposed to work well..

good luck on your biopsy though! positive vibes floating your way!

Your friend gave you the right answer, solarez is a good way to go, It is the easy friend for all repairs and you can do deper stuff with qcells and other ready made fixers, just remember solar rez for normal boards and you need an epoxy kit if your board is epoxy.
A thought about killing yourself, I got that you were being a drama queen , however I take it seriously, I had one step son commit suicide and another we are working to rehabilitate after extensive drug use ( at 38 he still cannot fully function as an adult).
So I'm touchy about suicide statements.

im pretty sure this one is fiberglass because i dont see an epoxy coat like there is on my NSP longboard.

im so pissed right now though. i carefully looked more around the board and there are about 5 or 6 more hairline cracks. some are spiderwebbed.

how would i go about solarez-ing the cracks? do i just get a knife and pick through all the cracks until it is an open whole, sand around the edges of the hole, tape around the hole, fill with s-rez, use plastic wrap to press it and mold, than sand until even?

if i decided to take it to get the cracks fixed, how much would it cost? just an estimate would be nice.

sorry about your stepsons though...thats horrible.

A lot of the spiderweb type cracks don't need anything a simple rule of thumb is if you can click it or flick it fix, drag your finger nail across each area you are worried about, they will tell you. Sand an area around the ones you want to fix one ding at a time you can mask outside that area if you want to form a patch. but the patch edges can irritate under your skin if its where you rub. Your last post shows you have a fair idea of what to do, and if you don't like it you can do it again
The deep dings you might want to open then up but you will need to do them well as they can break down at the edge which flexes.

There is a lesson for you here, Bamf64 and other newbies, look closely at what you are buying.
Be totally happy with the deal offered before you lay out your hard to get cash.
BTW there are 256 posts on repairs if you use the search facility.
Every board will age even professionally repaired dings.

Buy a can of clear acylic laquer and spray over the areas. Job done. There's not enough damage there to worry about even trying to ding repair.

KS

Oh and your thread title made me think i'd be offered advice about your addiction!

KS

kitesurfer wrote:Buy a can of clear acylic laquer and spray over the areas. Job done.
KS

Will this really work? Does it just seal up the cracks? Because water definitely gets in them.

kitesurfer wrote:Oh and your thread title made me think i'd be offered advice about your addiction!

KS

hahahaha no way, crack is wack! gotta stick with those all natural herbs

jaffa1949 wrote:A lot of the spiderweb type cracks don't need anything a simple rule of thumb is if you can click it or flick it fix, drag your finger nail across each area you are worried about, they will tell you. Sand an area around the ones you want to fix one ding at a time you can mask outside that area if you want to form a patch. but the patch edges can irritate under your skin if its where you rub. Your last post shows you have a fair idea of what to do, and if you don't like it you can do it again
The deep dings you might want to open then up but you will need to do them well as they can break down at the edge which flexes.

There is a lesson for you here, Bamf64 and other newbies, look closely at what you are buying.
Be totally happy with the deal offered before you lay out your hard to get cash.
BTW there are 256 posts on repairs if you use the search facility.
Every board will age even professionally repaired dings.

will do!

WOW poor longboard :O

bamf64 wrote:

kitesurfer wrote:Buy a can of clear acylic laquer and spray over the areas. Job done.
KS

Will this really work? Does it just seal up the cracks? Because water definitely gets in them.

Looking at your cracks (hmmm not sure that sounds quite right either) yes it will work. Those cracks are in the sanding/hot coat not in the main layer of fibreglass underneath and as such your board will still be water tight. It is only when you can see foam that you need to worrry. Many boards develop cracks in the sanding coat over time.

KS

Alright ill spray a few layers over it and let you know how it works.


Thank you so much for your help by the way guys! I really appreciate it.