Repairing a ding in the tail of a 5’6" Surftech fish I was surprised to find no evidence of a layer of glass on top of the brown high density foam (underneath the paint). Perhaps the glass is very lightweight but I would have expected to notice even a layer of glassed tissue when I hand sanded the area with 400 grit. Can someone comment on wether this is unusual.
Mark
well that is because surftech are sealed in a layer of pvc and the the single layer of cloth is under that.
What layer is the PVC?
From outside to in I have Blue paint,white paint (board is white with blue rails) then brown high density foam.This picture indicates there should be a glass layer on top of the brown layer
Sounds like the glass got sanded through before they hotcoated and painted it. Might have helped contribute to failure there. Bummer!
–BCo
I’ve found similar issues while repairing Tuf-Lites.
The wood veneer boards don’t have an outer layer of cloth - they call the wood coating a “Structural Veneer.” This is wood veneer vacuum laminated over epoxy resin and cloth followed by a poly gel coat outside of that.
The Tuf-Lites do have cloth on the outside. It is quite thin and does get sanded through occasionally in spots as they prep for painting. If you removed the outer layer of paint you would find fairing putty and primer over a thin layer of glass except where the cloth may have been sanded off.
I confirmed this via private message with Eva Hollman AKA The Board Lady about a year or so ago. As far as I know the info is still current.
What layer is the PVC?
The brown HD foam u see is the PVC.
actually pvc foam, it’s called “HEREX” and manufectured by
a company named “Airex”.
I found pic’s from a ding that I had in my tuflite,
look carfully and you can see the outer fiberglass layer-
Well, I guess things aren’t always what they appear to be. Some of these adds for Cobra and other assorted Asian manufacturers are alot like what I here from the Republican Party. “Well you know this is just what the world is coming to and when you consider the alternative you have to vote for the lesser of two evils.” No thanks, I’ll just go out in the backyard and hack out my own.
found the same thing repairing a surftech
sandthroughs and bog.
cant see it if its painted over
its a shame they go to such trouble making a good blank
and then botch it on the outer shell
Thanks for the photos and everyone else who posted. I definately don’t have that top layer of glass in the ding area so I am going to have to decide how far to sand back before finding some so I can add a glass patch and get ‘continuity’. Its so far already turned a small ding area into quite a large one which is going to make matching the colour more difficult/noticable. I was down Halfords (UK car stuff shop) and went through all there colour swatches and had them mix up a spray can of Huyundi ‘New Blue’ which seemed the best match. Not surprised at the corners being cut in manufacture espacially as everything is hidden under the paint. These particular boards (5’6" French twin fin) are £400 new and there are 15 surfers living within 15mile radius that have them. I’ve not seen all 15 in the water at one time yet,thats going to be a bizarre sight.
Thanks again
Mark
Hi mark interesting,
Ive repaired a number of these type of boards now, mainly circle one’s and sunrises no actual surftechs yet though and its always fun finding out whats under the paint.
I really hate repairing these boards always way more work than than first impressions, inverably the ding always grows in size as you go down through the layers and as you build them back up layer by layer from the inside out each layer ends up being slightly bigger so what started as a small crack in the rail ends up being a 4 or 5 inch repair when you find the cracks get bigger on the inside.
The tempasion is always there to just light sand, fill and glass over but you really do need to open them up.
Colour matching be a real pain, had an off white/ivory board and the paint I had mixed up was slightly off and it really showed up, blue shouldn’t be too bad though, If you haven’t already check out www.boardlady.com
Thin-sliced XPS makes a great skin-core replacement for tufflites, and its a lot easier to fair into ugly cut & broken d-cell than any kind of PVC is… and you’re right, that outer glass layer is so thin, if there’s been any crushing of the d-cell, the glass comes right off with the gelcoat as if it was never there.
that ding was about 2" long, I fixed it with “carkit” , finish is great!
then , if u really want to match colors… that’s the adress:
http://shop.surftech.com/Surftech_epoxy_repair_kits_s/3.htm
.
u can also find it in some other cyber-shops.
btw. don’t aplly carkit directly on EPS !
good luck,
lee.
Just seen another forum topic about this and getting the paints in the UK
http://magicseaweed.com/…hp?f=13&p=181792
Mark
Nice one Benny,
the ultimate in repair job, nice used of the improvised clamp in place of a vac set up, deffinately going to remember that one.