28 year old board starting to delaminate

[knoxsurf]

So 13 years ago I bought my first surfboard (used). You can see the post here: Repairing dings and cracks

The board was shaped in 1997. Now after about 150 sessions (I only go to the beach a few times a year), the top of the board is delaminating in multiple spots. I repaired one of the spots a couple of years ago by simply drilling two holes, injecting resin (unfortunately I used brown resin), and putting weight on it. I’m considering doing that in about 4 other places, but I’m wondering if this is the right approach.

Should I instead do something more invasive like cut off a lot of the top fiber glass and re-glass it? Or is the injection approach the best return on investment given the board’s age? Other than the delamination on the top and some pressure dings in the bottom, it’s in pretty good shape.

Here is a picture. The red dots are where I injected resin for the first repair. The green dots are where I’m considering doing more.

Video showing pressing in on the delamination: https://youtu.be/a8Uaax80Bmk

Any tips are appreciated. Thanks!

[Huck]

Inject resin if that will do the trick. To cut off delaminated glass and re-glass can be done but it will take some skill to make it look halfway decent.

[doc]

Uhmmm- a few things;

To begin with, I’ve seen a lot of approaches to deck delams. Cut the glass down the stringer and squirt in resin or Gorilla glue, spot inject resin, cut off glass and lay in thin foam, then reglass, etc., etc.

Here’s the thing. They don’t really work and they make your board into a Frankenboard. I’ve done some of them, yeah, but usually on rental boards which we were literally going to rent to death.

Any significant amount of resin under the deck will crack, sooner rather than later. Foam/gorilla glue/resin with or without thickener will still leave air/voids at the edges which continue the delam process. Injected foam might well blow things loose as it expands.

Cutting off the deck glass, new foam or filler, reshape, reglass…yeah, right. A lot of work and expense for something that will wind up being absolute crap. Like the idjits who suggest starting a ding repair by sawing or routing out the area, bad ideas from somebody who hasn’t done it but heard of it being done by somebody else.

Injecting resin…will sort of work, for a while, it’s the least bad of the options, but it’s not a permanent cure. There aren’t any, by the time it’s gotten to this stage.

You’re saying your first board, so not your only board? You’ve had it 13 years, half its life, done what, at least a thousand waves with it? I’d say give it an honorable retirement. Without destroying it.

Shape a copy if you’re in love with the shape, maybe glassed a bit heavier so it won’t crush like this one did. Or move on to something different. You’ve changed in those 13 years too.

hope that’s of use

doc…

[OSS1]

Shape yourself a new one.

[Huck]

Here’s one spproach to fixing a deck de-lam

[lemat]

Like others i would go with injection or nothing. Old pu foam core loose is cohesion and skin delam it’s life and death of a board. 28 years is a long life for used surfboard. I know one or two guys that kill them in couple month.

[OSS1]

Yeah you’re the master at those cut outs. You always seem to make the right choice when you put the wood or whatever on the deck. Always comes out nice. I did a Dewey Weber many years ago. Cut out the deck. The board was painted on the hot coat. I used a trim router to cut it out. I put a couple of layers of cloth(can’t remember 4 or 6 maybe both). Proceeded to hot coat and sand. Taped off the deck and repainted same as the original paint. You could not tell what had been done to it. Perfect except for one little flaw. When I routed out the old delaminated deck I crossed over the stringer to fast and burned the wood just a hair. The stringer now had a burn mark. Too fast too hard. I think I could have mini planed the stringer and got rid of it but didn’t. I was afraid I might make it worse. The owner noticed the dark spot on the stringer, but said the repair was perfect otherwise. No such thing as a perfect ding repair.