Surfing Waves

Hi, my board has been leaking water from the leash plug. I am drying it now since yesterday. It has water droplets coming out from tiny gaps between the plug and the board.

I have never repaired any leash plugs before, only rail dings, so i really need your advice.

Question is, how to approach this repair job?

You should replace it, and would not even try to do it myself. Also, let it dry for a week or more, you don't want to trap any water in there. However, if you are going to try it yourself, sand the area & add solareze, it might get inside so make sure you leave space for the leash.

I like this guy's channel.


I do this version the most, but I put two layer of 4 oz. cloth around the plug. ( make sure to cut off the excess cloth when it starts to go off a bit )

update.

ive made a hole (not round, but its a hole!) around the plug, about 2 inch long, half inch wide, and one inch deep to let water come out faster. dried it in tropic sun few hours and stored it in the shades for the rest of the day, for 5 days, and no water is coming out anymore, even when i french kissed and sucked.

sanded around the plug till i can see fibres, and sanded a bit more. filled the self made hole with industrial epoxy resin mixed with small cut up fibre strands. let it cure for a day.

sanded the hell out of the cured resin. now the hole is there no more. cut up some small patches of fibreglass cloth and wet hand layed it up all around the areas (2-3 layers) where the plug meets the deck/board as i suspect this is the areas where there are gaps water can enter. finished it up with a final coat of resin.

cured for another day, and then sanded the hell out of it to make it flush. looks solid and rock hard to touch. stoked to test the durability.

continued...

went surfing the next day, and the repair looked and felt solid. so i surfed 6hrs daily happily for the next week or two, that is untill 3 days ago, when the swell stopped. got the best waves of my kook life these past weeks! still smiling just thinking about it!! yeahh!

anyways, now theres no waves, and as i wiped and cleaned, and stored my board, there it was. puddles of salt water coming out from the repair area. now who knows how long its been since it failed.

upon closer inspection, found out the actual plug is freaking non sticky! i mean, its made of slippery plastic? resin never stick to smooth surface. small part of cloth and resin (my repair) had peeled off the plug, and water seeped into the tiny gaps.

my proud repair job had failed.

continuation, again...sorry for very long posts. ive got nothing to do and bored as hell.

well point is, my leash plug was leaking, ive got no power tools nearby, only my hands. cant change the whole plug properly as i dont have tools. so ive improvised after doing some research.

problem is, resin/cloth wont stick good on slippery surface (the damn plastic plug), and after days of good surf, a small part of my repair had peeled off anough to exposed some area around the plug where it meets the board, and as the original fault (gaps) is now exposed, water came in again. not good.

now, my actual question. haha.

how the hell do i make the plastic surface of the leash plug to be rough enough that resin/cloth will stick to it good?

i dont have access to any power tools. all of this are done by hand, and my hands are now noodles!

my temp repair shoud be covering all areas where the plug meets the board, overlaping them. BUT, it had failed due to too smooth surface of the plug.

any ideas how to deal with this? it needs to last the whole season.

ive only 2 ideas.

1.to redo the repair near the peeled off area, and then put some good gorilla tape overlaping them and into the plug a bit. maybe this will prevent any more peeling off the repair.
2. freaking bury my leash rope attachement (small tiny rope) inside the plug with resin/cloth, so that the whole plug area becomes one flat surface with the surrounding area. this means i cant change the small tiny rope ever again. if it snaps, off goes my leash.

my plan is to make my board surf ready for the next weeks swell, and to surf it the whole season till maybe march, before sending it to a pro Dr Ding repairman with proper tools. its not ideal, but when theres swell, a man gotta surf no matter what!

help me and show me the ways please guys.
again sorry for very very long post.

cheers and stay stoked!! ;p

I haven’t ever fixed a leash plug but if I were I would and had to do so by hand. I would cut around and remove the plug then reinstall it or fill in and create a fiberglass loop instead

It's likely the reaon your patch failed is because the leash plug is not solid and moves when the leash pulls on it so needs to be removed and made solid. This will cause separation between your patch and the plug not the slickness of the plug or rather the slickness won't matter if the plug doesn't move

Agree with old man, the plug is probably twisting. All leash plugs are smooth and they have been working in lots of boards for a long time

You can always rough up the edges of the plug with sandpaper or something if you want; but maybe you now have a hole that’s too big and resin isn’t string enough to to hold the plug in place. Possibly need to try gluing the plug in (plus resin and glassing it) or perhaps your resin just didn’t cure properly or had the wrong mix?

If you do glue then make sure you use the right glue and not one that dissolves the foam. Gorilla glue, specialist foam construction adhesives. Not super glue

I can do basic repairs, but don't trust myself for leash or fin plugs, I know my limits

My thought was that whatever caused the damage in the first place disrupted the seal beyond the surface so the plug might be toggling sideways or twisting or moving because it broke the entire seal not just the surface. So the plug needs to be removed to reset it. However I haven't ever tried to do a leash plug so if more materials were required I would probably opt for removing the plug and filling in the hole then making a fiberglass loop although I figure there must be a reason why they don't do this anyway. but it is a workaround for limited materials and knowledge.

thanks guys...appreciate it...

researching how to make a glass loop..ive seen it only once before!

cheers

It's way easier to mess up and make a weak connection and a huge mess when trying to make a leash loop, compared to installing a leash plug.
But if done correctly, resin leash loops are a work of art.

researching leash plug installation It seems nothing else is required other than resin plus filler to make it thick and leash plug although maybe removing the leash plug will result in a hole deeper than the plug so some fiberglass pieces below the plug might be good

It can depends on the size of the hole. Resin is strong but brittle, so if there is a big hole and you are reliant on the resin only (or with fibreglass bits) and there is a twist or movement then it can slowly crack and eventually give way. Hence glue can be an option or even adding some extra foam or filler to make the hole smaller

However if the hole is the right size it might have been improper resin mixing or curing.