After building four boards for myself I think I’m up to the task of repairing my dad and uncles old board that they shared in their late teens and early 20s.
It looks in really good shape from what I can tell and just needs some dings patched on the nose and tail, a couple on the rails, and maybe a touch up on the fin.
It’s a Robertson Sweet based on what is left of the sticker. I have no clue what the construction is but it’s so heavy I would never put a leash on it for fear of dislocating my leg. You can see from the dings in the photos it looks like a heavy cloth underneath a thick resin layer.
Questions to start:
I’m thinking a few small layers of cloth to fit the ding holes and a patch on top to keep from having to fill anything. Clear epoxy resin and feather it in like any ding repair. Anything wrong with that?
Does the fin need any attention? Again I would probably just put a little cloth and epoxy over any dings in it and sand smooth.
I think I want to find a way to flatten and preserve what’s left of the sticker. Maybe wet and flatten it and let it dry and then a 4oz patch over it to seal it on there? It feels like a paper sticker but it may be something else that has just dried out over the decades.
My dad is 82 and isn’t getting any healthier. I’d love to have him see his son and his granddaughter surf his old board while he’s still around. Any help is appreciated.
My approach for the decal would be to try to tack it down with resin. Then use a small-scale variant of the Jimmy Lewis polyethylene plastic method to lay down a piece of 1-2 oz FG over the decal (practice on scrap with a curled piece of paper). @6:30
Let’s see a close up of the sticker. The resin swirl was probably added to cover up that Dave Sweet brown foam. Sweets foam would turn brown in about a month. A new Dave Sweet looked really nice for about six months. He had a method whereby he was able to “pop out” a blank from a mold pre shaped with a layer of glass mat on it. From there they would knock the bead off of the rail and put on a layer of 10oz. Cloth with the logo and maybe some color over that. Adding a fin(usually wood) somewhere in The process. I met Dave twice. First time I drove down to his shop and bought one of his kits. Second time was at an auction in Newport. I told him about the board I built from his kit. He told me I was the only guy that ever gave him feedback on one of his kits. There was at least 30 years between those two encounters.
Construction appears to be foam covered by what could be 20oz glass and then a 1/16”+ two piece “cap” that is glued on with the seams at the rails. Here’s a photo of the sticker after I preserved what was left under a layer of 4oz.
So Robertson-Sweet was an attempt by Dave’s brother to make money off of Dave’s technology. Cliff Robertson who surfed Malibu pretty regularly bank rolled the enterprise. I was told that it did not have Dave’s approval. Dave’s boards really improved through the 60’s and for awhile he had the largest surf team of any manufacturer. But eventually guys like Jacob’s and Weber caught up to him.
