I would love to restore this Bing. I feel with some proper patchwork and a combination of 10 and airbrush. I can make the green look nice. However, I would like to cut the yellow brown cloth along the black pin line and peel off the deck and restore it with clean glass and a new laminate. I am advised by one expert that there’s no way to tell how much new cloth it will take to fill in the deck, and therefore several layers may add a lot of weight to this project. A lot of additional weight would be a dealbreaker for me. Can I get some opinions?
I’ve seen worse repaired by Sways restoration gurus…
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I think any kind of restoration will add weight. Maybe good for a wall-hanger. Those old boards were heavy to begin with. Cool looking old board tho!
If for only a wall hanger I wouldn’t worry about weight. I want to ride it, AND have it look pretty lol! Not that heavy now and it is quite a functional shape for 69ish. Still looking for glassing input from the forum.
Fresh glass isn’t going to clean up the deck much, unless you plan to paint over the old foam. And its not a certainty you can remove glass without pulling chunks of foam out too. I just did a restoration on a 10 year old longboard with 4 oz cloth & epoxy resin, bottom, rail wrap, and deck patch, probably added 1 lb. I posted pics & description of the project. Based on my own experience, I agree if you pull the glass off the deck you risk adding significantly more weight.
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Yes thanks, I realize the deck would have to be reshaped down to white foam to improve the look. Thus the original question. there’s really no way to know how much foam would be removed by strip and reshape.
Fair enough. You’d have to remove the glass which is probably about 1/16", and at least 1/8" of foam, so now you’re approaching 1/4" of fiberglass and resin to bring the surface level back up. Thus the original answer to the original question. You might be able to get creative and vacuum or clamp a thin sheet of new foam after shaving the deck down (see link below), or you could do something like the balsa deck patch I did on my recent refurbish, but if you’re just planning to shape the deck down to new foam and then glass, its gonna be a bit of fiberglass resin, and weight.
Here’s what you should do. Cut inside the black pinline with a dremel. A razor blade will slip into the pinline (too hard to control). Peel up the deck glass, and then tape off that beautiful stringer. Mix up a thick mixture of microballons with your resin. (this adds very little weight. After that has gone off sand it back until your black pinline shows up, and the microballons are flush with the uncut cloth. Sand the rail but only the part that’s facing up, and then tape it off from the unsanded rail. Then lay it up with 4 and six oz Get it off and get any excess resin off it.Hot coated and sand with 100. Won’t add much weight, and ready to ride. If you want to hang it, Gloss it and hit it with 400,800, and 1000, and polish it
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Shared from a cat on Instagram
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I saw that GCoopa restoration on IG and started to post it here, when I saw swaylock beat me to it. It looks like some kind of liquid expanding foam was used on the deck. The problem with those kind of quickie mini-tutorials is that there are just so many assumptions and unanswered questions, so you don’t really have a good grasp of exactly what was done, and just how successful the project really was. Looks good in a few photos isn’t really a valid measure of success, but I have admit, the photos here do look very good in the end.
One of the questions in my mind is concerning how easily the fiberglass came off. It rarely comes off so clean like that, didn’t stick to the foam at all. So it seems kind of unlikely that there is a solid strong bond at the rails - like the entire deck is delaminated or unbonded, but ending cleanly at the pinline, where its solidly bonded to the foam from there out. Its been my experience that once you start removing loose glass like that, the area that has to be removed keeps expanding. And sometimes when you think you got it all, after glassing you find areas all around the perimeter of the new glass that are bubbling or coming loose. Its also been my experience that removing a big sheet of glass like that can take big chunks of foam with it.
Then there is the question of the expanding liquid foam product used - brand, price, availability, toxicity, working properties and requirements, bonding properties, strength, etc. It does look very functional in this little video.
Thats the benefit and superiority of actual conversations and photo supported procedural threads here on swaylocks, where follow up detailed questions can be asked, answered, debated and discussed. Good for getting solid answers, but unfortunately doesn’t gain clout or likes or followers. And also requires a level of commitment and follow-through that the latest generation of Swaylocks users is maybe not familiar with, since the IG tik-tok level of quick click baiting is on a much more superficial level.
Would love to see a detailed and documented step by step of this particular project, once he decides on a path. The board is a very cool old board, and it would be great to see how he approaches the restore, and how well it works out in the end.
The original poster to this thread made it clear he wants a board that could be used as a functional rider again, and that would be a big factor to focus on. Solutions that might look good but be heavy or weak or very temporary probably not gonna be the answer.
Hi there. I’m new to Swaylocks and new to shaping. I’ve got a question related to this thread. I just found a broken Doug Haut on Craigslist. I figured it would be a good way to learn shaping. But… it is far worse than I realized. My question, is this too ambitious for a first project? Is this foam even salvageable to make something that’s more than just a wallhanger? It has a full delam, and in removing some of the loose fiberglass, I also lost some foam. And… it seems it was repaired with brittle filler at some point (I’m guessing Qcell).
I’m not sure ambitious is the word I would use, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it as a shaping exercise. I guess anything is do-able if you’re determined enough, maybe make a paipo board or a kneeboard if that’s your thing. But to start off I would recommend a surfboard blank that is close to the size and shape and rocker that you’re after.
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Thanks Huck!