Good Morning, I was looking for a place for new members to say hello, but I don’t see it. So Hello everyone. , I read the newbie FAQ sticky. Im looking for advice on how to fix a board. I bought a broken board. I don’t know much except what I read, and from watching movies and youtube. I like the movies Searching for surf and Riding Giants. and I’m not on any surfing forum. Another site i ordered the ding scriptures from sent someone here before They said this is the place.
I bought a Spoiler by Oceanside Florida almost 10 ft board by 22. to learn to surf at Edgewater, Ohio. Its freshwater, maybe 3-foot waves slight chop on a good day. no chop and rolling in once a year maybe. I don’t care about the crappy waves I can see you can get a decent ride once you can stand up with a big board and learn here. I can walk here I’m real close. There aren’t many good days, I’m not in a hurry. I did it because I didn’t want to spend a bunch to find out I don’t like surfing. People surf here but it seems like they’re boards aren’t floating them. The tails are under water like 2 feet. it just seems if I had a big heavy board it should catch easily. and I could belly ride for a while. I barely see anyone catch a wave. maybe they surf someplace else with real waves and have these small boards.
I looked the board over pretty good. It has a busted fin, and one rail hole about an inch. maybe 3 feet back. it’s got compression marks from feet and knees. no cracks there. Some three dings on the bottom by the front. that are pressed in like a 1/16 I guess. but the glass is still on. The board is shiny all over. No dark spots like water or delamination’s, it looks unmolested and never repaired before. I got some books and I used to do fiberglass on aircraft a little bit. I ordered the ding scriptures. The broke fin is still in the box, but the outer coating is gone down to the box, like they wanted to see if they could get it out, or the impact broke it off. it looks like its glassed in the box. no screws or no pin slots. The box has two 1-inch cracks from each front corner going out at a 45-degree angle. I’m assuming this is a 60s board, and that’s how they did it. hopefully it’s not the Chinese knockoff. it’s been in a garage for twenty years supposedly. Somebody on here asked questions about this board about three years ago, his description is exactly as mine. White with yellow rails , sign Oceanside Spoiler cocoa florida. I don’t have repair materials yet. There’s no boards around here for sale. You have to pay here. I waited a few years for a ten-foot used board to show up somewhere on CL. I weigh over 200. I got it for 150 bucks. We have a stand-up surf shop but it’s for those soft standup boards for women and girls mostly. There no repair shops anywhere in the state I think.
Anyways assuming the fin is glassed in and it fills the whole box, it’s not one of those you can move forward and back. I’m thinking of cutting the fin out of the box by cutting 45-degree slots with a circular. in so I can make space to get the pieces out with hand tools, without damaging the box. is it just get it out don’t do damage type of thing because its glassed in? All the fins I see are those with pins and screws. I was going to put a 10-inch fin on it. So are there fins somewhere or do you just cut off the pins, and the screw. and glass one of those in that has the same base size. And are the bases for glassed in standard.Or do I work those too to fit. I don’t care about removable fins I’m glassing one in. For now, that’s it. Il read up on ding repairs when my book gets here. Thank You.
Hello,
The best way to get answers about a repair is to ask a shorter question with a couple of illustrating pictures.
Consider getting surfboard supplies via mail-order aka online. Most of the boat grade stuff is not as user-friendly and/or cosmetically pleasing.
Do NOT take a circular saw to your fin or fin box. Foam and laminated cloth act differently than wood and it is easy to catch a blade and have the tool kick back.
A rotary tool or a reciprocating type multi-tool would be far better.
My answer to not finding boards in my part of the country was to start making them…Sways and the handful of local shapers provided awesome information.
-J
Do you have any woodworking experience or skills? If so, it might be easiest to replace the box and go with a new system. Dings are dings the world over. No mystery there in fixes. If you choose a course of repair, come back and get more advice. PM me if you like.
Pics or it didnt happen.
We have a place in Lakewood. I may be able to run over and help you when I am there in a few weeks.
Yea I got skills .I read on here how to get the fin out. I got the fin out. I didnt damage anything. I did ok. I cleaned the wax off and found a little more skuff damage and some spots where the fiberglass is showing. . I’m on hold until I figure out the whole process to fix the dings and the hole because the board looks nice. i dont want to carve it up. with bad decisions. And I dont have a fin but from reading on here I was looking at a heritage 10.5 or a Farborow Flex.
Ok Ill get pics my phone dont connect to my pc. I will find my camera and take pics.
I will have photos soon I got some pics to transfer , just not the good ones pf course. Im waiting on the rest. Phone limitations I think I only had a smart phone a year. They aint so smart…
Some pics
…hello; the board looks good.
A better thing is to buy a box (Fins unlimited FU) and a fin. That box is the STD so most current fins would fit.
You can use a router to use with ease to remove the old box; then clean everything; try to not damage the foam. Before all that, order the box and wait to arrive; then measure and mark on the board. Now proceed with the router; in many cases a router is somewhat dangerous so you can do it by hand with a hammer and a chisel. I did it both ways.
Be careful about the foam and keep an eye on the FU lines that you marked on the board.
Let all lines straight and try that the hole be almost the same as the new box.
Install the box with a mix of resin and silica (aerosil) and pigment (may be white or the color of the board) then add peroxide; kind of a paste is what you are trying to make.
You have a few minutes to work.
put the box in place; check for air bubbles.
After couple of hours, sand all the top (about 1/8) of the box (leftover) and then all the area besides (you are sanding the gloss coat, the hot coat and now you are seeing the fiberglass layer.
Then with the box flush with this area apply 2 layers of 4oz fiberglass cloth on top of the box and almost in all that sanded area. Wait couple of hours and apply a hot coat (resin + paraffin wax-you can buy styrene with wax and apply that to the lamination resin–)
Now you have a surface that can be sanded without gumming the paper. Sand all the area and smooth out by blockplane with 100 grit. Now you have a finish and surface to receive the gloss coat (the final finish coat)
The hot coat and gloss coat are applied by brush.
You start to sand the hot coat with 60 or 80 grit and finish as mentioned with 100.
The final coat you start with 320 grit and a softer pad in the machine (angular sander) and go up to 1200.
Buff all and the finish would look like the board finish.
Thanks for the reply. That’s a lot to think about right there. im going to print this off and save it .
Not a bad board at all. You do need the box change for sure. You can route it with a trim router or a big router. But it takes finesse to route a box out.
i don’t know how to carve a box out. Im gonna wait on my ding book and have to stew on this. And watch some youtube repairs . i really don’t know much, but i do know how to not screw things up.
Cool board.
Don’t think anyone address the flotation of fresh vs. salt water.
Guess what, sinker…
That fin box is an early "FART’ design, forget about trying to find a period fin, cuz, yeah they snapped.
Routing without a jig ($$$) unless your handy, seems to be an issue.
I believe you could set a fiberglass (glass in) fin with some q-cell filler and glass it.
Alignment and perpendicular angles could easily be handled in the Q-cell stage.
Rock on and get stoked
Fresh water don’t float like salt water. Are you saying I need a bigger board.
I’m surprised nobody mentioned a dremel tool. If you don’t have a router, or aren’t too confident on your routing skills, you can always use a dremel tool to carefully ‘route’ out the box. Wear eye protection. As for glass on fins. They are a special fin that does not go into any box. Some people insert a glass on fin into boxes and then glass it that way but it’s not the preferred method. To do it right you would need to route out the old fin box, fill that cavity in with new foam, and then glass the fin to that. They make specific fins for this purpose. You can see some here, the link takes you right to a 10" glass on fin: http://shop.fiberglasssupply.com/Glass-on_Fins-10in_Long_Board_Fin_Single_C.html
Hey now im great with a dremel too. Thats how I got the fin out. I thought that fin I took out is a glass on fin. It was a fin and the glass surrounded the
base, which you can see on the board that darker color resin was poured in around the fin , inside the box , is that correct. i thought I could grind out all the resin back to the box and grind those corner cracks, and prep the surface and start over. Set a fin in and pour the resin and let it set up. Then the sanding coat, after that.
Board size? I wouldn’t loose sleep over it. By the time you’re wearing a heavy wetsuit for the Great Lakes you will overcome the initial loss for freshwater.
Nice job with the Dremel.
Have you met anyone out that way who makes boards? Maybe they could lend a hand with the box rout.
I don’t think anyone around here makes boards. Any board I seen around here looks brand new. I just figured out what I thought was resin is the box. looking at boxes on a website. Im not going to lose sleep. I got a feeling this is going to work out well, when the waves are right im going to be riding because I have this long board. when everyone else isn’t because they got short boards. And cant catch a wave.