I started the restoration on my late 60’s Con The Ugly today. I cut around the rail with a dremel and cut around all the decals. The glass pealed right off and then I removed the decals. I have a friend who said he can make new decals for me. It has a 2" foam section with a 1/16" stringer on both sides of that. One side of the stringer has seperated so i will have to reglue it. I looks like the stringer itself came apart (wood on both pieces). What kind of glue do you use to reglue? Tightbond 2? Also there are at least two what looks like fin cuts in the board, about 1/2" by 2". What do I use to fill those in with? Can I use great stuff foam or is that a different kind of foam? Once I get it glued back together and all holes filled Im going to plane a little of the whole board to get rid of the yellowing foam. Any help or advise would be great. Thanks.
pics.
sorry
planing the whole board could be problematic. first of all, you’ll have to essentially reshape the rails & bottom curves, & the more you fiddle with it the less authentic it will be. also, more seriously, old foam can perish over the years, especially if it has has water & sun damage. it can turn to dust under the spinning blades of a planer.
an alternative, if you wish to hide the brown foam &/or any repairs you do, is to use an opaque pigment when you reglass. but i wouldn’t pigment coat over that lovely thick stringer. it’s a highlight.
i know the horse has bolted, but for future reference, i wouldn’t have stripped the board of glass, unless there were very heavy delam issues. i’d have just repaired all damage as per normal ding repair, taped off decals & stringer, pigment coated, & pinlined.
dave platt (platty) posts on swaylocks & he is the man when it comes to restoration work. you’ll learn a lot if you visit his website:
http://www.davidplattsurfboardrestorations.com.au
i hope you keep us posted on your progress. i love watching restorations unfold. it’s a beautiful thing making old things new again.
so that being said do you think i would be better of sanding than planing. i will have to do something to smooth it out.
a very light sand to smooth it out, after filling holes with qcell. then a pigment lamination.
“It looks like the stringer itself came apart (wood on both pieces). What kind of glue do you use to reglue? Tightbond 2?”
Without seeing the stringer and how much it has seperated. I would suggest that void very runny glue, so it can flow into the narrow void between the stringer and foam. Regular surfboard lam resin would be as good as any.
“There are at least two what looks like fin cuts in the board, about 1/2” by 2". What do I use to fill those in with?"
If you intend to sand or plane a thin layer of foam off the board, fill the fin chops with regular surfboard foam. Cut a wedge and slide it in. It needs to be a tight fit. Put a little bit of glue on it to hold it in place. You don’t want any glue to be exposed, because when you sand the blank you will sand the foam easily and the glue will not sand as easily and leave a high spot around the inserted foam.
Another option would be to spray the blank white. Mask of the stringer. Like Oldy said. It is a feature of the board.platty.
glued the stringer up yesterday. i let it set up overnight and untaped it today ( i used electrical tape as a clamp, worked good, you can stretch it and get it really tight). of course as soon as i untaped it the other side of the stringer popped loose. glued that side tonight. i removed some of the old fin gash repairs, also started to remove some of the old logos, man thats a pain, took about an hour just to remove one. you should see how purple the foam stringer is under the decals where the sun didnt fade it. its going good so far, tons of fun, thanks for all the input.
I wouldn’t mess with the planer to much man. Your goin to end up reshaping the entire board, plus the planer can be difficult to opperate if you do not have any experience. I would just give a light sanding or even go over it with a light sheer form.
your going way to far into it for my taste wavewright. i’d glue the stringers back together, fix the gashes, and put the original logos back in the exact same place(still in one piece? WOW). you also have to address if there’s any pitting in the foam. then i’d have it properly glassed with volan by a pro that really knows those boards(lap sizes, glass wt, etc). i wouldn’t worry about all the staining, in my opinion most restorations are overdone.
it looks like that was probably a unridable junker to start with so no harm done there, have fun with it.
pulled the tape off again today and POP! so i bought new resin today, not sure how old the other stuff was. i used about 6oz this time. also scraped off the last decal and sanded a little, man what a differents! i talked to resinread about doing some oldschool sparkle ding repairs (granulated sugar, resin). im going to sand it just enough to smooth it out and reglass it with volan. like i told him, with all these painted eps boards around now it would be nice to see a board out on the water with some character.
some pics. of it taped up again, and after a real light sanding.
Finally had a nice day and I got the board sanded. Looks good. I’ve decided not to paint it and leave the stains. Its almost forty years old it might as well look like it. Anyway its going to be ridden not hang on a wall. As soon as I get the logos I’m going to glass it, cant wait!
FWIW, You could spray acryllic white on the foam to cover the stains…
It would also even out the colour of the foam bits you need to fill the voids…
Just one small step and probably worth it in the long run…
Go on, make it pretty again…