ive always repaired my own dings, and possibly never done it 100 % correctly.
This is how it goes:
I sand down the ding, throw glass and resin over it, let it dry, and sand.
the problem is when i sand. it seems like i always sand down to the glass i just laid, and even at that point there is still a sort of lump where i repaired, its rarley flush with the original glassing.
why do i always sand down to the new glass i put down? it seems like if i were to stop sanding sooner, the new area wouldn’t be smooth.
Sound to me like you are only covering the ding with glass, not pushing it into the hole below the lower level of the existing glass. When you sand it all back you should be just hitting the existing glass leaving behind the shape of the ding filled with glass and resin.
That’s my experience, someone else might have better ideas.
Yes, that’s what I mean, the new glass is replacing the old broken stuff so it needs to be at the same level as the existing stuff, raised a little so you can blend it during sanding.
When you add filler to a ding, make sure you sand that exactly to contour, right to the original shape. Sand the old hotcoat some too
Then, use the lightest cloth you can to cover it and squeegee it some so it’s not excessively thick - 4 oz is good for most repairs, go heavier if it’s big. Lap it well onto the old glass so you have good strength. .
When the resin has hardened, feather sand the edges to blend it in and be gradual about it, then hotcoat. Wet sand and gloss as need be.
It’ll still be a bit higher than the original, yes, but if the transition is gradual enough you’ll never notice it.
I think you just need to work on feathering out the repairs better.
~Fill your ding
~glass and resin over the ding - sand close to level.
~brush on a layer of resin - sand even closer to level
~brush on another layer of resin - level again and sand all flush
There’s always going to be somewhat of a lump (where the glass overlaps), but it will so subtle that you won’t notice, see, or feel it. The lump will be overall larger in diameter but not as abrupt (noticeable). If that makes sense?
Try beveling the edges of the damaged area, and sanding the surrounding areas a little lower. Also try to concentrate more on the edges of your repair while sanding.
You need to grind a small zone (for the new glass to adhere to) into the glass around the ding so that you can make it more flush when you sand. I learned that from the “ding repair scriptures”. Its an old book but I think it is still available at a lot of surf shops. A raised area is not a big deal on a small ding, but if you are putting a broken board back together or sticking a broken nose back on you want it to be as flush as possible.
Are you making your problems bigger by using power tools ?
Anything smaller than a silver dollar I will always do by hand. Are you using a sanding block? I have one that’s about 1"x3" and another that fits a quarter sheet of sand paper. I also have a mini sander thats made out of a paint stick.
I wish I could show you my sanding techniques. Feather edge , yeah, that’s what you need to do.
Remove crappy glass around ding, check the foam is dry, sand to key, mix resin with Q-sell ( microballons, chopped straned, talc or any other filler) sand this to contour of the foam, so your left with a recess for the glass patch to go, make if bigger than the resecet and overlap the edge, wet out an put it in, feather the edges.
long way of saying yes it helps, but if it’s your board, as long as it’s water tight who cares if its a bit ugly.
stupid question, can someone expand on the feather sanding technique, I always seem to sand to far, and the weave of the original glass shows through, and then I stop. thanks.
OHHHHHwwwwww… nope, not the move to make. Always sand a little, fill behind the old glass, ideally with a cabosil-resin mix, sand to contour, then glass, sand and hotcoat.
Always fill, cos otherwise ya have air behind the glass, which means it is not gonna stay on in the long run, besides which it can blow pinholes through your new glass as it is hardening and your repair is essentially worthless, cos water will leak in and so on.
On the other hand, some folks go a little nuts with cutting away crunched glass to fill cavities. I try to avoid it, don’t make mountains out of molehills. Try to save as much as ya can, it’ll match for color and tie the board together better.With practice you can hold a cavity open with a popsicle stick or something like that, make a masking tape dam to keep it from oozing out.
Sanding - look, I use power tools, but I have decades in with 'em and a good feel for 'em 99% of the time. The other 1% can get ugly.
Nothing wrong with hand sanding at all, but you want to chuck your sandpaper when it gets dull or clogged. Unless your surface is absolutely flat, avoid the use of sanding blocks - though if you can make curved ones, that’s a different story.
stupid question, can someone expand on the feather sanding technique, I always seem to sand to far, and the weave of the original glass shows through, and then I stop. thanks.
Hi Woody,
Don’t hesitate to stop while sanding and have a look to see where you’re at. When I’m sanding along an edge of new cloth, I’ll hand sand, just a little sandpaper and fingertips, to get it down smoothly. Stay off the old cloth completely.
if you’re using sanding resin to laminate the glass over the ding, you will inevitably sand thru to the cloth.
lam with lam resin. then thin coat of sanding resin. sand. wet sand. spray with acryllic (or gloss it and go thru sanding and compounding, etc…) go surf.
Howzit poser, one thing not mentioned in these posts is that you need to flush the ding with fresh water a couple of times first to get rid of any salt water even if the ding is dry. After salt dries in a ding it leaves salt crystals that will can melt and delam the repair if the bares gets hot during sanding or in the sun. Other than that the boys have covered the subject well.Aloha,Kokua
why do you need to fill the ding in and make it level with resin, then glass it after? why not just fill the whole thing with glass and resin the first time, and sand it, and elminiate a whole step?
Howzit poser, Actually you can do just that with a mixture of resin and milled fibers. You just have to prep the area right so the mixture blends at the edges of the ding so that it’s totally water proof. I used this method in the days before light boards were the thing since the milled fiber fix is a little heavy. Aloha,Kokua
i do that often, mix some resin in a cup, then cut up cloth and mix it all together. sometimes, if the ding is bad, i use the reson with glass mixed in to glass over cloth i lay down for extra strength.
For a white board, when filling the hole with resin and chopped fiber glass, a little white pigment mixed in improves the appearance of the repair quite a bit.
how does one go about obtaining sanding resin and laminating resin as am amateur, occasional ding repairer? i’m fairly certain the stuff sold in your average ding kit is sanding resin, yeah? in which case, the average joe out there, like myself, really has no recourse beyond using sanding resin for all stages of the repair.