Jeez…what else was in the barn, anyways? 50 years of bat guano?
Awright, not a bad board. Been beat up and abandoned, but that’s nothing new. The black gick in the dings is prolly due to some sort of loam-like substance that got on it. Soooooo- whatcha gonna do? Well, in order:
a crack in the underside of the nose I have yet to fully investigate,
Okay, that’s definitely busted there. Clean the underside of the glass at the crack clear of black smeg with the point of an X-Acto knife…make believe you’re a surgeon, it’s fun, especially if some sweet young thing will play nurse…then squeegee in just a little resin-cabosil filler to fill any gaps. Putty knife will work fine too, one of the cheap plastic ones from the hardware store. Sand and glass a band around the whole board, say 4-6" wide, centered on the crack, like you were gonna do. Feather the edges and gloss. You may find it easier to do bottom and deck strips seperately, I usually do, lap well around the rails on both. Very similar to what you describe from scratch.
The dings (plural) in the rail …I would probably remove the glass so the hole is round (it’s about an inch long, pushed in 1/8" to 1/4") fill with cabosil, add a nice layer of glass then more resin.
Almost right. But woodsman, spare that axe. Instead, your X-Acto knife strikes again. Clean out the smeg, pull the wee flap of glass loose from the crushed foam, fill behind it ( try clear gorilla glue, it becomes white foam) , sand it fair , patch over it with cloth, feather, hotcoat, etc. Makes a much prettier repair and the old glass works as a mold for you. Whenever in doubt, don’t cut away glass. And you want to be in doubt a LOT. Maybe I should put it this way, if you can find any possible excuse not to rip something off the board, don’t. Save it, somehow. For instance.
The fin I am sort of lost- it feels a bit loose but not like wobbling in the wind loose, so I don’t know if I should pull the sucker off (I wouldn’t normally) or just try to strengthen with glass and resin and call it good.
You know, I always find that to be a tough call, I do. And I play it case by case. So, what you want to do is get a good random orbit sander with some maybe 80 grit, and carefully sand away the cracked glass and resin as far as it goes - I like these http://www.deltaportercable.com/Products/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=11051 - and see how far it goes. If you are really, really good with a disc sander, have at it, but otherwise you’ll never regret the random orbit sander, the ding repairer’s friend, it is. That model is much better than the palm-type things too, more easily controlled and held. .
At worst, the bottom glass is gonzo and pulled away from the foam, you will wind up taking off the fin, reglassing that area of bottom, then reattaching the thing. But don’t rip it off, sand it away so it comes loose, lest you start a nasty glass crater and such that makes a whole lot of work. At best, it’s okay and it’ll stiffen up a lot as you add new glass brought down well onto the bottom.Use thinned resin for the first layer, it’ll fill faint remaining cracks.
Let me add, there’s a bunch of pinholes, ‘stars’ and such that have been ignored. Sand lightly, small patches of cloth over, sand, etc. Do 'em all in one shot of mass production, much less maddening than one by one or trying straight resin, which cracks eventually.
Now, some things you don’t want to do, for dings in general;
Paint in any form. If there was color on this board…and there ain’t…, you’d save it by putting filler underneath the existing and saved cloth. 'Cos the color is prolly airbrushed on to the original foam, which will be stuck solidly to the underside of the original glass. The little bit of filler visible around the edges of the ‘saved cloth repair’ is acceptible, paint color mismatches show up like a stiff… plus paint can compromise the bonding of the repair to the board. In (gawd, been that long?) something over 30 years of ding repair, I have never used paint in a repair, excepting water color paints ( high end stuff, from a tube) as a resin tint.
Slathering on the filler. Why? It also shows up like a stiffie in church, usually it’s not necessary and again, if you add filler you want to put it under old cloth if in any way possible.Among other things, it’s heavy, it cracks, it don’t bend like glass… don’t do it that way. It’s not like fixing a dent in a Chevy fender, it’s a monocoque structural repair, ya gotta approach it as such.
Doing any repair bigger than, say this letter o , without cloth over it. It’ll crack and pull out, sure as blazes.
Anyhow, hope that’s of use
doc…
