Resurrecting this thread. I’m finally ready to join a snapped surftech longboard that I happened upon in an alley a while back. For some reason, even after reading all these threads, I convinced myself to go full bore with the boardlady technique. I’ve gathered all the materials at great time and expense, but still have a few nagging questions.
Regarding the actual joining of the 2 ends. Boardlady writes of injecting pour foam to join the ends. Does this mean, after securing the ends together, she drill holes that access both halves and shoots foam into those? Like mini stringers? Seems like many forum members just slap foam/ glue on either end and crank them together. My mind has me excavating a bit more so the foam creates some sort of join. Thoughts ?
Vacuum pump? I don’t want to pump too much more $ into this. I was able to scavenge a medical aspirator that pulls 0-20"hg at ~1.5cfs, but am hung up on the vacuum cup. Can those be found for less than $20?
Is this overkill? Sounds like bags of water/ sand are almost as effective.
I’ll probably have left over pour foam and divinycell in the LA area once this is all done if anyone is interested.
Maybe this question is more engaging:
How much should an eps blank, or glued together but not glassed surftech, flex? I connected the two ends of my snapped surftech, but am hesitant to proceed because when I press down on the nose or tail there is some play.
Regarding the methods.
1: slap pour foam on ends and crank- strong but less accurate.
2: inject + excavate and fill. Precise but more fragile.
I plan on vacuum bagging on divinycell then glassing it, but I’d like to ensure the foam is sufficiently sound before proceeding. Never having shaped a board or repaired a snap (only creases), I don’t have a feel for how stiff an EPS blank should be. When I firmly press on the center, nose, or tail, the board flexes a little though the rail cracks don’t seem to widen, which is comforting. I’m worried that means my pour foam didn’t reach all the voids, but am open to the idea that it’s just the soft EPS flexing or the reality of a snap repair.
Is it a stringerless board? I can’t tell for sure by the pics. If so, that’s likely a factor in it snapping in the first place. But also means the flex is probably not related to your repair. Pour foam should expand into the voids from what I understand. The insulating foam in a can does. Divinycell vacuumed on plus fiberglass should be as strong as it was initially, I would think. I would overlap the glass past the repair area. If you take a little time & clean the wax off before beginning repairs it makes the whole process a little cleaner and easier IMO.
Thank you! I’ll proceed. It is stringerless but it looks like this generation of surftech had 2 thin, I-beam like, fiberglass reinforcements embedded in the foam.
The pour foam, expertly handled, certainly finds and fills voids.; unfortunately my skills are still developing.
