So a few weeks ago I learned to surf in Emerald Isle, NC. I rented a NSP 7’6" the first day and caught some waves right away. I’m a decent snowboarder so standing on the board was the easy part for me. The sand bar was waist high and the waves about the same so I could just jump right on them with no paddling most of the time, it felt like I was cheating :) As the tide came up the waves were getting up to chest-head high and very choppy and it was very hard to paddle out, the waves won quite a few times…I play soccer and snowboard, I’m not the best paddler. The next day I rented a 6’8" NSP and took a lesson in the morning. After learning a few things and a bit smaller board it was easier to paddle through the break and I had no problems once I was standing on the board. I’m going back to the outer banks in september and someone left an old board in my basement years ago…The tip and tail are both damaged, and the board is probably too small for me but if I cant surf on it I’ll just rent a bigger one. I need to learn how to use fiberglass anyway for my car, so this board will at least give me some cheap practice.
I should have posted sooner, but I already started cutting it up and will probably glass it tomorrow. I drew a couple lines on it to decide how I wanted to go about fixing it. There was a bit of foam missing in the tail and the bottom was delaminating so I removed the fiberglass and made sure I cut off any bad foam. The nose I just cut about 1" off and rounded a bit. It was 71" long, now its 69" x 20" x 2-3/4" and 8" wide at the wings. I used the 6" round sandpaper as the tail curve but I pointed it slightly. I’ve got a nice big toolbox for working on cars and all I used was a hacksaw and sandpaper
So how bad did I f’up this board so far? :) I’ll take any compliments or criticism and any tips for laying/cutting the fiberglass. I plan to make a leash bump out of several layers of fiberglass so it hopefully wont break again, looks like the original leash cup was filled in and the old glassed on loop broke.
and a shot of the fins, does anyone still make this type? Front of the fins have pins that slide in the box and 1 screw in the back.
hmm if you’re keeping the twin fin setup, this looks like a good opportunity to shape yourself a bonzer bottom with e-wings, with enough space for a couple more fins for a quad option " )
i don’t see why that shouldn’t be fun to surf. get u some 6 oz fiberglass cloth. sand about 2 inches onto the deck and bottom of the board so the cloth will have something to grab onto. 3 or 4 inches would be better. lay the glass onto the board and the new tail and saturate with good (not boat yard resin) one side at a time. you can put little patches on where u did the cut offs after u do the tail. put a sanding coat on it. sand it. spray it with clear krylon. surf it. that’s the quick way. oh, cut the glass where it goes on the board in a semi circle. get some acetone for clean up. wear gloves and a respirator. read the archives. yeh they still make fins like that.
Seems like a pretty extreme suolution. You have put a good amount of though into how the board looks, but how will these changes effect the performance of the board? Are you really planning on using the fiber glass mat in the picture? God I hope not! Using that mat will look way worst that if you just filled it, sealed it, and rode it. No one cares what you surf…if you can surf.
It is to late now what I would have done was filled the dings with Bondo sanded than small patches over bondo than surfed it. Even better is this stuff Evercoat formula 27. I have dings filled with this no cloth over top that have outlasted the board. Simple easy and fast.
I love that video :) I wonder if I could surf the hood of my car…
My camera likes to play tricks and make things look much better than they are. There are pressure dings and cracks all over this board and the tail was worse than the pictures make it look. The 2 dark spots on the tail were old fill jobs that had frayed fibers all around them and didn’t look water tight to me. The first thing I did was take the hacksaw and sliced through the fiberglass in a circle all around the board, then sliced it along the rail and the bottom piece just fell off, the top was barely stuck to the foam near the cut. I should have taken a picture at this point and I might have been able to save a bit more of the foam, but whats done is done.
I really have no idea how it will affect performance, I’ve only surfed for 3 days in my life so as long as it floats and I can stand on it I’ll be happy. I’ve been reading through some of the resources and this shape might catch a wave easier but be harder to turn?
I was planning on using that mat, but I’ll start looking for the right kind now :) I’ll save that stuff for the inner fenders of my car or somewhere it wont be seen.
Those boards look great, I wasn’t planning on changing the fins, would a new surfer really be able to tell the difference?
So I’m going to wait a bit to glass it, should I leave the shape as is, trim the rails to blend into the new tail(turning the huge “wings” into bumps), trim rails and add another set of wings farther up, or just cut the back off flat(making the board about 5’6"). I’m 5’11" 160lbs and will probably only be riding waist high waves unless I get lucky and a storm passes by when I’m there.
The mat I have won’t work, but will this 3M polyester resin be ok?
And a shot of why I need some practice working with fiberglass, the rear fenders for my car need glassed on.
Thanks for all the replies, I posted over on surfingwaves and got no replies.
It looks like a fat ass square tail, is trying to poop a pintail out of it's leash hole?
I had a buddy that tried this sort of thing before, but he was on a crack binge? He thought it would be cool to take the glass off a surfboard to see what was inside.
Don’t know why I didn’t think of that, that’s the new plan. The last ~1" of stringer just crumbled away so the tail will be a bit rounder/squashed unless I extended the new foam past the stringer. I’ll get some small wood dowels and epoxy it all together. Anywhere local I can buy the foam? The polystyrene DOW stuff I’ve seen at home depot doesn’t look the same and is less dense from what I’ve read. I need some foam anyway to make a spoiler for my car, nothing big but the widebody kit doesn’t look right without a small spoiler.
Give a shout out for fellow swalockians in your area or just ring up a shaper in your hood, call that rental shop, whatever, they surely have enough foam for your repair. Beers or ? often make the transaction smoother. Focus on a decent glass job and forget the dowels.
