I have red-x side bites that have developed cracks around the edges of both boxes on the deck of my volan glassed board. Water has gotten into the cracks and caused some minor delamination around the boxes. Both boxes had the rubber bumber seals on them until I decided to check them today. The reason I checked it that this is the second board I have had this happen to. Unfortunately, that board developed a serious delam across the entire tail of the board and is now out of commission as the tail is completely waterlogged. I need to know how to fix this problem so that my new board doesn’t meet the same fate. Also, any ideas on how to dry out the collected water beneath the glass would also be appreciated. I have been squeegee’ing it out by putting pressure on the deck and pushing towards the cracks to get the water out, but it seems like that is only able to get so much out.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions…
*I included a pic of the problem, kinda compressed, but maybe helpful.
Hi Myriad77, Sorry you had to experience this problem. But I learned a trick from one of the ding repair guys that buys fins from me for some of his repairs. Get a terry cloth 100% cotton and cut a piece of it alittle bigger than the damaged area of the board. Now get a plastic sheet used for vacum bagging and put the sheet over the terry cloth and tape the plastic down to the board and draw a vacum sucking up the water into the terry cloth letting air pass thru and catching water. Look closely at the terry cloth patch and notice the water soaking into the terry cloth patch. When you feel the cloth is full of water replace the cloth patch with a new dry one and repeat the process until the terry cloth patches are no longer recieving water from the vacum pull. Hope this helps, but it’s hard to completely get the water out a board when it flows thru the foam cells pretty deep for a unknown period of time. Mahalo,Larry
Thanks Larry, what a great idea. Where would be a good place to find the vacuum bag plastic? Would a shop vac work as the source of the vacuum?
Any ideas on patching the cracks around the boxes?
Hi Myriad77, I am not sure if a shop vac will work. But you can contact Matthew at Fiber Glass Supply and he has all the proper stuff to proform this task, go to Probox web site and get there email address. As for repairing the damage so it doesn’t come back is not a easy task to do with this system, I can only say inlay more glass around the deck where the impack zone is and hope for the best or sell the board. Mahalo,larry
Mahalo Larry…I think your ideas will do the trick.