My first surfboard repair - (WIP)

[jaffa1949]

The repairs you are doing look pretty good for your first attempts.
All good there,

[waikikikichan]

You don't need to remove the tape, because if you make the mistake of lifting up the glass. What you should always do is let the resin setup, then cut along the tape edge with a razor blade. I like to leave the tape there for the first blast with the sander.

[IanCaio]

Just sandened the repairs, it seems like they were sanded enough. Used only a 50 sand paper since I plan to gloss coat the board in the end of the job (too many spider cracks).
I'm really happy with the end result, looks quite good, at least way better than that shaper fix
It's rainny today, so no work besides the sanding could be done.

Can I work with resin at night? It might be the only freetime I will have tomorrow. It's possible I'll be able to work in the morning if it's sunny.

[billie_morini]

IanCaio,
your repairs look wonderful! Job well done! You should be proud.

Dona Morini would like to know if that is you in one of your photos. She says the man is bonito!
billie

[IanCaio]

Thanks Billie, I'm quite happy with it. Looking forward to keep the work, but the weather hasn't helped me these last days.
Had fun so far, but it was the easiest fix on the list, so I hope it flows nicely on the other ones too!

Yeah, it's me in the picture! It's easier to look bonito with a mask on

[oldmansurfer]

Taping off an area is to keep the resin from running onto the area you don't want to sand. When you are making a board or sometimes when you are glassing a patch you may overlap the tape with fiberglass. In order for the tape to not become part of the board you take a razor blade or razor knife and cut along the edge of the tape to remove the extra fiberglass but this needs to be done while it is still tacky and not completely hard. Likewise you want to remove the tape before it is hard as well. So when you glass the fin just remember that. You can overlap the tape but you need to cut off the excess before it is completely hard.

[IanCaio]

Today I tried some more fixes, weather is still bad but a little better (I could see some sun this morning at least).
This time there was a small disaster, tried to mix the resin in a disposable plastic cup, while I was using it on the board the resin ate through the bottom of the cup. Thankfully I was wearing one of the disposable gloves, because the resin poured on my hand, floor and a little on the old couch I'm using as a stand. Had to clean the mess, and make a new mixture (this time on the bottom of a milk bottle, thicker plastic) to finish the job.
Gotta be more prepared when I start the lamination and gloss coat, harder jobs means everything needs to be right.

Let's see how this fix turns out.

[IanCaio]

Nose ding done. Used the last hour of sunlight of the day. It was actually a sunny day, if I didn't have class this afternoon I could have started the fin already.

I started doing fin ropes, done these two (in the pictures) so far. Is there a problem if some of the threads are cutted? Also, I have lots of small pieces of fiberglass. Can I use them on the fin base with the fin rope?

By the way, I'm thinking about glassing the other two fins, just to give them more resistance and avoid any future fin replacement headache. Also, it would look better to have 3 glassed fins than 1 glassed and 2 removable ones.

[oldmansurfer]

If you wantch the video they wrap it around the fin so they need to be long enough to go around the fin or some on one side and some on the other. I think maybe you want about two times that amount of threads and enough length to go completely circle the fins. Maybe if you put the two batches together? Make sure you don't overlap the thick bundle of fibers over the tape. A few fibers will cut OK but a thicker bunch of threads like what you need to go around the fins will be difficult to cut over the top of the tape. Then you need to lay down the fiberglass over that so it needs to be enough to smooth out the transition from board to fin. If it were me I would glass the one fin and leave the others.

[IanCaio]

Previous fixes sandened, and fin being fixed in place.

As the jobs gets harder, stuff are starting to get more messy. Something to do with the resin eating through every mixing recipient I choose to use at first. Then I have to clean up the mess, which is a messy job itself. Then finding a better recipient (thicker plastic is working so far) and starting it over. If only I had an easy to clean reusable recipient, half my problems would be gone.
I also met the fury of the resin today: even using gloves some managed to come to my hand, giving a small burning feel (nothing unbearable though), so I had to wash it with flowing water. My thumb has a little burn bubble, but I think it was from the sanding (sandpaper can get really hot it seems ).

At least after all those disasters, the fin seems to be in place, waiting for the fin rope and fiberglass cloth. I'm really satisfied with the rail to rail alignment, nose to tail seems to be just a little bit off though (might be my impression). Had to hold it in place with my hands until the resin became gel.

[billie_morini]

Ian,
you are doing a very good job! This stuff is fun and easy. Bet you cannot wait to surf again! You'll do so with pride.

[oldmansurfer]

Once I was surfing at Hanalei on my tube riding board 7 foot swallowtail single glassed in fin. It was about 10 to 15 foot faces and on one wave it was going to throw a huge section in front of me so I went straight up the face of the wave. I launched into the air about 15 feet above the top of the wave and the board was caught by the lip so stayed on the surface I was going to come down right on the board (no surfleash in those days) and tried to arrange myself to miss the board but there is really not much you can do if you are in the air so I tried to make my feet land off the side of the board but my heel hit the rail and it damaged the rail and my heel. I went in all disappointed and was showing the ding my heel made to a friend but the board slipped out of my fingers and the fin hit the ground making a loud cracking noise. I had cracked the fiberglass around the base of the fin. I figured it was just a crack so I patched it by putting resin in it and went back surfing and everything seemed fine till I caught a big wave and then the board vibrated and hummed like a skateboard with bearing about to blow. I took it to the shaper and he told me you need to remove the fin and replace it. He also told me that if you don't get the fin exactly straight then it may do that also. Now I have patched a few and replaced a few fins and never had that problem again. Just a round about way to say that if the fin isn't straight you may have problems when the board is at high speeds. But learning to patch your own board is a great skill to have. If you do have that problem you need to grind the resin and glass off the base and redo it but most likely you won't have to. But if you do have to next time instead of holding the fin run a piece of tape around the tail and over the tip of the fin (making a circle) then you can adjust the fin placement and once you get it right just leave it to harden.

[IanCaio]

Billie,
I can't say it's being easy, mostly because of having an improvised workspace (and those mentiones incidents ), but definitely it's being fun and even better, rewarding! I can't wait to surf on it when it's finished.

Oldmansurfer,
I tried to use tape to keep it in place, but it was falling in the nose to tail direction. So I had to hold until the resin had gel consistence. Taking a better look, I'm actually pretty happy with the alignment, even nose to tail. If it happens to be off it's probably so minimalist that it shouldn't affect the stability. At least by eye it seems ok!

By the way, those waves sound huge, and flying 15ft over them? I'm surprised your board didn't break in half! Who knows someday I get to know Hawaii, sounds like something else. Would need to get my surfing consistent before though, and some money!

[oldmansurfer]

You know back in those days boards were meant to last a while.

[waikikikichan]

Use Dixie Cups. The small white paper type next to the office or library water dispenser. They won't melt like the plastic bottles

[IanCaio]

Oldmansurfer,
The demon of planned obsolescence.. Let's hope companies change their mentality towards this, specially now when recycling and material disposal are contemporary topics.

Waikikikichan,
I'll look for paper cups tomorrow. I have mistaken them with disposable plastic cups on a video. You can imagine my face when I realized the cup was melting

[IanCaio]

Can't put into words how frustrated I'm right now..
Tryied to fix the fin rope, and glass the fin. Everything went wrong. I don't know if the fin rope is well glassed. When I was laminating the fin, the base insisted on creating air bubbles, that I couldn't get out as hard as I tried. When I forced too much the cloth slided from the fin, then I had to put it back in place. When the damage was the least, I waited for it to gel, but the razor didn't cut easily through the edges, pulling some of the cloth off. I was there, hopeless, and tried again to make a small resin mix to fix the mistakes. I don't think it worked good. Now I'm not even sure what to do (this was the first layer only at least). I'm not sure if I sand it all and start over, if I sand only the bad spots and give the second layer.
Not even sure how I'm gonna sand it enough, specially on the corners.

Guess it's part of learning, it wouldn't be rewarding later if it wasn't hard now. But damn, I need to think of something now..

Fin rope alignment

Fin rope with resin

Fin rope with resin (otherside)

Glassing the fin (1)

Base air bubbles

Base air bubbles (otherside)

Trying to cut through the edges

Screwed up glassing job

[IanCaio]

Rest of the attachments:

So, any ideas? Does it look as bad as I think it is?

Screwed up glassing (otherside)

Putting some extra resin trying to fix the mess

Putting some extra resin trying to fix the mess (otherside)

Overall look of the base after trying to fix the mess

Base after trying to fix the job

Base after trying to fix the mess (otherside)

[oldmansurfer]

I guess just put a sanding coat and sand it down. What did you use to cut it with? Maybe it was too soft or too hard when you tried to cut it? Should still be strong and watertight. It should be like a flexible tough piece of cardboard when you cut it. if it hardens too much you pretty much have to sand it down instead of cutting it so I am going to guess it was still tacky when you cut it?

[IanCaio]

Yeah, it was still tacky I guess. I should have waited more.

I was thinking, and got into 4 options of what to do:
1 - Sand the imperfections and extra fiberglass and glass the second layer over this one.
(The problem in this one is if those sanded imperfection spots would make diference on the fin resistance.)

2 - Sand the whole thing out and start over.
(The best choice, if I had an eletric sander. Can only imagine how hard it would be to sand it all off.)

3 - Sandcoat the first layer, sand it down and apply second layer.
(Sounds like the best choice so far.)

4 - Sand the imperfections, apply fiberglass cloth on them, sand it down and apply second layer.
(I don't know how good this one would be.)

Of course, any choice I make I would have to look for air bubbles (just in case I couldn't get them all out) and sand them down, filling the gaps with resin.

Friday 13th, I should have suspected