[=Blue]In another thread Chipfish61 asked about repairing broken boards
I moved it to this new location under a more descriptive title to aid others in finding the info should they ever need it.
Here is our subject board, ex team rider Flynn Novaks broken board dug out from my archival graveyard for just such a worthy purpose.
[=Blue]The first step in repairing a board is cleaning off the old wax and sticker.
Do this before you tack it together as often the force needed to clean it up will easily break it apart again.
Scrape the wax off as best as possible then use foam dust to absord the rest (see next post)
[=Blue]After scraping off the old wax the most effective method of removing the remaining wax is via rubbing it off with foam dust. As the foam imbeds into the old wax it absorbs the remaining wax which easily crumbles off the board leaving a wax free surface.
Be careful when rubbing on the foam dust that you don’t snag yourself on the jagged edges of fiberglass that remain. Peel off any stickers or anything else that needs to be gone.
[=Blue]Since the 2 halves of the board must be fitted together accurately it is necessary to remove any significant impediments to that happening.
Generally the stringer will be the most troublesome because it will have been ripped to shreds and those shreds will be very difficult to fit back together.
Therefore, cut away the stringer so that the 2 halves and stringers don’t fight each other and will allow for the easy nesting of one half into the other.
Thanks Bill. I haven’t visited Swaylocks in a while and first thing I see is this. I’m sure a lot more than me will be watching with much interest.
[=Blue]Your welcome Bish
Plenty more to come if I can squeeze out the time.
[=Blue]Properly fitting the 2 halves together requires the trimming away any loose glass that is in the way.
Additionally, any loose glass needs to be removed so that the board can be properly glassed back together.
Some like to trim the glass in a triangle shape so there aren’t any crosswise edges that can become shear lines or points of rising stress but I haven’t found that to be very significant if everything else is don’t properly.
I cut off the glass beyond it’s loose area about 1/2" into the attached area. When I do, I generally use an angle on the razor knife. At this point it is primarily just to clean away anything that will prevent the board from fitting back together snugly.
I should note here that I DON’T cut away any clean ATTACHED glass as I use this glass to help set the board back together accurately. This will be seen in later pictures.
[=Blue]Now the board needs to be stuck back together. This is obviously an important step and shown is a simple way to make it happen.
Tape the tail of the board to some kind of upright.
Set the nose of the board on top of the tail section. Make sure that the nose nests tightly into the tail.
Using 1.5" tape, stretch it over the rails at the template and with about 3 pieces each side the tension should hold the nose solidly in place. So much so that you should be able to take the board off the upright and lay it on a rack or table.
Soon we will fill the crack with resin and microballons (Q-Cell). But two problems arise here.
You need a big enough crack so that you can fill it fully with thick Q-Cell. (thick to keep it light)
You need to get the rocker pretty close to dead on.
If it is a clean break then the crack is not going to be very wide and open such that you can just pour your Q-Cell into it without leaving gaps unglued. Our subject board has this problem so…
We need to mix the Q-Cell and paint it on the 2 halves before we stick them together on the uprights. This is a much more messy process but other than cutting away all the glass and foam to pour it in there is no other solution.
Of course if we glue it together in this fashion and then tape up the rails to hold it together, it is much more difficult to set the rocker correctly as you can’t measure the rocker very easily with a Rocker Stick. You can tape the board to the uprights via the deck side but sometimes the bottom will be torn up too much to set the Rocker Stick on it accurately anyway.
Rocker then will have to be eyeballed. But if the break is clean enough the glass at the connection of each rail will often fit perfectly back together and recreate the original rocker of the board. This is the case with our subject board.
Even if the rocker comes out a little off, I have a simple solution to reset the rocker that I will show you later when we get to that point. When taping up the board at the rails make sure you don’t get the board twisted. Make sure the nose is accurately aligned with the tail. No twist or tilt. If the rocker is not perfect we can fix it later.
As was noted in the other thread by Resinhead, you don’t need any dowels, inserts, stringers or other strengthening devices to make the board secure. In the end, the glass alone will provide all the necessary strength.
I am going to be busy for a couple of days but will add more as soon as I get a break and will post pictures of sticking the board back together with Q-Cell.
I learned this from Bill in the early 70s , it helped pay my rent many times. There is one bad rock at Rincon at the Indacator at lowtide that just kept the broken tails comin in. Bill is the one who helped Al Merrick get to where he is today, hey Bill is the check in the mail? or what. Thanks for sharing.
thanks VERY much , Bill, for starting this thread .
Hopefully it will help me do a professional looking [and strength ] ‘fix’ of my snapped mal , in time for Josh’s arrival here in West Oz !
I look forward to seeing how a REAL pro does them !
cheers again !
ben
I love the step by step with pics… I never did this before so I’m watching also… In fact, I’m printing it up if you don’t mind… Hehe!! I have a guy that always asks me about this too… I’ll get it to him… Oh the beauty of Swaylocks… Thanks Bill!
Wow, Thanks Bill, or I should say Mr. Barnfield.
I just finished a repair on my broken 10’ board. I did things quite differently, but then I’m a novice and prone to screw-ups.
Your way looks very practical and much faster.
Thanks for sharing you technique.
Ryan
This is exactly the type of thread I am always looking for! Most of the great threads I find in the archives produce a feeling of great pride, because I searched thousands of posts to find it. This little bluebird fell in my lap!
I am looking forward to the rest of this thread. I hope I am not the only one with a broken board repair that has two 9" dowels holding the board together at the slightly wrong angle on every possible axis. I did that board a year ago, and I still cant bring myself to paddle her out. Live and Learn.
[=Blue]Aloha Kirk, Ben, Blain, Ryan and FalconKB
Thanks Kirk for the compliments and helping to confirm an accurate history of things.
Ben, this will work for Epoxy or Polyester over Epoxy or visa versa.
Your welcome Blain!
Though I have been called many other things Ryan. I am just Bill, Mr. Barnfield as they say, was my dad!
FakonKB, when I get a little further along, I will tell you how to re-set your board. It will be easier then you thought. You could start by grinding off all the glass you put on and get her back to the original glass layers. Then I will show you how to set her right. Then you can go eat steak!
So now on to more Broken Board Repair.
I mixed some Q-Cell and Lam Resin. It should be thick enough that it won’t run too fast.
Make sure the two halves fit together well.
Put one 24" strip of 1.5" tape on the rail of the lower half. But only stick 12" of it on the lower half and leave 12" hanging loose so that it will extend onto the upper half. I hope that is clear. I didn’t take a picture of this. This is the one man version. If you have someone to help they can hold the halves while you tape them together. Still the tape on the lower half is better done before you pour on the resin as tape won’t stick if you get resin where you need the tape.
Tape a stip of tape around the lower half and bend it 90 degrees to catch or deflect out any drips that ooze out of the crack.
Catalyze your resin. No surfacing agent! Not too hot but set it for a fairly quick gel. I made mine too hot as I was in a hurry to get it done and finish this board on the next rack over.
You need a little time to set the halves and pull the lower tape up over onto the top half and make sure everything is lined up properly before it kicks. But not so slow that it will all drain out of the crack and not fill the voids. Mine shifted to the side about 1/8". Maybe not enough to do it over again but enough to bug the heck out of me!
Pour or paint the q-Cell on the lower half. Do this thick as you can so it will fill all the voids when you set the top half on the bottom half. A bunch will sqeeze out but don’t worry about it. Too much is better then too little. You can catch the drips as they gell and they will crumble off easily.
I didn’t put mine on thick enough as you can see in the photo, So I have some voids to fill later. Also note that were the original glass may be bent it… If possible bend them back out and let the Q-Cell fill behind it or force it in there. This way your break will be less noticeable if you save the color work as much as possible.
Add more layers of tape to the rail to pull the halves together and keep it all lined up. Take a sideways look at the rocker and eyeball it for accuracy. Note the strip of tape on the deck of my board. That is to pull more rocker into the repair. Do the same on the bottom if you need to reduce the rocker. Pretty simple, isn’t it!
[=Blue]Scrape off the drips before they get too hard.
You can do this and save a heck of a lot of sanding and fussing around later.
Hey Bill,
Cool thread.
Im wondering why you wouldnt use foaming pu glue (ex: Gorilla Glue) to adhere the two foam pieces together? It seems after the glue is set, you’d end up with a homogeneous core (its made of the same stuff), and hell strong and resilient bond with the seams nicely filled in.
Looking forward to the rest of the repair.
ps - Im finding that GG is my miracle potion these days…it puts on a nice pore/filler coat on corecell
[=Blue]Aloha Craftee
Gorilla glue is cool stuff. I use it for a lot of things but not on boards.
I don’t use it for broken boards for a couple of reasons.
Setting the halves back together accurately is critical. The hydraulic pressure of the expanding glue can create problems in this. Especially when the halves are simply taped together. I try to set the resin gel time so that I have complete control over the alignment until it has gelled. This is usually only 10-15 minutes. That way I can pull it apart again if something goes haywire. The cure time on GG is too long and the board would be left unguarded for too long, with no way to easily back up if things went wrong.
The glue is an ugly color. I try to get the boards back together in a way that looks good in the end. Often on a fairly clean break on a clear board you can barely see the repair when it is done.
This will come up later in the thread but one of the best things about Q-Cell is that as it tapers out thinner it becomes more transparent. So filling a dent or hole on a clear board for example, can be done in a way that the edges won’t even show if you feather out the Q-Cell correctly.
I am sure GG could be used as long as the color didn’t matter and the board’s alignment could be guaranteed. But those would be extra concerns to deal with when using GG without any advantage being gained from the GG to offset them. In the surfboard business it is all about the outcome and the time it takes to get there, that is going to be the measure of profitability. For those who don’t have those issues as primary concerns there are unlimited materials and techniques for almost everything. When commercial survival is a driving force it is amazing how quickly these vast amounts of materials and techniques distill down to a few essential ones.
Can this be a limiting factor in the progression of materials and techniques. Of course. But astute business men and craftsmen recognize this and never get lazy or overly content.
This is great stuff! Thank you for sharing again Bill Barnfield!!
[=Blue]Thanks Art
More coming when I get more time. I gotta get those pinlines done and the gloss and polish on that other board first.
Bill,
On a different note, not to hijack the thread, I see you are using India Ink to do your pinlines. Looking closely at your picture I see the marks where you either started or ended your stroke on the tape. Which is it? Do you find that the ink bleeds under the tape? How do you stop the bleeding. Anytime I have used India ink near tape it sucks up underneath it. What grit do you sand up too? How do you keep an even pinline? Last question, I think, does the India ink leave a ridge like resin pinline and does the gloss have a problem going over the ink? (Guess that was two)Thanks a bunch.
Gregg
