kokua,
thanks for the tip. Im curious though, would this provide as much strength as sanding the board down and reglossing or even laying some more glass on it? Is that necessary? I like this board a lot and want it to have a long life and would like to repair it so it will last.
thanks
anthony
Howzit Rightcoaster, If the glass is not cracked then you could sand the cracks out and regloss and you are back to where you were before the stress cracks appeared. But if the glass has been cracked the roving will strengthen them since the rovimg will fill the cracked glass, but it won't prevent stress cracks in other areas. Sanding down to the glass and reglassing and hot coating and glossing will add more weight but would probably prevent any more stress cracks in the area. This is just another way to fix that will keep the weight down and still add strength. The bottom line is just how far do you want to go to fix the cracks, and it won't hurt the boards life and if more stress cracks appear you can then reglass it still. The first thing you need to do is find out if the glass is cracked then make your decision on how you want to reapair it. Aloha,Kokua
kokua im a little confused and not sure if this is a stupid question or not but…what is the “roving” your talking about? That seems a little vague but i see your point about getting it repaired
Howzit Rightcoaster, Roving glass actually looks like fiberglass weave that could be like 60oz glass. you can get it at stores like Ace Hardware and it comes prepackaged by the yard. You can use it as fiberglass rope for putting on fins by pulling the strands apart from the weave. What I do is pull out 1 strand then pull apart the strand til I get a thin strand to lay in the Vee cut. Hope this helps.Aloha,Kokua
i put a little clear nailpolish in the scratches to keep the water out, and ill see how that works out once ive ridden it a few times. I hope these cracks are nothing to worry about since i like this board so much
so how did it work?i have a quarter size shatter on the rail of my longboard near the nose and was thinking of applying the clear nail polish instead of a full blown repair.
Hi Kokua, I think I’ve missed something here.
Surely if you lay the rovings into the stress crack (effectively fibres paralell to the crack) you are not bridging the crack and are therefore not adding much strength. If the cracks are at right angles to the stringer the board has probably bent along its length. The way to strengthen it (actually increase its stiffness) would be to have fibres running along the long axis of the board and therefore at rightangles to the cracks.
OK, I’m a pretty muddled guy and fear it will only get worse!
Rik
Howzit Rikids, In theory what you're saying would seem correct but I've used my process for years and it works just fine. As long as the fiberglass under the crack is not compremized then your strength is still there and the roving is inset into the resin and makes it stronger even if it's not perpendicular to the crack. Aloha,Kokua
Too late for this one, but if you have another made, specify “S” glass for at least one of the layers on both sides. I’ve used it on all my boards for over 25 years and rarely get even one stress crack.
Dewax the deck and check for cracks there also, they will run parallel with the stringer on that side. As others have said, if the rails show no damage, it’s probably just cosmetic. BUT, you will get water in thru the cracks which will discolor and eventually cause a failure (flex or break), AND it will lead to a glass failure at the rails which will surely snap it. 99.9% of every flex or snap that I’ve repaired is due to the glass at the rails failing, mostly from ducking the board. On rack boards, this is often due to cutting laps at the rail line or oversanding the tape lines on the hotcoat. The repair I would do is: Mask off the area (length = at least the board width), sand (be careful on the rails), brush raw styrene in to the cracks and immediately laminate 4 oz using a douple lap, hotcoat, sand, etc. The styrene will make most of the cracks disappear. When sanding the hotcoat, keep the disk on the side of the new glass to feather the edge so that you don’t thin out the old glass too much. You may also want to cut the cloth in a diamond shape so that you don’t create a break line.
On preventing this, three stringers are better than one but the real solution in my opinion is a perimeter stringer. Another way to accomplish this is to glass a 6-8" perimeter strip of cloth around the whole board (between the lap lines). Billy Hamilton used to do this with fabric on some of his boards and it does add significant strength to the rails. I do it on all thin (< 2-1/2") performance longboards with 4 oz. glassing and it doesn’t add much weight.