I was having a hard time justifying shaping a second board because I’m running out of room. But after working with my local Surfrider Foundation chapter I wanted to contribute something that would help them educate others about the state our oceans are in. I had gotten a 6’10" from a friend who wanted to get it out of his garage. It was so dented it resembled a golf ball. I stripped off the glass, which was fairly easy to do. The hardest part was the glassed on fins. Had the rest of the board been glassed this way you could have dropped it off a building and nothing would have happened.
Once the glass was off I took a 1x4 and glued two pieces of 60 grit to it and started to thin out the deck and the bottom. I wanted to get most of the dents out and give myself something resembling a blank to start with. I designed the board using Surf Designer, and took the measurements and put them on a piece of masonite. I drew it out on the “blank” and cut it out. The new board is 6’3", mostly to avoid the leash cup on the tail. I had to modify the rocker in the tail because I cut off 6 inches.
I’m going to glass it with UV poly after I paint it. The foam has a lot of air pockets and a couple dents that couldn’t be sanded out. Would spackle be a good way to fill these? I don’t plan on coating the whole board, just the small problem areas.
…do you have any more shots of the original [pre-stripped] board , for instance ? it looked fine in that photo [or maybe it’s just my eyesight is not as good as yours ?]
so ,
what colour/s will you be doing it ?
And … please …
…use q-cell , NOT spackle on a polyurethane blank . [geez , what IS it with you guys (and “gals” ) , and what Irwin Dougy calls “the creeping evil” ?? …he’s RIGHT , you know!]
ben
good on ya Ra-ra-ra-raaaaaaachhhhh …you go girl !!!
…it does me good to see that I am not the ONLY board butcher [ “recycler” ?] , on this site !
I don’t seem to have any more pictures of the original board. It really was in bad shape.
The colors are going to be a dark and light blue on the top with a couple of Surfrider lams, and then green on the bottom with another lam. It’s to match the color scheme on the chapter’s website.
I wish you had responded earlier Ben! I already went the spackle route. There’s not too many large spots, and I plan on sanding them so they match the foam. I thought about Q-cell, but I read somewhere that it’s hard to sand down to the level of the foam.
Once I paint the board I’ll post some more pictures.
“I thought about Q-cell, but I read somewhere that it’s hard to sand down to the level of the foam.”
…don’t believe everything you read on the internet , dear Rachel…
And , if you put masking tape over it before it sets , it IS level with the foam then . [Unless , of course, you prefer sanding . hehee. Then , by all means , overfill it , and sand away to your heart’s content.
"…Now came the turn of the old Fairy Uglyane. Her head nodded with spite and old age together, as she bent over Rachel’s shaping stands and shook her crutched staff above the head of the pretty babe, who slept on sweetly after a harassing shaping day, too young and too innocent as yet to dream of any such things as mischief in the world.
“This is my gift to you, Princess Rachel”, announced the hag, still in her creaking voice that shook as spitefully as her body. “I promise that one day you shall pierce your hand (or eye, or stomach, whatever) with this spindle-shaped nose, and on that day you shall surely die…”
Now, it so happened that a young, handsome french shaper came by with a nose-guard and they lived happily forever after…
Q-cell is hard compared to foam. It makes a good repair fill, but if you put it in a field of foam and then try to sand it you’d have trouble keeping it flush. I guess, like Chipfish says, if you could mold it flush, you’d be in good shape.
I haven’t used microballoons. I wonder if they’re easier to sand than Q-cell.
Balsa, where do you have the time to come up with stuff like that? I am a little worried about the nose, but I probably won’t be the one surfing it. Once it’s painted, glassed, and sanded it will spend most of its life on land, being an advertisement. You might think it’s a sad life for a surfboard, but come October, 30,000 people will get to enjoy it.
Take precautions with micro-spheres, the material is extremely small size particles and very very light, they could cause health issues so masks and goggles are advisable. Mix with your resin to a mayonaise consistency and you will get a sealer/filler that is perfectly sandable.
"…Now came the turn of the old Fairy Uglyane. Her head nodded with spite and old age together, as she bent over Rachel’s shaping stands and shook her crutched staff above the head of the pretty babe, who slept on sweetly after a harassing shaping day, too young and too innocent as yet to dream of any such things as mischief in the world.
“This is my gift to you, Princess Rachel”, announced the hag, still in her creaking voice that shook as spitefully as her body. “I promise that one day you shall pierce your hand (or eye, or stomach, whatever) with this spindle-shaped nose, and on that day you shall surely die…”
Now, it so happened that a young, handsome french shaper came by with a nose-guard and they lived happily forever after…
that’s a five leaf post , right there , you silly Billy ! …
“…now GET BACK IN YOUR BAY !!!”
“Now, it so happened that a young, handsome french shaper came by with a nose-guard and they lived happily forever after…”
( and … start taking your anti-delusions medication , mate ! heheee [sorta] )
Balsa, where do you have the time to come up with stuff like that?
Not much time, really, Rachel. I just googled “sleeping beauty”, got the original translation and modified a few things… The truth is we wake up at 5:00 AM because my wife works very early. I can’t awaken the whole neighbourhood with the power planer so early in the morning, so i usually spend one or two hours on the web before going to the shop…
Bottom painted today. Nice bright light green. The spackle does take the paint a little differently, but I don’t think it will be noticeable. What probably will be noticeable are the pencil lines that didn’t get completely covered up. I’m tempted to do a second coat, but I don’t know if it will make much of a difference.
I ended up painting it with a small foam roller. I think it did a pretty good job considering I don’t have an airbrush setup (and no matter how much begging I do, I won’t ever). And of course even though I taped off the stringer, the paint still got under it. Does anyone have a good way to do this? The tape always bleeds no matter what I do. Would cleaning off the blank work better? The tape around the rails was coming up in places so I grabbed the shop vac and hooked the hose up to the discharge end. That seems to work much better than just vacuuming.
Rachel you should only use first quality tape, for one thing. Thoroughly vacuum the blank before taping. Do not dilute the paint too much. Anyway, it’s true that a good color scheme is hard to achieve using a brush or roller. Besides, you will usually put too much paint on the blank, often resulting in future delaminations (paint fills every little foam hole where resin would have firmly stuck). I hate to say it, but paint is no good except when professionally applied using an airbrush and very light passes…
According to my dad it looks like the felt on a pool table. I kind of have to agree with him.
I’m using the blue 3M painters tape, mostly because I have so much of it lying around. Other than a couple of sections where the dust was causing it to not stick, it worked really well and I did get a nice clean line all the way around the board. I was rather surprised about that.
Today I’m moving onto the top and trying to figure out how to paint the wavy lines in the design. Since putting lots of paint onto the blank is not good, I probably shouldn’t paint the whole thing one color and then paint the other lines on top of that?
Balsa, you have no idea how much time I spend looking at air compressors and spray guns. Unfortunately my dad is not quite ready for his workshop to turn into my personal surfboard factory. Even so, I like resin tints more than paint. If this board was for me I can gaurantee I would have attempted this whole design in resin panels.
