Repair your own boards, like a Boss..

Dunno how interesting this is to Joe Windsurfer, but inspired by the Film School series I decided to take some snaps of me repairing the the old mans Tabou Rocket he snapped after one to many forwards.. This method, as I explained in another post is the preferred method used by the board repairers to the stars.. Not the crazy Boardlady

The one thing to remember is boards are made with simple techniques, which can easily be replicated at home. There is no damage that cannot be repaired, as long as you repair it how it was made.

Frist, during the 4th Essendon collapse, I knocked these diagrams up in paint.




And here are some snaps of the repair process showing the last technique. This board was snapped 100% across the deck, but this method can be applied to any size ding. It's a pretty low budget board, but the repair is not expensive, the most expensive purchase was $12 for paint, and the 300g of epoxy..




^^ Cut out damaged area, don't skimp.. The EPS core was not severely damaged here, so I decided to leave it.. If the foam is destroyed, it must be removed and replaced.



Below is the main point of this method of repair, this is how to align the inside layer of glass with the inside layer under the original deck. The old deck must first be separated from the EPS, making room for the new glass to be squeezed under.. (just a demo run for the camera, full deck done with single sheet of glass)





^^ TA-DA!!



^^ 3mm PVC laid down over glass that has been inserted under the original deck. Moderate Q-cell.. Note the original PVC on the deck does not meet the hull PVC.. Nice work Tabou.. I had an Evo that did this when I was 19, Starboard didn't want anything to do with the warranty claim, so I vowed never to buy Starboard again!

^^After cured, all held down with plastic wrap and weights (not shown). Vacuum bag would be better, but couldn't be bothered..





^outer layer.


^^More shrink wrap..


^^Some filler coats, and some classy paint from Autopro.. Colour match? close enough, Still needs the Pad glued dowwn and some non-skid..

Again, it's a pretty sh!tty board, so didn't go overboard with a detailed repair, but the idea's there. This method should be used for any long term repairs that need to withstand further impacts. Soft deck, nose, cracked rail are all repaired this way by the best..

Excellent work. Thanks for the tutorial.

The hard edge of the PVC foam ads zero structural strength, hence the straight cut. It's all in the fibres. And one layer of glass meeting another layer of original glass creates no strong, or weak spots.. Those gaps filled with Q-cell on the rail where filled with Bog in the factory. The Q-cell is similar density to the Divinicell, so any gaps filled with it really dont matter..



Sort of limited with the big drawn out diamond, that spands the width of the deck? thats a big diamond.

But anyway, my main point was the insertion of the glass under the old skin, there are no rules, and this board wont get hammered..

Err, sorry Barn but the fact the glass goes under the old layer is wonderful but you still need as seamless a transition as possible from the old to the new. The divinycell is structural and continuity of the d'cell is just as important as continuity of the glass.
At a minimum that means bevelling the edges.
Ideally, it means bevelling edges and not having straight lines in the replaced section.
Yes it would mean a big diamond, but in relaity you do whatever you can so in that instance I'd at least curve the edges or make it a banana shape.

And that is how the top board repair guys do it all the time so go argue with them.


Acid big soft spot and crease: beveled out nicely and irregular shape....



I am not saying your repair was poor, it is fine for a slalom board, I am just saying the gold standard is beveled edges and no straight lines especially along the direction the board is stressed (eg laterally)

The dyvinicell doesn't need to be continuous, all it does is keep the top layer of glass separated from the bottom layer. It's the top and bottom layer that give the strength of a composite. How much strength does the EPS core give a board? Zero.... Hence the straight cut. And while I agree the straight line section is not ideal, it's a dumb freeride board and I'm not about to put a diamond section repair that would require ripping up half the deck/mast track and footstrap inserts..

Yeah this is crazy Boarlady's method, but to replace this section you could just cut straight.. Much easier!.. Steven Van Broekhoven competed half a PWA season on a board with a collapsed deck repaired my way..

I couldn't find a better board repairer that this guy to argue with..

*edit, yep I don't mind anybody disagreeing with me, next time I'm laminating, I'll do some Mythbusting experiments. Should be easy to test..

Well here is another few good reasons then.
If you poke the wet out glass under the divinycell layer, how do you know it is making good contact with both the divinycell and the styro core?
Poking around under the d'cell to make a void and then poking wet out glass into the void strikes me as a very random method, there could be gaps in adhesion all over the place. To ensure adhesion you could really stuff the glass in so it folds up a bit in the gap - but then we are back to the situation where we have a straight line running across the board with a ridge of glass thicker than the rest.

Beveling the edge allows you to see all the layers and thus be sure you are reproducing the original - it can be really hard to see very thin Spectra under a layer of glass, for example.

Bevelling ensures you definitely have all the layers from bottom to top staggered as much as possible (boundaries between old and new staggered), whereas Barn's method only has an offset between glass under and over the d'cell to a minimal degree

Bevelling allows the final glass layers to be feathered into the deck well, and thus it minimises final finishing.

I will not argue with engineers about whether the d'cell has to be joined with a bevel or straight, as if the USN reckons straight then OK, fine by me .

Or fix your board like the Boss

Quoted for truth.

Recreate both the top and lower fibre layers effectively (which barn's method does) and you're golden, anything else and you're pissing in the wind. I'd like to see someone do a scarf joint on the lower layer which is usually pretty thin (and remember to do it properly you still have to separate it from the EPS core). It's almost impossible to do effectively without increasing your repair area by a factor of about 10 for probably a few percentage increase in strength.

I have attached a epic IRL sketch of what the boardlady method is, which I assumed is what you used Mark? And in terms of recreating the original lower fibre structure it's pretty rubbish and that right there is a massive part of your structural strength gone.

CJW, how do you formulate the opinion "almost zero creation of lower fibre layer"?
I lay up the glass on the styro (under the d'cell I'm about to put in) and it meets the lower layer of fibre (butts up against it) and adheres well as the bevelling exposes the existing glass.

I still fail to see how the 'poking under' method can ensure a proper adhesion as the styro deflects downwards a lot so u can have a 1mm gap with 0.5mm fibre in it. It will adhere to the styro well but may only have partial contact with the underside of the d'cell. Vac bagging it won't solve much as the laminate may move downwards enough and you'd not know. Besides, you don't want the laminate to move as the edge is the "good bit" that you want to stay where it is.

Furthermore, the poking under method doubles up on glass along that line ie: that is making a line across the board stronger - the whole idea is to not have any stronger or weaker areas!

I also find it interesting that three board manufacturers / professional repairers here do it same as me, and I've never heard of Barn's method.

Surely greater staggering / offset of all the layers can only be a good thing so as to not create points for stresses to accumulate and thus have cracks nucleate

Well it really does depend exactly how you do it, i'm simply going by your picture above. I stand by my statement that if you simply add a lower layer/s of fibre to that board as pictured above it will do almost nothing in terms of creating a sandwich structure, it will if fact create a very stiff circle with a huge stress raiser right around its edge.

The strength for FRP comes almost entirely from the fibres, hence when you join fibres end for end it's almost useless as their tensile strength is now hilariously low, which lets face it is what you are doing in the above pic given the 'bevel' would be a few mm at most on the lower layer. You need good overlap and stagger which you're not going to achieve on the above sanded board. IF you removed a layer of dcell (not beveled, entirely removed) from on top of the lower level of existing glass (back from where it's sanded through to the EPS core)then, preped that, then layed ontop of that, then added the dcell back over the entire lot in etc I can see your point; from my understanding though this is not what you had done. Apologies if I was incorrect, as this method is indeed vaild, definitely superior to barn's but it's a lot more work for realistically small gains.

im all for working with straight lines and squares opposing to circles , maybe im missing the point here, but it looks like your trying to bond onto the bottom layer, the deck has 3mm divinycell why cant you use a small router set at 1 or 2mm, you cant cut any deeper , if the repair is 50mm wide why can you route out 80mm at 1 or 2mm deep then with a Stanley knife cut your repair at 50mm you then have an overlap of 15mm either side of your repair you will end up with more glass on the overlap i asume the deck was routed in the first place

if you have a look at this repair , how much easyer would it have been working with a square with a 1mm recess to bond on to the original deck

Does not entirely make sense? But if I understand you, you are suggesting not removing all of the D-cell, only 1-2mm of it then glassing over the top? If the top layer of fibre is cracked, so is the bottom layer, you have to remove and replace it and potentially the EPS core as barn eluded to. IF you want to repair the board properly you have to remove all the damaged, fibre/foam and then rebuild that lower layer etc.

No I am serious. Dremel with the 30mm blade that's like an angle grinder blade, or the 25mm steel one with diamond grit
Cut around with depth control by eye / finger gauge - as if you go 1-2mm into the styro it wont hurt, it gets filled with resin and q-cell when u butter up the styro prior to laying glass.
After cutting, pop the sandwich layer off with a knife and it comes away pretty clean.
Then dremel the bevel on.

Even better, dremel is a one hand proposition, the other hand is holding the vacuum cleaner hose close .... so no mess, no dust, no fuss

For what it's worth in structral areas, I use keefs method, start off like barn, but instead of poking glass under divynicell, carefully remove a strip of d-cell down to the underneath fibres without damaging the fibres, then the new underneath cloth overlaps on top of the old. The new d-cell ends up a tad thinner on the overlap as a result, but I don't think that's a problem.
The board lady's method I sometimes use in non structural dings, I don't think the underneath fibres have as good a connection using this method.
But the more bevel you give it the better.

Poking glass under never occured to me, I tend to agree with Mark, I don't like what I can't see, maybe I'll give it a go next ding repair.