I’m making a major repair to my poly board, which requires laminating a cloth 4 feet long and as wide as the board. I’ve been recommended both epoxy and polyester and the scale is turning towards the epoxy, because of its adhesive and strenght qualities.
Which would you recommend? Price is not an issue.
Hey Biarritz,
I have used epoxy on poly boards and if the stuff is like Resin Research Epoxy it’ll work fine. On deck delams it works really well because of it super bonding quality. But a poly board will always be just that so when I have some ding work to do on a friends poly board or one of my own I stick with polyester unless the job needs extra structural integrity to hold the board together for two reasons poly is much faster and for the most part the finished product will look and surf just the same.
It sounds to me like you have a fairly large area to rework, but without seeing the project or have some real details it’s difficult to make the call.
Mahalo, Rich
The project is repairing several three to ten inch long creases, six or seven of them altogether, along the base of the board. None touches the stringer and rails/deck/stringer are unharmed.
I figured it’s smarter to laminate one large cloth with a V ending towards nose and tail, than to fix six separate patches.
I also thought that epoxy would somewhat strenghten the board (to withstand the next wipeout).
Biarritz,
I depends on how deep the creases are. If they’re shallow just grind the cracks out and relaminate, hot coat, sand and finish the are out. I’m big on keeping a board close to it’s original weight so if a crease is a deep on I cut the glass out very carefully and expose the caved in foam. I take a dremel tool and route the foam so I can make foam plug to suit. I feather the surrounding glass out around the cavity with a light touch and put the plug in with some glass bubbles and fines mixed to make a putty of the laminating resin. This way the fill is all white. I make sure to weight it down good and after it’s gelled it take it down a little below the surrounding glassed area with a sureform and 240 grit papper. All there is left to do is relaminate and finish the area out. It’s very straight forward, doesn’t add any significant weight to the board. It’s plenty strong because it blends right in with the bottom surface of the board keeping the intergrity of the board just the way it always was.
Mahalo, Rich