Year Built2009
ShaperSteve Walden
ManufacturerGSI
Model Namerebuilt Walden Magic
LocationBakersfield
This is a GSI Walden Magic that was broken in two nightsurfing big Malibu. It was donated to me by a Swaylocks bro. His complaint was that when he ordered it, he did not know he was getting a GSI version, and he found it “too corky and too light and too flexy”. He thought the extreme flex (it had no stringer) may have contributed to its breaking in half.
My intent was to use wood surfboard methods to repair a foam board. Based on the original owner’s report, I wanted to add some weight and stiffen it up significantly. I rebuilt it, using about a foot of wood rail each side, a 36" long 3/4" thick wood stringer in the middle, and 1/8" thick wood strips on the deck. In my initial re-build, there were some air gaps inside, which I didn’t know how to deal with, so I added a vent. But eventually, the vent leaked, and board took in water. So I opened the bottom, scraped out the inside, and filled it with expanding “great stuff” insulating foam.
There was still some airspace under the wood strips, since they had not been vacuumed tight, just glued with epoxy glue. So I drilled several small holes, and poured epoxy resin in the holes until they filled up. I re-glassed the patch area top and bottom, removed the vent and put a little foam plug in and glassed over it, and repainted the white with Lowe’s appliance epoxy spray paint, and added stripes and pinlines over my wood deck to blend in with the design.
Finished weight 20 lbs., and it rides great - I love this board! Kudos to Steve Walden on a great shape.
