Some basic surfboard repair questions

General Discussion
1

I’m relatively new to surfing, and therefore relatively new to repairing boards. I have a ding in my rail and in planning to repair it was wondering:

  1. Would it be better to fill the hole with some chunks of EPS foam (it’s an EPS board), or can I just use epoxy mixed with filler like Q-Cell or something similar?

  2. When I’m sanding down the filled hole should I sand it to board level, or slightly below to accomidate the new glass and resin I’ll have to put on?

3)Once I fill the hole in the rail and go to sand it down I’m worried that I’ll be sanding flat spots into the rail. Is there a sanding technique to avoid this, or should I simply not worry about it?

  1. The ding is at the back of the board and there is a bit of an edge where the rail meets the bottom of the board. When I go to prep the area (i.e. sand off all the loose bits) i’ll likely sand off this edge. How do I go about resetting it?

 

Thanks in advance!

2

1 - always better to use foam as a filler

especially with eps

2 - ive seen good resaults using both methods, so do what you want

3 - when your done with the sander just do some hand sanding

4 - hot coat the top first with no tape and brush the resin on the deck and the bottom, when cured sand down the bottom then tape off the rail and make sure the tape line is slightly above the rail line

 

3

  1. It depends on how big the hole.  It’s best to glue in some new foam with gorilla glue so that the core density doesn’t change too much. Putting a hard pocket of filler creates a spot that flexes differently than the surround material and can become a break point. If its a small hole you can probably get away with just some filler.

  2. Sand slightly below. Good prep is key to a clean repair.

  3. Don’t worry about this so much unless you’re sanding with a machine.  You’ll sand into good resin surrounding the repair and might even go into the weave. Once you fill coat the repair though you’ll be back right to where the surface should be and the weave will be filled.  Go slow and hand sand the curves. If you want to speed up the process block sanding shouldn’t be too flattening if you go slow. Sometimes two swipes with the block will be enough to feather in the repair.

4.Do the fill coat in two stages. first deck side. Then for the bottom create a dam using tape to get some resin built up in the area you need it.  Once you final sand this you should have enough resin to sand a nice new edge.

4

Thanks for the advice! Just to clarify, is the fill coat the final coat of epoxy that I apply once the fiberglass has cured and been sanded?

5

This is usually how I do it, but there may be small pinholes that will allow water intrusion.  Best to sand that fill coat nice and flat and then put a very thin sealer/gloss coat.  If you accidently sand-through the fill coat, then it is absolutely necessary to do the 2nd coat.  It’s easy to get bubbles in epoxy so i’d suggest the 2nd coat just to be safe.  try applying it with a spreader/squeege. that’ll keep it thin.