remedial work on old / used boards

[Huck]

I’m just gonna start a thread on this, as this is kinda an area of current interest - fixing up old or used boards.  The goal here is to take my repair skills to the next level.

I especially need to work on color matching my ding repairs.  Its not as easy as it seems like it should be.  Up til now I’ve gone with “close enough”, and even when I take the time to carefully match the color, then I use that batch for the whole board.  But the colors vary around the board, some areas had more sun, or more water darkening, so (note to self) I really need to mix a separate batch for every single ding.

The other thing that makes it hard is that different colors need far different ratios to make an impact.  A little white barely shows, a tiny tiny little bit of brown just takes over, same with green.  So you think a little of this a little of that, but then its so easy to go too much on one color, then you’re trying to undo the damage by adding more of something else…

I have a couple longboards I recently bought pretty cheap, and I’m doing ding repairs etc to get them water worthy again.  More extensive than just ding repair, but not a “restoration” or “renovation” in the sense most people use the terms.  I personally don’t like when people take an old board and try to make it look “new again”, to me it never does.

So I’ll post photos as I have something to show, I’m not in a hurry just tinkering at it in my spare time.

First up is this Dewey Weber 9-6, it has issues but the price was right.  There were some nasty attempts at ding repairs that had to be grinded off.  The foam has shrunk back a bit leaving the stringers standing proud.  And there is a bit of twist to the board. 

I made a filler using the regular thickeners, but I also added some foam dust.  It made the filler look like stucco, but sanded smooth and worked fine.

There are a million little dimples, I don’t want to use filler on those cuz it just makes them more noticeable, but I don’t plan to leave them, I plan to fill them with fiberglass and resin as thats less noticeable than filler.  

All the above is stuff I’m gonna try to address

In the last pic I’m using weight and clamps to twist it in the opposite direction. Figured its worth a try. Prob do this every night for awhile.

 

[Huck]

I also have this 9-9 Challenger Surfboards pig, which needs ding repairs, a new fin, a tail block, and a nose block.

[Huck]

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[Huck]

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[Huck]

This is definitely a learning experience for me.

[Huck]

I cut off the nose to replace with a nose block. But that didn’t  get all of the de-lam. Gravity infusion worked pretty well for the rest of the nose de-lam.

[KiwiKook]

Excellent choice of topics, Huck. Thanks for that.

For a variety of reasons I’m attracted to refurbishing the old, damaged and forgotten. In doing so, I’ve made a number of errors, but slowly gained some skill along the way. This has been truly satsifying. It should be obvious to all who frequent Swaylock’s that threads like this are a treasure.

Whenever I see a board near or past death, I feel the urge to do my part in seeing it back to the water.

Keep it up.

Please and thanks.

Cheers from NZ

[Billycvs]

Nice work!

 

I have a late 80/early 90s bilbo. Nothing special but a Bilbo on a Clark Blank none the less. I do bits and bobs to it here and there but get frustrated and move on. Perhaps this thread will remotivate me!

 

I find it frustrating because you don’t want to loose the boards history, but delams, spider cracking and old repairs just take so much work to get anywhere near good. It’s so much easier just to shape a new one! 

[Huck]

Thnx. It IS easier to shape a new one. Maybe cheaper too, depending on what you pay for the board. Supply costs about equal. And def more work.

But there are other paths in life besides cheaper and easier. Just depends on your goals.

There are benefits to bringing an old or beat up board back to life, but maybe the benefits are more abstract and less tangible. There is a learning process for a whole new skill set, a challenge, maybe a connection to surfers & shapers of a past generation. A satisfaction of saving something from a landfill.

People tell me some of the stuff I do is a waste of time. But these same people watch hours of mindless tv, or spend hours browsing the internet for something to drop a caustic insult to. So whats a bigger waste of time? Everyone makes their own choices.

For me, this is what I want to learn right now. Its not easy, I enjoy rhe challenge. But hey I’m busy too, so I also want to learn to get faster at it.

 At the end of the day you still end up with an old used surfboard, I can clearly see why its not for everyone.

[Huck]

The board has developed a bit of twist. I set it on the rack, and use foam shims with clamps and weight to twist it back into shape. I do this whenever I’m not working on it. Seems to be working, time will tell if it makes a permanent improvement.

[Huck]

Still struggling with color matching. This looked like a perfect match in the cup, haha.

[Huck]

I put a new wood tail block on it, with leash cup, doweled because I thought it would be stronger, but prob not necessary. The old one was foam.

[Billycvs]

Huck that board is really coming together. I see you used some glass between the tail block and foam. Does this add strength to the bond?

You are 100% correct about how people value there time. I’m a sucker for sticking with things, but I’m all or nothing. When my skills are further progressed I’ll get back on it and  make it good.

 

Funny thing is it was my first longboard, I really owe any surfing skill I might have to this board. It taught me the basics, how to do functional cutbacks and find good trim etc. I’ll post some pics up later today

[McDing]

How about a pic of the finished nose blocks?  Looked like you had them going good.  Tailblock looks good.  But I favor the drill thru.  This board is probably a hand shaped O’Keefe or the shaper just previous to him(whose name slips my mind).  90’s.  Aloha Glass did most of the Webers thru the 90’s and 2000’s.  There standard leash attachment on a longboard or any center box was always the “drill thru”.   And I don’t believe they put there logo on the Weber boards.  I say hand shaped because I believe there was an early period where O’Keefe did not use CNC.

[Huck]

I do think adding a layer of glass to my glue ups makes them stronger.

Interesting about the history of the board.  It has no marks on it other than a number, no date, dimensions, or shaper’s name.  The guy I bought it from said he bought it from a friend in the San Onofre Surf Club.  He bought it for his wife, but she gave up surfing when she started having kids, and it has sat in his attic for ten years.

I don’t like drill-thru’s, for me they are in the wrong place, and the knot below often interferes with the fin.  I think fin boxes are made for fins, not for leashes.  But I will just leave it, so any future owner can use it if they please.  I like my leash attachment all the way back.  This is the first time I have tried putting a commercial leash plug in a tail block, and I’ve never seen it done before, but I don’t have any reason to think it won’t work just fine.

The nose blocks you saw were for the Challenger, but it turns out I have enough redwood left over from the piece I ripped for the tail block, so I do plan to make a nose block for the Weber also.

[Monkstar1]

This thread is awesome, keep posting. I too, like fixing up old boards. I have gone from full restoration (making them look new again) to basically making others watertight. I’m more of a fan of the ‘make em watertight’ boards but the problem I always come across is that I don’t want to have any ugly repairs. At that point I debate as to how much I want to ‘pretty up’ the repairs. 

I agree with color matching, it’s tough; and you’re doing it the hard way! I’ve resorted to filling the ding and then painting over the repair, then glass. It seems to work so far. I’m always amazed at this video, hopefully one day I can get to this level. I’m sure the airbrush helps. 

[Huck]

Yes, my goal is to avoid ugly repairs, but not to try to hide the repair. Airbrush would def be a good tool, I might invest in one.

A bit more on the nose block…

I tried to plan it so that knot on the bottom would be sanded off, missed it by that much.

[Huck]

Going back to the lessons of Gene Cooper’s master craftsman board - this is a reinforced fill coat.

Most of this will be sanded off. But it works as a filler for all the countless little dings, dents, dimples, divots, cracks & spiiderwebs. I commonly do this when an old board comes up for remedial work.

[Monkstar1]

6oz or 4oz?

[Huck]

6 because it fills in a little better when using it for this application 

I’ll also cut some silver dollar sized circles and glass them over the remaining dimples then sand until everything fairs in again with a sanding block. I hit weave like crazy when i do this, but it all disappears with the final very thin coat.