board storage question

[muoh92]

I live in Santa Cruz, CA and lately it's been pretty hot during the day. I keep my board in a small shack out back at my house and it kind of holds the heat in during the day. I've noticed the last couple days after I surf, chunks of wax will have come off my board right where I plant my front foot. I haven't stripped the wax and redone it since I first got the board in March. I started surfing last November and this is my first real board, so I'm wondering if it's just an issue of needing to rewax the board or store it somewhere else? Until now, I hadn't given a second thought to rewaxing because it feels nice and sticky. I did buy a six foot board bag for it, but I only keep it in that when the board sits in my car. Thanks.

[oldmansurfer]

I store my boards horizontally on racks so the wax melts but stays on the board

[drowningbitbybit]

Your wax is meant for water/outside air temperature, not hot shed temperature, so yes, it'll melt and then go solid again. The wax will go shiny and also won't stick to the board as well.
So, two things, assuming you can't store the boards elsewhere - give the wax a scrape with a wax comb before you surf to give the wax some roughness so it sticks to your feet, and try putting on a really hard (warm water) wax as the bottom layer of wax before putting the 'normal' wax on top.

[muoh92]

Yeah I put a base coat down before putting on the cold water wax. I'll try using the wax comb. What do you think about using traction pads on the deck rather than wax? I usually surf in the morning and then go straight to school for a few hours and leave my board in the car, so I'm afraid this will just keep happening. I'd rather not have to strip and re-wax my board all the time.

[jaffa1949]

Leaving your board in the car.
Better find some all day shade or you could find your wax melted nicely into your car seats (board bag stops that) and if sunlight fell on your board long enough, you will find a heat de-lamination in the glass job. Board bag can act like an oven bag and hold the heat on the board longer. ( recommend towel and clothes on top )
Some epoxy boards have been known to pop their entire outer shell or even reverse their rocker.
Heat is the mortal enemy of surfboards, and if they have water in their foam more so!
rewax and wax comb wax comb often don't get lazy in looking after your gear!

[dtc]

Rather than foam traction pads all over the place, with the aesthetic implications, you can buy clear deck grip (like Versatraction, but there are others). Its fairly expensive, at least in comparison to wax, but what price on not having wax dripping all over the place?

(Jaffa, is that the grip you use? I actually bought some recently that I'm going to use - somewhat oddly - to put on the nose of my board to provide grip when duck diving / turtling. I keep forgetting to wax and then cant hold the board, or I put my hands down in the wrong place and they slip and I face plant. Havent put the stuff on yet so cant report on efficacy, but at the moment I working on it being a clever solution...)

[jaffa1949]

Yep the Versa is what I use but then it is a longboard. Pad on the tail and versa to the nose.
No problems with grip on turtle roll, or the occasional duck dive.
Did have a slip the other day pushed a foot too far towards a rail for an extreme knacker splits but knee survived.
Just lacking fine tuning due to lack of water time!
Versa is good grip and would solve the wax problem, costly yes but three years so far no wax bill for that time

[beachbumuk]

Uncle Jaffa strikes again.
I had never heard of Versa until reading this thread. I have a beautiful Classic Malibu that I would prefer to see in colour than behind wax.

After a quick bit of research its all looking good, even for us cold water folks.
BUT, for the warmer climes, what's it like to paddle out bare-chested? Is it like laying on sandpaper like a windsurf board?

[dtc]

Yeah, versatraction looks the goods if you have a good looking board, it seems to be popular with the wood veneer crowd, for which I can't blame them as some of those boards are quite stunning. Although I quite enjoy the waxing ritual, except when I forget.

Running my hand over the stuff I have sitting in the corner, it's not sticky at all and only slightly rough. Lot less chair hair implications than plain wax.

[beachbumuk]

Brilliant thanks DTC, My dads got a big old Naish SUP with Wood Vaneer that would be nice to put it on.

[jaffa1949]

No rash on the legs and since I wear a rash vest, I don't know