And they said it could'nt be done

Most of the people who saw this board prior to its restoration, said why bother, or said, it could’nt be done. Not normally one to blow my own trumpet. But I’m pretty pleased with the way this one turned out.

It is a “WM” (William Morton) Australia “Tracker” circa 1968/9 Shaped by Vic Elliott.

32 hours work over almost 12 months. Things don’t happen all that fast around here.platty.

Simply BEAUTIFUL! very well done job man. post more pics to admire that baby. Tell us how the things went with it’s restoration. Jack.

Wow - absolutely awesome job! I’ve been wondering about the steps of a restoration like that. Would you mind a quick broad-brush of the process?

J.

Like everybody has said, please run us through how you did it, as this might just be one of the ‘how to do it right’ articles we’ve been thinking about adding.

NICE job, man. Very nice indeed.

doc…

wow! how did you do it?

A shame to wax it up now - will it ever surf again?

Beautiful board.Hell of a makeover.

awesome job! take her for a spin!

Thank you, one and all for the positive feed back on the restoration. I will be glad to write an account of the restoration. Please give me a little time.platty.

The following is an account of the process of restoring the WM “Tracker” that was featured in “They said it couldn’t be done” thread.

The board was in a bad way when I received it. To most people it would be rubbish, after all that is where it was found, on a garbage pile. An eight-inch section of the nose was missing and three inches of the tail was also missing. The original fin box was still in the board but somebody had crudely bonded a fin into the box with resin. The deck had a number of areas that had delaminated and it was covered in dents and dings.

The whole board needed to been ground to prepare for the ding repairs. Once ground, the nose and tail areas were prepared for the new foam. The old fin box was removed and the resulting hole was filled with foam. The nose and tail were reshaped and everything was glassed. As the board was going to have a full colour job all the dings needed to be glassed to stabilise the dinged areas. Then they could be filled with a 75/25 mix of Q-cell/ Aerosil. The next process was to sand and fair and a layer or 4oz applied over the filled areas. The rails were in such poor condition that after being faired two layers of 4oz was applied to the entire length or both rails.

The delaminated areas in the deck were removed and the areas reglassed, filled and faired. The section of glass with the shaper’s logo on it was cleaned up and reglassed into the board. The dents in the deck were filled with a wet mix of chopped glass and resin and two applications were necessary to fill all the dents. I had not tried this before and I will certainly use this method again as it worked well. It does add some weight, but as this board is going to be a wall hanger the added weight is not a major consideration.

Normally if there are a small amount of shallow dents to fill I’ll use straight resin. But because of the amount and the size of the dents and the amount of camber in the deck, something with a little more substance was needed. Q-cell / Aerosol was another option but I thought it would be a good opportunity to try the former method on this occasion.

A new fin had to be made. This was constructed from 10oz-boat cloth and surfboard-laminating resin was used. The template is from a “Hohensee” tracker that I own. This was glassed onto the board.

The board needed some filling and fairing on the new nose, tail and on the rails. Again the Q-cell/Aerosil mix was used. Then a layer of 4oz was applied over these repairs. The board was then hotcoated and sanded to 320.

The paint used on this board is thinners based acrylic paint. A high build primer was applied over the sanded hotcoat. This was left a few days to cure and any minor holes were filled, sanded and re-coated with primer. Then a light sand with 500 dry.

The bottom was painted first. One light coat was applied, left for ten minutes to tack off. Then three wet coats were applied allowing time to tack off between coats. The board was left for a week to cure. Then the deck colours were applied.

Same method as above,the white first then the middle. Again the board was left to cure. The board was sanded with 600 wet & dry and masked for the black pinlines. Once sprayed and cured the board was sanded with 1200 wet & dry and glossed. Acrylic Topcoat clear was used. Applied the same way as the colour coats. The fin was sprayed separately one side at a time with the board on its rail in the stands. Again the board was left to cure. Topcoat clear is very easy to get a gloss with. But it is very soft and easily burns when polishing. The board was sanded with 600, 1200 wet & dry then polished with “Farecla” G3 regular grade compound paste. Then finished with “Farecla” super fine polish. Using a lambswool-buffing pad.

The paint was thinned 1:1 and the TCC was thinned at 1.5:1 The gun used is an Oldfield’s 60T electric airless. It is pretty basic, but it did the job. Any orange peel or overspray dry spots easily sanded out.

This is the first major painted restoration that I have undertaken. I normally do full pigment restorations. There does seem to be a growth in the interest of the boards from the late 60’s into the 70’s and people are asking for painted restorations. As time goes on I will have to invest in some better equipment for spraying boards.

This board took a total of 32 hours over a 10-month period.

Platty.


great work, GREAT work Platty !

… aren’t you at least a bit curious to see how it would ride , though ? [ If it was me, I’d have it out in the water.]

But it does look so nice , it would be a shame to put wax on it. [geez did I just write that ? I can’t believe I’m advising someone to not surf a board they’ve worked on !]

  well done mate... please send photos of any others you restore,  or HAVE restored...it's GREAT to see a dumpster start life again looking good ! 



  If only the people who threw it out could see it now !! 



            

         "chip"

Platty, At the risk of redundancy, excellent job man. Thanks very much for the step by step as this weekend I stumbled across an Austin-Baird(local Sunset Beach/Los Angeles shaper(s) in the 60’s)8’4" ‘ish Mal that is in gawdawful shape but I believe I’ve been inspired by your posts to give a go at bringin’ her back to life, again many thanks…I’ll post progress as it comes along Glenn

Ben, the WM is not mine. The owner does’nt plan to ride it. The sad fact is these Trackers just don’t cut it. I tryed riding my Hohensee Tracker. (see photo) Ok in a straight line. They just refuse to turn. Might be ok at Kirra. The other photos are of a King Steptail and a Hayden I restored a few years ago.

Glenn, I’m glad to see people are being inspired to restore the old boards. I’m shore you will get alot of satisfaction out of the project. Be prepared for some blood, sweat and sometimes tears. They can be bloody frustrating at times. But worth it in the end.

platty.



here ya go ‘team zep’… just for you… the thread is now resurrected !!

thank you thank you thank you…much appreciated

no worries mate…any friend of dave’s is a friend of mine…

good luck with the board…keep us posted with photos and progress reports , eh ?

(as well as how the thing SURFS, of course!)

‘chip’

by the way …WHO’S not the president …tony alva ? jay adams ? stacy peralta ? jeff ho ?

( okay…have a zephYr of a dogtown day, ‘teamy’ !)

Just wondering if you could expand on your method for for fixing the pressure dings on the deck. Thanks in advance. The board looks great

Hi bwinterroth. Thanks. As is said in the post it is basically chopped glass mixed with sanding resin. Add the glass to the resin to a consistency where it is wet, but dry enough so it will not run out of the dent. I applied it with a putty knife as if I was appling putty. Sand and hotcoat or gloss. I recently restored a 10’3" “Gordon woods”. It had some pressure dents in the deck. I used this method. Once sanded and re glossed, you could not see where the dents were. Even knowing where they were I could not see them.platty.

http://www.swaylocks.com/resources/detail_page.cgi?ID=1033

Thanks platty,

If there were several minor heel dents on either side of the stringer, would you recommend filling them with your method, then placing a layer of 4oz glass over to prevent other pressure dings? Thanks

Hey bwinterroth. Using this method will add some extra weight to the board. Fine on a wall hanger or a heavy old board where a little extra weight will not be noticed as much. But if you plan to use this method on a light weight modern board I would’nt recommend it.platty.