I recently picked up a Hansen Mike Doyle Pointed Tail in fairly solid shape, except for some pretty severe delamintion on the deck from the deck patch back to around the fin bolt. It's not only delaminated, but it seems to be blistered or bubbled; you can't press the entire bubble back to the foam without it popping up in a different place. My plan is to follow the normal large delam repair route of sanding and cutting the glass, lifting the glass and pouring resin beneath and then weighting the flap back down and wait for the resing to kick. I'm thinking that due to the blistering, the flap may need to have slits cut into into it, and it may overlap the undisturbed glass when weighted down. The next step would be to sand everything smooth and add a lay of 6 ounce over the whole repair. Has anyone else had this problem? Does my plan make sense?
Makes sense, if you can manage to lay the bubble to the foam without it bulging.
I’m under the impression that you want to keep its color as uninterrupted as possible, to preserve the beauty of the board. If that’s not the case, strip/cut out all the delamination area and reglass it with 10-oz cloth and the kind of resin they would have used when they made the board.
That should fix it and put it up for good service again.
I did something similar on a longboard nose. After I resined and clamped the glass back down as best I could, I still had a few spots that didn't bond due to my inefficient clamping. I cut them out, and re-glassed them. Then I sanded it all down, and glassed another layer over the entire area. Sanded and feathered the edges. It looks good now, and is ready for a gloss coat. Your plan sounds good to me.
Here’s how I handled a deck delam in the past on a 9'6" longboard. Water had softened the first 1/4” or so of foam under the delamed glass.
First I dremeled 1” outside the perimeter of the delam were the foam was solid and raised the glass.
Next I dremeled out the soft foam under the delam area until I got down to firm foam(about 1/2") and smoothed of the “base” with a sure form.
Then I took large scraps of un-skinned foam and cut them into large rectangles leaving them a little higher then deck grade to allow for skinning (harder firmer foam) and then glued them into place with gorilla glue.
Then I removed the skin and shaped the deck with a sure form and sanded.
Finally, I glassed over with two layers of 6 oz and hot coated, glossed, and polished.
I worked out really well without adding a lot of weight.