Question about delam and reglassing the top of board

General Discussion
1

Simple question, I hope.

The set up: I have a Byzak step deck that I love, beat to crap but…It came with a lot of delam on the top deck, I have fixed the delams over the last few years, but as one gets fixed another pops up. I have mainly used the slit and fill method.

Now I am going to do more drastic repairs to get rid of the delams and give the board a new layer of glass

I have taken the board sanded everything down to rough it up and prepare for a new layer of glass ( I don’t care about the extra wieght, Im used to very heavy boards)

After that I have started cutting off the top just inside the pin line and up to the step in the step deck (The nose area is fine and solid) I plan on reglassing the top, and then add another entire layer of glass 6 ounce top and bottom over the whole board.

The question is: When I go to re-glass the top deck, should I feather the area around the cut line or should I just fill with an extra layer of glass that overflows onto that line? The top glass is pretty thick, to thick to just stick back down. But if I feather the area will it weaken the rails.

Once again heavy is fine, super heavy is fine.

Any suggestion on how to proceed are much’o appreciated.

2

Uhmm, as you’re gonna be taking out glass plus foam plus old repair filler, here’s how I’d play it.

First, do as you’ve said, cut just inside the cut line. Then fill the foam dings and nicks as need be - if the deck foam after removing old glass is a skosh on the brown side then I think a dab of Gorilla Glue here and there should work for ya. Otherwise…well, get inventive, I guess. But with something lightweight that’ll stick to the foam.

Shape down the glue, a sur-form to start with then the sandpaper of your choice.

Now, tape around the edges where you cut out the old deck glass. Lay new glass in the hole, laminate it and do a cut lap precisely on your lines where you cut out the old glass. I’d seriously consider 10oz stuff there or 6 oz x2. Then, do a cut lap over all that wraps around the rails onto the bottom.

See, if the board has been delamming and delamming, chances are the foam is a little soft and maybe always was, and the extra stiffness of more glass won’t hurt. Plus when you take out 6 oz cloth, plus resin, plus 1/16 or so of foam that’s stuck to the glass, you take more than the thickness of new glass the same weight. Feathering it in won’t do much good, but just filling it with a nice lamination, then letting the next layer go over top and wrapping around the rails in another cut lap to give ya the structural continuity you’re looking for. Plus some stiffness.

An exception to that, though- I would maybe lay a triangular end of that deck inlay onto the stepdeck to tie that in well. 'Cos the sharp transition, stepdeck to deck, is bad enough, let alone if the stiff new deck glass isn’t tied into it, be a break point ( like a notch fracture ) for sure. Keeping it pretty through there, well, that’d be tough, but not impossible. Do, maybe, an exaggerated or ornate cut-lap there, maybe some sort of pattern like an arrowhead or fleur du lis or something, y’know? You need a gradual transition lest it bust there.

hope that’s of use

doc…

3

Thanks Doc, as always a fountain of common sense and wisdom.

You confirmed what my plans were. Which is good since Im halfway home and cant turn back now. I would have made it further but I kept cracking the dremel disc cutters…Note to readers, always always were saftey glasses with those suckers…

The board in question has been dubbed the Hankenstein for its amazing ability to raise from the dead. Rescued from under a stinky porch, fixed up, numerous times…and now hopefully really given the big re-animation shock…long live the Hankenstein…

Also its the perfect board for here in Rockaway NY, when its knee high and there are 100000000 summer surfers in your way…Extra extra glass…

4

Ah yes. Now, personally, I’m not a real big fan of Dremels, they always struck me as your classic ‘hobbyist’ tool. On the other hand, you go into an auto body shop and you see these little beggars, whittling their way into metal . If you have the air, I suspect they’d do a very nice job indeed. Quite thin kerf.

As for Rockaway in the summer - oooooohhh yeah. If you can do a good looking rail wrap, say with a 6" strip all the way around ( Or maybe two) all the way around, just for bumping Bics… although…

There was a time when I thought about building a ‘summer board’, a kind of early hollow ply board that’d chew right through the Volan glassed 9’6" logs that your basic buoys seem to be on all the time. But then I thought about it some. As in anything that’d do a number on double Volan glassed obstructions would do far more to something relatively soft and breakable… like my skull.

Good luck, man. Me, I tend to let my surf stuff get dusty in the summer, while all those…lets just call 'em ‘people’ …out there do their thing. Just doesn’t seem worth the hassle.

Best regards

doc…

5

jscottk,

I guess I’m a little late to the party but I’ll throw in anyway. Keep in mind I’m a novice but I’ve done about a half dozen delams. Below is a series of pics of a delam I fixed on a friends board. Don’t be confused by the adjacent damage. He’s snapped the tail off and that was the original reason for me working on it. I didn’t find the delam until most of the way though the break fix. I know I did a bunch of things wrong but I also did some things right and learned a lot.

Make sure you probe the foam once you open it. I you leave spongy foam it will delam again and soon. I filled this one with resin and Q-cell.

A repair guy taught me to sand a taper to the bottom glass then razor cut through that. If you sand that a couple inches wide it gives you a trough to lay in an initial layer of glass. Sand that flush and go back over the whole thing with glass that wraps the rails. It kinda double glasses the seam.

Here’s a series of pics. Hopefully it’s usefull. Good luck.

6

Thanks, the q cell is a must…other wise you add a lot of uneven wieght as well if you just fill with resin…

unfortunatelly the Hankenstien has been delamed fix and everytime it tends to pop up in a different place…

so off with the top…

I will post when its done…

7

Ryan is correct about the soft foam. It will just delam again because it will separate at the boundary with the hard foam. Just hit the suspect foam areas with a blast fom an air gun and they’ll be more apparent. I’ve been looking at several delam repairs I’ve done in past years, and found If you use a lot of filler it will eventually crack under the cloth in time from foot pressure. My current method is to fill with “pour foam” and plane it down. Small voids can be filled with Gorilla glue which is also a foaming urethane. On the edges of the cut out, I feather these back about 1/2" and lam the initial cloth over the feathered area. The covering lam is at least 2" beyond the feathered edge.