I can only echo what Pete said -
a few thoughts -
Remove and replace the traction pads, try something with more zip/thickness/rebound to it. Consider, you have a delam, so that means they didn’t work, right?
Attempting to work around the pad - well, look, it’s foam rubber, right? No way are you gonna be able to keep resin out of it. Plus, if you have a delam on one side, you will have a delam elsewhere. Better to rip off the old pads and reinforce the deck throughout the whole tail, so you don’t have to go through all this again, no?
Plus, ask yourself, how can you make the area stronger? After all, it did delam, right? It failed, it wasn’t strong enough. Gotta add more cloth.Adding cloth under original glass- well, you will have a thin layer of foam-and-resin on the underside of the original cloth. Which will mess up your fit, your thickness, etc.
It seems like every horror show ding I see starts with somebody cutting a piece out. Don’t. Going cut-happy is the way to make a simple, straightforward repair into what I would refer to as a Total Freakin’ Nightmare. Don’t. The only exception to that would be a total deck delam that someone was going to redo with a layer of new foam, vaccum bagging, etc. That isn’t called for here. A good analogy is that when they operate on your knee these days, they don’t cut everything open, instead they go in with something small. Result is better work and faster healing.
Filler: cabosil, aerosil, etc…they generally bond Real Well to glass. Suspect a failure in technique before you suspect the filler. Straight resin will look like hell and be somewhat more brittle, in my experience. Done right, filler can be invisible.
Weights rather than clamps - as Pete mentions, a clamping system works better. You have more control of the shape it takes on. Someday I would like to try a vaccum bagging setup on delams, with maybe some thin plexiglass for curve and being able to see what’s happening, but not quite yet. A phone book is maybe the worst - any resin leaks and you will wind up with the Yellow Pages as a permanent part of your board. Wax Paper is good stuff for this, then your clamping system, remove carefully when it starts to gel.
hope that’s of use
doc…