Well, it’s been a long time coming for me but I’m finally at a stage with this board that I can say ‘I’m done’. Months ago I posted about scoring a 77 Robert ‘Redman’ Manville surboard with a Unity label. Consensus was the airbrush job was done by widely known Jack Meyer (can neither confirm/deny if true). I sat and stared at this board for a long time. Eventually I started to patch it up. Here’s some pics of the process.
Before
The tail was bad
And there were some good gouges in the bottom
I wanted to keep as much deck as I could so I scooped out the old foam in the tail and measured up a fresh chunk of foam.
Glassed tail
I then pigmented lammed the bottom and reglossed the whole board (no pics). Then after a whole lot of sanding I got to this point.
I have mixed feelings about my work. On the one hand, it’s the best job I have done however it’s not the best job an expert could do. There are many cosmetic mistakes, maybe even a sand through here and there (glossed over). The fin box is structurally sound but you can see uneven sanding where the black box shows through the red lam. I’m planning on selling this board and I feel ashamed to put a price on it considering the work could’ve been better.
On the flip side, this board was sitting in a garage in its beat up shape and now it can be ridden. But not by me. The beautiful airbrush job is too nice for me to wax over it and I don’t want to put any more heel dents in it (currently there’s less than 20, yes I counted). This is the first board I ever had that I’m not going to ride; and I had to stare at it for over 7 months! Speaking of the airbrush deck. I only sanded down the gloss coat and didn’t even attempt to repair the stress cracks. I feel they are part of the board’s history, so I simply sealed them up as is. Thanks for reading.
PS. I found I really enjoy restoration jobs and would like to improve at it. I’m on the lookout for another project, the yellower the better.