After looking at that Edge Of Barbie board and reading that it came from a reshaped 7 footer, and from the great look of the board, would anyone care to share their best methods of totally stripping a glass job from a board? I already know several bad to mediocre ways of accomplishing this task…
I’ve done this numerous times and maybe somebody knows of a better way but here’s how I do it. Take a 4 1/2 grinder to the outside edge of the rails grinding the whole outline of the board just down to the foam leaving a strip of exposed foam about 1/4 wide. Take a utility knife with blade fully extended so it flexes somewhat and slip it underneath the glass (like jamming a blade under a fingernail) and score the entire outline of both the bottom and deck. This separates the glass from the foam enough to get a good grip with your fingers. Try to get it so it just scraped under the glass rather than cut deep into the foam. From there, gently pull up the glass around the curve of the rails until you have the glass separated from the foam up to the flat of the deck or bottom. After the rails are separated it’s pretty easy. I usually start at the nose and just peel the glass away as if peeling a banana. You’ll lose a little foam, mostly in the width of the board (maybe 1/4 tops) but it’s easy to reshape and stay true to the original shape. Or you can reshape it into something new. I’ve had good luck at rehabbing boards in this fashion and getting a few more seasons out of beat up boards this way. Also a cheap and fun way to experiment on different designs without feeling like you’re trashing a new board.
“edge of Barbie” man, I like that. this was my first strip job. I have one of the Ryobi 5" cordless circular saws, it rules! I set the blade so it just cut through the glass. one cut along the stringer top and bottom, one cut on the outside edge of the rail all the way round, and three cuts across top and bottom (perp. to stringer). screwdriver instead of razor and peel away. took about half an hour. tore up the thin nose and tail but I was taking 7’ to under 5’, no biggie. next time I think I’ll use a thin carbon cutoff wheel in a die grinder so I don’t have razor sharp shards of hotcoat eating my fingers. although the saw would probably be much quicker.
I just stripped the glass off an old WRV today. I used a 6" cut off blade on a drill. Might not be the best way but it worked alright for me. I cut just off the stringer from nose to tail then made cuts aprox. every 6" to the rail. Carefully cut around the rail then connected the cuts. I used a small putty knife to start to lift the glass Once you can get your fingers under lift carefully while working the knife forward. Do the same on the other side. Two things with a large blade you will need a real steady hand to keep from going into the foam, next time I’ll use a Drimmel tool. Also wear a long sleeve shirt when cutting glass, trust me.
In the past I’ve used Dremel/Craftsman tools for the rails, and I’ve generally tried to use wide blade putty/drywall applicators for pushing forward to seperate the glass from foam. A few years ago this worked pretty well, but with boards of more recent vintage it sucks…my personal theory is that this is a result of close tolerance blanks, although right now after a couple of beers I could see how maybe it’s the opposite. Whichever, these days the foam/fiberglass is all over the place when it comes to sticking. I’ll try the more extensive cuts to make it a smaller area each time, and maybe running the cutter down the stringer too. Thanks guys.