Best way to fix this massive dent?

General Discussion
1

Hey everyone,

 

I am new to the site but i went through and read all of the rules and I wanted to follow proper protocal so to say.  I looked up and down the forums and read different posts, but couldn't find anything that really targeted these repair I have to do - if there is some spot specifically for repairs then that is why I didn't find it and thats my bad.  I wanted to see if you had experience with something like this, and what the best way would be to fix it - without having to buy new wood.

Below is a picture of the board I need to fix.  Is there a way I can just get the board pieces to be level with each other and just fill behind it?  The guy wants to just try and keep the board looking the same, and I know there would still be the fracture lines in it, but is it possible to fix it without cutting off all that wood?

Thanks for the helpful advice!  The ding is about 4x5inches

Pete

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2

 would cut loose glass, wood , foam, etc. fill with qcel/resin mixture, sand, glass, hotcoat, sand, finish…

maybe keep the old wood, glass that you cut out and put it under the lam so it looks pretty?

3

Hi again, Pete;

You’re in the right place, no worries.

Now, as to the ding repair - I’m assuming that this is solid ( more or less) balsa, not a really good falsa job and not a balsa skin. Replacing or adding wood would be a miserable job and it’d look lousy unless you’re , say, Jim Phillips or Paul Jensen, and I dunno about you, but I’m not that good.

Even if it is a skin job, from the look of it the skin isn’t terribly compromised, so treat it as if it was solid.

So, what I’d do is first take a new Xacto knife and carefully get behind any loose glass and pick it up away from the wood. You use a new one because an older blade will have a wee bit of rust on it and that rust will get in the repair and show. Badly.

Then, fill said dent with clear sanding resin, no filler powder of any kind. Old school repair here. You’re using the Xacto knife to get to anyplace the resin might not go - you don’t want any air bubbles behind the old glass which are bad for appearance and repair quality in general. Make it a real slow batch, use the point of the knife to work the flaps of glass to get all the air out from under. Slow batch gives you the time to work it and make sure it’s all filled, no air anywhere. I might even cut the resin with a little acetone or styrene so it’ll flow in better, no more than a few drops per ounce of resin.

A little dam around the ding with some masking tape won’t hurt, lets you have a little more resin depth, enough to account for the rocker.

The clear resin should make the old glass edges pretty much invisible and show the wood grain as well as it ever did. You will never be able to do any kind of color job that’d look good enough and blend in well enough unless you’re a highly experienced counterfeiter or art forger.

Sand to shape or maybe a touch convex, I’d maybe use 4 or lighter glass over all, feather the edges nicely, hotcoat, sand, gloss, polish, you know how that goes.

Yeah, straight resin as a filler is a little heavier than resin plus microballoons or whatever, but it’s the only way to get it to look good that I can think of. You’re not gonna get a pretty job by cutting stuff out and hoping to put 'em back on. And this is a freakin SUP, right? It’s heavy to begin with, an extra ounce won’t mean a thing.

There’s ways to get the dent out of the wood ( steam, etc) but those would maybe discolor things and balsa soaks up water, you’d never get it out and delams would follow. Heat might get some of the dent out, but again, discoloring and delams are a risk you don’t want to take. I mean, this guy has his nickname on the thing ( I did a search) so chances are he’s gonna be kinda picky.

One thing I’d suggest - well, two, actually.

First, if the guy strikes you as a nightmare, decline the job. Tell him you’re not sure you can do it as well as he wants it done. That way, either it goes away or else you’re covered unless you do something really hack.

Next, explain to the guy what you’re gonna do and why. Feel free to swipe my reasoning above. If he has any bright ideas, okay, fine, then you can either decline the job or else go with his way and be honest with him, it’s not what you suggest and you’re not responsible.

Sometimes turning down work ain’t a bad thing.

hope that’s of use

doc…

4

Its a bamboo skin,you can order matching veneer at certainly wood.com.I would cut out the damage neatly along the grain lines of the bamboo. Mix some epoxy(Im guessing its eps since its a paddleboard) and enough q-cell so its thick. You want to fill the hole with it but you want it to stay put not settle and run so a little thicker than peanut butter.Scrape it flush with a bondo spreader but leave it a little high so you can sand it flush. Sand the repair area about an inch or so out from the edges of your fill,take it down until you hit the bamboo and take your fill down to the same level.Cut a piece of bamboo to match,cut it to lap the filled area about an inch and a piece of glass to go with it. Wet the glass out with resin and place it over the repair with the bamboo on top,glass and resin between the bamboo and board.Lay a piece of plastic or wax paper over the bamboo then tape it down tight. Once it cures sand it flat and blend in the edges. Then glass over,finish coat,and sand.

5

…looks like a skin but not sure if its balsa or bamboo.

The way to fix it (even if it s a painted stuff, so no wood at all) is:

lift up the damaged part, fill with epoxy (due that thing have a PS core) with aerosil (you should obtain a mix very clear, almost like without the charge) its very little so no much weight will be added. Put down the sheet again, put a release agent on top and then a heavy weight. After couple hours sand all (you should sand the leftovers, the finish, hot coat and fiber layers, so you stop before you reach the wood skin);

Grab your airbrush and paint it with auto paint over the damaged area trying to mimic the color and pattern.

Then apply 2 layers of 4oz fiberglass and 1 more smaller only over the worst part. Wait to dry or use UV cat;  Hot coat (with brush), wait to dry or use UV cat; sand with 120 grit with machine, then sand by hand with block. Apply gloss coat (brush), let dry couple of hours or use UV cat, put a super soft pad on the machine with 320 grit, sand the edges first, then a very slight pass; then sand by hand with softer block with 400, 500, 600 and 1000; all very light; check always, try to not burn out the edges. Rub out with polish paste, put silicone and pass again. Done

That s the way to do it right without any vac bag stuff, etc

Hope you understand.

6

I agree it looks like a skin.  Might be skin over eps, so be careful with polyester resin.  I would use epoxy resin.  I also agree painting touch-up to match the wood color/grain as close as possible is best way to hide the damage.  I use acrylic artists paint in the tube for small touch ups, then glass over with epoxy, have never had any problems.

7

Hey everyone, thanks a lot for the responses I really appreciate it. I am wondering really how I am supposed to pull the wood up?  Every time I try and grab it, it starts to snap/crack - any special way to lift the wood up that is stuck underneath the other parts?

I spoke to the guy and used docs response initially - he is okay with not replacing the wood.  I would like to use what is already there, but like i said i am having some good trouble trying to pull the wood up and over the piece it is underneath.

Ideas?

8

This is a SUP made by our Sway’s buddy, Blane Chambers.  See: http://www.paddlesurfhawaii.com/

Blane did a lot of his early explorations right here on Sways as carvenalu.  He still posts up occasionally and you could pm him directly and see what his advice would be.

Most of the comments given above will give you a solution to fix the ding.    Blane now does PVC over EPS vacuum bagged so it could be the PVC  that is holding on to the bamboo veneer giving you a problem.  Using an exacto to cut under the bamboo will help you to lift up the veneer.  I would suggest that you use slow cure epoxy and monitor the resin to help pop any bubbles that can slowly rise to the surface when you backfill the ding.  Like I said, try to contact Blane first as his advice is really what you should follow.  Good luck!

9

Hey everyone,

I ended up taking the board to a local repair shop that does great work around here called Salty Dog.  I told my friend that I would work on some old crappy wooden board first to learn the fix before I attempted it on his board.  I felt as though I could probably have fixed it, but I also didn’t want to do it on someone elses dime and potentially mess it up.

thanks again for all of the help with this, you guys are great.  I will be sure to lend any assistance I can in the future.  I really want to learn how to shape boards.  Do you think it would be as simple as calling a local shaper and apprenticing off him?

10

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Do you think it would be as simple as calling a local shaper and apprenticing off him?

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Doesn't usually work that way.  More like read up on past threads, get a blank, post pics and ask questions.  Then go for it.  There are videos out there too.  I started out with wood boards, but thats pretty much how it worked for me.  10 boards into it I'm just a wide-eyed grom barely scratching the surface of what there is to know.

11

It looks like standard bamboo veneer over EPS to me.  After filling the ding you could feather back the glass to expose around the damaged veneer and stick a new piece on there.... use vacuum or a bag full of water to weight it down.  With some careful placement and feathering of the new piece, it might almost look original.  The tricky part would be to do it without messing up any of the logos.

12

I let my friend borrow my bamboo skin board and he put his elbow through the deck.

I talked to the glasser who bagged the board and he said the “right” way to fix it is to cut out the damaged area and build it back up from the core, making sure to add back each structural layer. The board is EPS/glass/bamboo/glass, so I needed to fix the dent left in the foam, tie in a new inner glass layer, new bamboo then a new glass patch to cover it all and make it waterproof again.

SO, I cut out all the damaged area then feathered out the good bamboo until I got to the inner glass layer. Then I added a bamboo patch with glass on the inside that was cut to the exact size of the feathered damage area so that it matched up with the exposed inner glass. The point here is to re-connect the inner glass layer, so you’re rebuilding the orginal strength. It was just easier to cut the inner glass to size then glass it onto the bamboo and put it on as one piece. The bamboo was oversized and after the glass cured, I then feather that bamboo patch back so it blended smoothly with the deck.

Then all that was left was to add the outer glass, which is just a typcial ding repair. Lots of sanding, hotcoating and feathering to get a good finish. The patch is noticeable, but I was really happy with how it came out structurally. This board was fixed 6 months ago and has been used quite a bit since then with no problems.

 

edit: the pics below got attached in reverse order, but you get the idea. I didn’t have photos of some of the steps but these show the general concept.