Hola a todos:
New project ahead. A 9’1" PUKAS longboard snap for fixing. Not mine this time.
Daniel was so kind to clean wax from the affected area (thanks), but I don’t want wax to stick to my stands so a complete cleaning will be the very first stage. Not a funny work, believe me.
ah yes…and it’s been broken before too;
Interesting how the airbrush paint penetrates better than the resin:
Looking forward to seeing the details of how you do this one.
As ever, best regards
doc…
Cleaning time results:
Full
Nose half
Tail half
Note hotcoat? cracks parallel to the snap line. Daniel said they were there for months before the board snap.
Note hotcoat? cracks parallel to the snap line. Daniel said they were there for months before the board snap.
Right, that and the upward buckled and shattered stringer at b: that’s probably what triggered the snap, where the glass is pushed away from the foam for a bit, though there also may be a rail ding at a that contributed to causing the break?
heh- board failure forensics, no?
doc…
Hello David,
Can you send me a mail, please? I’m trying to find some materials here in spain and it seems impossible.
David @puigmal.net
Have good cold waves !
David
Hola,
I’ve been busy these days, doing the slots for the “wood sandwich jig”.
First, try to find one of these fruit or vegetable wood boxes around the dustbins of the greengrocery’s. Then dettach the side panels (±30cm x 9cm) and mark half the length of them on each side of the snap (±30cm/2=15cm each side). IMPORTANT NOTE: wood panels should be at least 2cm wider than the thickness of the board around the snap area.
Then grab your handsaw or jigsaw and cut 2 slots on each side of the stringer, from the snap till you reach the mark. Try not to lift the old glass when sawing.
After that, grab a piece of rough sandpaper and make each slot wide enough to allow wood panels to reach the end of the slot comfortably, one at a time. When you’ll try to fit both stringers at the same time they should reach the end of the slots with som difficulty, you should need to push them hard: that’s right.
Well, once you’ve done the slots on the “nose half” of the board, do the same on the “tail half” of the board (mark, handsaw, sandpaper, fit wood panels).
Then, it’s time to glue the wood panels into the slots of the bigger half of the snap board. In this case, the bigger half is the “tail half”.
I used poly resin, mixed with gentle MEKP and applied on each side of each wood panel with a paintbrush. I guess any polyurethane glue (Gorilla, etc…) would do a great job here, since it expands a bit and would fill any gap. Then fit the wood panels on their slots, allowing to rise at least 1cm (1/2" or so) above the deck and under the bottom and push them hard till they reach the end of their slots (you can use a hammer or simply grab the whole thing with panels down and press it to the floor, it’s what I do, but be sure your neighbours are not sleeping…)
If you see wood above the deck and under the bottom, it’s done. Let it set till tomorrow.
Oh, one more important thing!!!
As you can see on the pics, before handsawing the slots it’s VERY IMPORTANT to cut down the old stringer remains, so we don’t want old stringer halves to touch each othen when both board halves will be pressed together.
Hello neira,
I used your tip for splicing on my broken board and it seems to have worked well. I say it seems to because I haven’t completed the work but I like the way it’s coming. The real test will be in the ocean. I can’t wait for that. Fingers crossed.
One thing I found while working through my first break fix was a lot of delamination at the edges of the torn glass. I don’t know if you’ve found this on your repairs but I thought I’d mention it. Here’s how I handled it. I didn’t want a bunch of underlying delaminations after I was done with all the rest of the repair.
I used a thin ruler and a marker to map the delaminations.
I slightly thickened the resin with cabosil and injected it underneath using a disposable glue syringe.
Notice that I cut back the splice and filled it with Q-cell resin with white pigment to hide it.
I did this right before I adhered the deck delams so everything was clamped flush at the same time.
Here’s what it looked like after clean-up and before the next steps.
Everything laid down flush with no delams around the edges.
Lots more work after this. Some done and more to come.
I’m diggin it.
Nothing but fun.
Thanks for the photos
I like the idea of using old produce boxes.
Keep up the good work
Ray
Hola Ryan,
It seems, to me, not a good idea to recycle the old glassjob when it has delammed.
I always peel off all loosen glass and also all losen foam, since I don’t want the new glass job to be layed over “ill” material.
Anyway, it’s done now in your case. Be sure not to leave any gap between foam and old glass (hole and syringe) and take it just as a “cosmetic glassjob”. Sand it very rough to ensure bonding and glass again all the delammed area + 10cm on each side.
Keep us updated.
I love the number of pics you post. I can just scroll down and know exactly how you did it.
Hola,
Time for joining halves.
After 1 day, resin of the “tail half” slots has set so I’m sure wood panels won’t move from their position.
I put the “tail half” in a comfortable position for me to slide the “nose half” slots on the waiting panels.
First of all, I mixed some resin+MEKP and paintbrushed wood panels with it. Then I grabbed the “nose half”, fitted the panels into the slots and pressed firmly. Matching rocker at first try is almost impossible, but you have some minutes before resin starts to gel. Simply correct rocker alignement by light hits using a hammer or so.
When you feel satisfied with the alignement, pour the reamining resin in your mix cut into the snap gap and press firmly.
Let it set till tomorrow.
niera,
I agree with you on the idea of not recycling the glass. In this case I’m really trying hard to make the damage dissappear cosmetically so I decided to reaply the old glass. You might be able to tell from the pictures that the glass tore off pretty cleanly. Most of the foam was still very tight and I used a stiff brush to remove the loose foam from the underside of the glass.
The board has a semi-opaque color on the bottom and rail and a tint on the deck. I’ve bought matching tints and colors and I’m going to laminate matching glass over all the cracks. For these lam’s I’m going to sand down to the bottom cloth approximately 7 cm on each side of the crack. I’ll flush that to the surrounding glass on the same level. On the deck where there is two layers, I’m going to sand the second layer back another 3 cm and laminate that clear. Then I’m going to take whole area down just to the cloth and wrap it a layer of cloth in clear resin. I’ll feather that in then hot and gloss the whole thing.
I’m probably trying too hard to make this thing perfect, but I was really stoked when I got this board so I’m trying to fix it as best I can.
Time for e-pinions:
This is a scheme for the longboard in its original state and 3 possibilities of the final product (no make-up, dark cloth band covering snap area and wide red cloth band covering delammed and snap area).
Any opinion???
Hola RY,
Does this pic look familiar to you???
Why yes it does! Where did you find that? Harbour?
By the way, that’s my dog Chewy.
Hola,
Time for PU gaps filling. These PU cans are quite cheap (4€ x 45liter of expanded foam) but you usually find yourself throwing it to the dustbin after 2 or 3 uses since the valve gets filled if you don’t clean it perfectly everytime with acetone.
First of all, I did a “cheap tape mould” over the rails in the snap area, so i won’t need to shape them after foam expands.
Then it’s necessary to humidify the surfaces of the gap to ensure good bonding between old and new PU foams. I use a window cleaner sprayer conected to a bottle with water.
Then just invert PU can and start injecting foam into the gap. Then flip board and do it in the other side. Wait till tomorrow to let it expand freely before cutting and shaping it down.
Very much lighter than filling using resin+microballons, eh???
Hola, Neira,
Uhmm, I go for #4, myself, but how about doing a pair of cut laps in opaque red around the rails to the edges of the existing color, then mebbe a wee bit of red resin between strips of tape to do those lines like old-style pinlines or stripes, then a pair of clear cut laps over the top and bottom and around the rails , as below - I’m presuming that you will be doing a cloth or mat inlay where the old glass was torn away so that it’ll work out pretty well.
It’s extra work, certainly, but with this particular board( with a relatively simple color scheme on the board, no airbrush fades or such) it might be worth it in terms of appearance: all you’d see is the spray foam and the wee gap between the wood strips where the stringer was cut back.
Just a thought -
doc…
Dang guys!
Y’all sure can draw sumpin’ fancy! 
(niera, that’s my attempt to write like I’m from the country)
I like Doc’s idea, but it is a little more work. As far as the foam scar in the center goes, couldn’t that be sanded back a little and filled with a couple millimeters of resin with Q-cell? The would bring the crack closer to the color of the foam. Then again, that PU foam looks pretty close to the board foam in color.
Of the 4 you posted, I like #4. The diagonal stripe is cool but it doesn’t completely hide the patch.
