1st Restoration

Im as green as green can get when it comes to shaping and glassing. I picked up the “The Master Glasser Series” video from my local supplier and scored a used board at a garage sale. The problem is, the video is about glassing new boards. The info will help me after I have the old glass stripped and dings repaired, but Im at a lost as how to start. Im guessing I need a low grit pad and a power sander to get the laminating layer off. Any suggetions, or prior threads on materials and techniques would help.

Thanks,

Russ

Quote:

Any suggestions, or prior threads on materials and techniques would help

Yeah, first off don’t remove/strip off the old glass unless there is absolutely no other option. That is, the old glass is so shot that there is no way to salvage any of it. In which case the underlying foam is probably shot too, so make it into a table. Really. Your time, money and effort can be better spent making a new board from scratch with a new foam blank.

Remember the words ‘restoration’ and ‘repair’ don’t amount to total reconstruction. When you go sanding off the old glass, chances are you will gouge the foam and rip out chunks of it, which in turn will require filler ( which also needs sanding, which begets more gouges and tearouts) to the point that it isn’t worth it. I’d have to say that the vast majority of ‘strip off the old glass, then restore it’ boards I have seen and heard of wind up junked. As they should be, they are too screwed up by then to be worth continuing with.

Chances are this board will have dings badly fixed, some brown foam, maybe a delam or two. See the Archives for those, Pete C’s stuff on repairs is especially good.

If the board is a pretty good board to begin with, okay, it’s worth salvaging. If it’s of some value as a collector’s item, might be best off leaving it alone, as is, it’s worth more that way. But bear in mind that your time and effort are worth something, and if you are putting $300+ worth of time, money and effort into a $25 yard sale board that won’t be worth $75 when you’re done, ya might want to keep this as decor, ya know?

And if you want a keep it around the house beater to loan to people and this board will work for that - fix the worst dings and delams, maybe glass over the whole thing with a layer of colored 6 oz cloth or with a fabric layer ( see the recent snapped board thread for more on that technique) and don’t go crazy. Remember, perfection is the mortal enemy of ‘good enough’.

Hope that’s of use

doc…

Here’s a total re-do. The original was 9 feet something. The end result is just shy of 8 feet. I opened the rail seam with a grinder and ripped off the old glass revealing (fortunately) enough good foam to start hacking.

Postioning the template to fit what was left was tricky and I wasn’t too picky about what I ended up with.

After spending a lot of time on the butt crack between the tips, it was ready to glass. The morning of the glassing, I knocked it over in the garage and winced as it hit practically everything in the garage on the way down. Damaged? Yes, but after some touch up shaping and removing about 1 1/2" from the tips of the swallow, it was OK.

Go for it but if the final shape doesn’t look good, it’s questionable if it’s worth the time and cost of glassing it. As Doc points out, that stuff is getting expensive!

…this “may” be another subject / thread for lavz and I to video [if anyone watches those . After all "Lavz’'s hard work , I sure hope so !!].

I have a ‘slab’ [of] an old, heavy 1970s kneeboard, which I’d like to try to “reinvent” as a fish , at some stage …

I’ve done 15 strip and reshapes [in as many years] , and it’s in the resources, somewhere …try 'strip and reshape" , 'show all posts by ‘chipfish61’ when you do a search …something like that , should do the trick ! [sorry I can’t help more , but I’ve done a coupla posts there somewhere, in amongst my others …]

Hicksy , also , has done this … it’s in the “Hixell” thread …check it out !

ben

meanwhile …here’s a “before and after shot” , from the “stubbie photos” thread …

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