I recently acquired a 9’6” Ron House SUP. It looks to be in fair shape and the great craigslist vendor allowed me a wet tryout!!
It weighs 22 lbs. and is glassed with epoxy. I couldn’t find any soft spots, but it has rail abrasions almost all the way around the board. I want to stabilize the rail damage and install rail protection as well. At first I thought maybe light sanding 150/220, clean with air and ETOH, gloss coat the rails and it would be ready to go. This is probably not my forever SUP, but I want to preserve it in good shape, so I started thinking maybe lam with 2” glass tape, gloss coat, then rail protector. I would like advice on the plan and details
Looks to be a tint or a painted blank maybe that was very lightly fogged over thus revealing the stringer. I would not do any more glass work than is absolutely necessary. Clean the whole board really well. Wipe it sown with alcohol or acetone. Lightly with a clean cotton rag. Don’t wipe hard or be excessive on those pinlines. Then sand lightly along the rail. Wiping the exposed glass with styrene or xylene. Either solvent should help to disguise the exposed cloth. It’s possible using either a paint or yellow ochre pigment to disguise those areas further by just wiping or smearing it over the weave. Let it dry throughly. Mask off the deck at the pinline and using a satin clear spray can, spray the rail. I use the clear satin acrylic “Painters Choice” or Rustoleum that Home Depot sells. If the bottom rail needs attention do the same to it. On the bottom you can just fog it along the rail and then wet sand it to blend the rail into the bottom. Or you may prefer to spray the whole bottom with the clear. I would not use fiberglass tape on the rail. Most of your issues on that board are cosmetic. If you find an open ding with exposed foam, fill it and put 4oz over it. It doesn’t look like to me that there is anything there that is taking water. The clear acrylic will seal it. But if you’re nervous about it just brush a coat of epoxy over the rail after you have prepped it, sand it and then spray with clear. Put that clear rail saver over it. It will be good to go. Yeah you could do some big complicated fix like you originally stated, but in my opinion that is total over kill.
Thanks Ossi, just what I wanted, some straight advice without getting overly complicated. using the spray acrylic is a new trick for me. Sounds like starting with 220 might be best for the sanding part. where do you find xylene or styrene?
Sometimes you can find it in an Ace Hardware or Sherwin Williams. It makes the dry glass that is exposed disappear. Not a guarantee that it will 100% disappear, but it usually helps. Yeah I used the clear rattle cans all the time doing ding repair on Maui. Easier than a gloss&polish. The satin shine always comes out really close to the shine on an older board.
Xylene and alcohol are compatible with EPS foam. I recommended that he wipe it, not soak it. He would be using a dampened cloth. I have cleaned lots of EPS boards with Acetone using a damp cloth. The Styrene won’t hurt it either because he is not soaking it into the foam. And as I said open dings should be filled and capped with 4oz. I am pretty sure Ron House had those EPS SUP’s done in Thailand or Viet Nam using similar or the same tech. as Surftech. Which meant that the final coat of finish was sprayed on. I’ll let you in on a secret; I have used UV Poly resin to fix open dings on EPS without a problem. How did I get away with it? I wet the cloth out on a table before I applied and did not use MEK. There are quite a few things you can do to simplify repairs on EPS/Epoxy. Things that one learns through experience.
Never have very good results with whipping exposed fiber with epoxy as styrene with poly lam. Try alcool and xylen and finaly find whipe with fluid epoxy (hot) work best.
I would go direct to the oss1 spray with acrylic on those spots after repair correctly open dings.
Not trying to offend anyone. Just looking at the quickest and easiest way to clean this board up. Met Ron once at Terry Senates. He was helping Terry clean up a back log of blanks that needed to be done. Nice guy. Wish I could have hung out with him longer. I bet he has some great stories about SurfGlass, Bill Stewart and Phil Edward’s.
