I am thinking of retiring my recently finished Hollow oak early after some really quite serious concerns over it possibly falling to bits. While surfing some not too massive stuff down Devon, the board started to make odd noises as the water lapped under it, kind of like something was no longer attched inside, like the frame to the skins! When I tap on the bottom of the board I can here it and feel it move slightly. Has any one else had a similar problem with their hollow woodens and is there anything that can be done to re-attach the skins without stripping all the glass and rails? I’m sure that at fault here is the adhesive that I used to stick it all together.
The board actually surfs exactly as it did before but I’m not sure how long it will continue to. Also a couple of stress fractures have appeared in the glass on the deck, I’ll take a couple of pics of those and beg for some advice on how to put them right. Oh yeah and I stupidly, smashed the glass off the end of one of my fins on some rocks but I think I’ve got that one covered. What a week eh?
If you can pinpoint the EXACT place of the seperation I suggest drilling a 1/8 hole into the point of intersection of the rib and the stringer. If it’s the rib lie the board on it’s side and carefully squeeze glue/resin into it with a plastic sauce bottle. Gravity will let it flow down. Wait a few minutes (have a beer) and then lie the board down with the affected side down (again, gravity) and weigh down with lots of bricks. Allow to set and fill over the small hole.
If it’s the stringer, stand the board upright remembering the highest point of the delam will be where you drill the hole (gravity again)
hope it gets better, it’d be horrible to lose a loved one…
Hi Pierre. The glue I used is the same that I used for my previous hollow, a Draper version of that “No more nails” sort of stuff out of a mastic tube. It’s supposed to have excellent grab characteristics and be permanent and well strong according to the packaging…They lie!
My other board built with the same glues hasn’t seen as much action yet but has held up OK. I might just retire this one and put it down to experience. On to foam now then?..Naaaaagh.
Cheers for the advice, it was sort of along the lines I was thinking, problem is that it seems to be quite a large section which appears to have come unstuck, from about 9" from the tail to around just forward of the mid point, I can’t tell whether it is just the stringer or ribs aswell.
I’ll give it a go anyway but I think I’ll try going in through the rails as I could plug the hole in the cork rails and it would be virtually invisible. This way I could drill several holes either side and use your sauce bottle with a tube attached to get it in where I want it. Worth a go anyway, I really liked this board and was begining to not even notice the weight on the way down the beach.
Any ideas about the stress fractures? Damn, I forgot to take pictures again.
just wondering if you could shed any light on these and what to do about it…
the fractures are about 2" long and 1" and appear to be over where the ribs (N36 and T36) are, I thought these points would have been more resistant to fracture than the rest of the board. The last picture is of the fins after I slapped a load of solar cure round where I ripped it to bits on the rocks, I had to build it up about a 1/2 inch where it had worn through the wood. Sos about the crappy pictures, any help or advice as always welcomed.
