Hey I have a 9’ longboard i got real cheap last year. Its not in the greatest shape so I was thinking about tearing off all the glass and reshaping the foam to make it a bit short. Anyone have any ideas advice or words of warning about this?
Thanks
Peace, JohnG
When you strip the board, make sure you’re wearing long sleeves and don’t have any skin exposed because the fiberglass particles will get in your skin and itch for days. If that happens, i heard running cold water on your arms gets alot of the glass out of your skin. Also wear a mask(I imagine those particles can’t be to good for your lungs).
When working around the rails, use a dremel or rotary tool to cut sections out. I always tend to lose a lot of foam around the rails and fins. I heard to fill up holes, you can use a light weight spackling paste. I actually just spackled up a board and i have to wait for it to dry. I’ve never done it before, so i’ll see how that goes.
Also when you strip a board you might lose up to a 1/4 inch of foam.
Hope it works out,
Tom
I used a belt sander along the bottom of the rails and sanded until it just touched the foam, use a paint scaper to lift from the nose and tear it back slowly, depending on the glass job the whole lot came off without a hitch.
If you’re planning on making the board slightly narrower just cut the rails off to the desired width and take the top and bottom off. Be careful the sheets are really sharp. Don’t allow your tools to touch the foam otherwise you’ll damage it.
i’ve given this advice before…go for it…i’ve done this a few times…i used a dremel tool with a cutting disk…freehand cut an outline just inside of the rails both top and bottom and peel the sheets off like a banana…dont worry about the small channel created you can fill it with lightweight spackle when youre done shaping…have fun
Just curious …
is “Q-cell” [powdered foam] not available in america , or something ?
…I always seem to be reading you guys fill your boards with plaster ???
we used to use car bog in australia in the '70s , but discovered foam and foam go together better for repairs to foam surfboards. [well, polyurethane , anyway …I can’t speak for the polystyrene stuff , as I haven’t used it.]
ben
i didnt know q cell was powdered foam …cheers for that… i have used baby powder and resin for a filler before and it smells nice when you sand it 
Compared to the price of buying a blank, shaping that, not having to deal with filling the torn-out bits of foam and all the many design/shape/construction compromises you’d have to make using an old board instead of a new blank… plus the bother of tearing off the old glass carefully so ya don’t rip loose vast areas of foam, plus… see where I’m going with this?
My call is fix the old one, not a lot and not aiming for perfection, and keep it around for your “Gee, I always wanted to try surfing” loaner. There’s always a need for something like that.
And blanks, relatively speaking ( compared to the hours spent removing old glass, design compromises, weight of all that filler and basicly a lousy board after it all ) are cheap.
hope that’s of use
doc…
yeah we have everything here…q cell, microb’s etc etc…corecell is hard to find tho…
LW spackle works really good and sands like pu foam…cheap too…
i’ll correct myself by saying it might be easier to spackle before shaping…but even filling the slot is optional…you dont need to and shaping may get rid of it…
hey doc…i bet getting a blank to michigan wouldnt exactly be cheap…i have no prob reworking boards cheap…15 minutes to de-skin tops…plus recycling is always a good idea…
Thanks to all who replied. I appreciate all the input. take care
JohnG