a friend dropped off a surftech for a repair, he had fallen in a closeout, the board had flipped over and hit him in the knee. Nice ding on the rail…
I also noticed a few minor cracks along the rails and some poorly repaired dings so I figured I would give the board a little TLC and fix those dings properly. Figured I needed to remove all the wax and proceeded to scrape of the equivalent of about three bars of wax only to find this:
Heel area(cracks, denting, discolored wood along the cracks)
Knee area(Major denting, cracks, chipped hotcoat in two places, major wood discoloration)
Some smaller areas with cracks and some wood discoloration
I think it would be best to replace all the discolored wood. Clearly it is wet. However, it’s impractical with such large areas… So I’m wondering if I should try sanding down to the wood with the worst discoloration and try to dry it out, then glass patches over those areas. Then I would give whole area of the board another layer of glass to seal the rest of the cracks and reinforce it. Would try to get down to the wood with the smaller discoloration and dry it out too, then seal with glass. I think even glassing over it without drying it out would be an improvement as it wouldn’t get any worse at the very least.
At the knee ding crack I would try to remove all cracked glass and fill the cavity with foaming polyurethane. Add a strip of wood veneer over the crack even though I cannot color match it, blend, glass, sand.
I must say I’m a bit disappointed, I was not expecting to find polyester style dings on a surftech. Looks like the hotcoat is thicker than the glass on the deck… Also, if I thumb squeeze it I can feel it flex. With a flexing sandwich/glass job and a 1 mm thick polyester hotcoat it’s bound to crack.
If anyone have any advice on how to fix this I’d appreciate it.
There’s an example of why it’s smart to re-wax on a regular basis. Some guys get such a grungy wax layer they have no idea what’s underneath. All the while, the board’s sucking water.
I think if you inspect it closely you’ll find there is no fiberglass on top of the wood. Just a clear sealer coat. While the Tuflite series has two layers of epoxy/glass laminate, the wood veneer boards have just one.
Email the Board lady: www.boardlady.com. She wrote the book on Surftech repairs and can lead you in the best direction. She is a goddess, and a wonderful craftsperson! Or simply log on to her website where she has very good instructions for all of the various Surftech repairs and ailments. If you have never been there…go there, you will find a wealth on information!
I’ll give the guy some heat for not scraping the board, he should know better. Thing is he’s happy as a lark as he became a father for the first time yesterday. I don’t even want to call him and tell him how bad the board looked under the wax…
I can see some glass fabric pattern at a nose ding but that might be from an old repair for all I know. Under the chipping hotcoat there is a fine fabric like pattern which I thought was glass. But when you say there is no glass there this pattern might well be from peel ply… Piece of crap construction if you ask me.
Leslie,
I’ve checked the boardlady website a number of times. Already sent her an email, but I think I know (and fear) her answer.
I had one of these wood tech boards a few years back. It was pretty, surfed well…but…
I had 20 or so cracks throughout the deck, running rail to rail. Never rode the board in surf bigger than 4’.
Once I noticed the cracks, I sealed them up, waxed it with two bars and SOLD IT.
The wood was a mil thick if that, no cloth over it!
A local guy here has one that peeled on the bottom, he took it to a ‘repair guy’ and he promptly stripped the wood and started laying POLY resin over the EPS foam.
It melted into the deepest, longest bottom concave you have ever seen.
He still kinda rides it…
I would try to dry it out and then do the whole deck with a 4 oz patch.
I’m surprised the guy didn’t need a new knee after that.
I have a wood surftech, the 10’2" Tayakama noserider. I never thought I’d buy a Surftech but I got it for a great price on Ebay and was going use it as a wallhanger because they are so pretty. I’ve ended up surfing it and really like it for lined-up point breaks. In fact I caught some shoulder-high Malibu just last weekend with it. But I’ve been wondering about what happens when you ding it. I’ll be watching this topic.
If your friend likes how the board rides then he shouldn’t care how it looks.Repair it for as cheap as possible and make it watertight for him,he’ll need the extra cash for diappers!
I’d say check out the board lady for the crushed rail and forget the rest as for some reason I get the impression the board is just about stuffed anyway.
You wouldn’t worry about the water which is clearly trapped in the wood from near the cracks? Also, I would think that adding a patch of cloth over the areas that have taken the most abuse would increase the lifetime of the board considerably
In the areas where the damage isn’t too much into the foam (cracks, etc) sand down until you just hit the wood. Mask off the area and build it back to level using layers of cloth and epoxy. Fair it in, epoxy hotcoat, sand and polish. For the crushed areas with big damage to the veneer and foam, you can do it two ways: (1) Grind out the damage, vac down some D-cell, sand to shape, splice in and vac down new veneer. Glass over with 4 oz. (2) Grind out the damage, fill with very thick epoxy+foam dust+micro-balloons, sand filler to shape, acrylic paint to match the veneer, glass over with 4 oz. To paint, match the lightest color in the wood first, then put in the graining with darker shades. There are guys who can match any wood with paints, but there are a bunch of tricks using dry brushing, etc.
Wood veneer on a board is like a nice volan or tint; once you ding it you can’t make 100% invisible repairs.
If I am not mistaken, these boards have no exterior glass???
There is glass beneath the veneer and clear 2 pack urethane over the wood, why else would there be so much damage to the deck of the board? I can’t see any fractured glass around the pressure dings.
These things look so nice in the showroom, but a real compsand would never have that extent of damage from normal use.
And as for a knee smashing the rail like that, I fell on the rail of my first compsand and ended up with a cracked rib, board was fine.
You would do your friend a favour by sanding the gloss off thge entire board, letting it dry and glassing the whole board properly with epoxy.
That was my point. The outer poly layer shatters easily - just not a durable finish.
He must have hit the rail hard though - my woodytech would bust my knee before it smashed like that. And I’ve had no pressure dings anywhere after six years of lots of surfing.
That was my point. The outer poly layer shatters easily - just not a durable finish.
He must have hit the rail hard though - my woodytech would bust my knee before it smashed like that. And I’ve had no pressure dings anywhere after six years of lots of surfing.
Surprisingly his knee is fine… If you have one which has lasted 6 years, I suspect there might be good and bad batches of these boards or you are extremely gentle on your boards.
Looks like it’s actually drying out quite well through the cracks… I’ll glass over the areas with cracks to try and prevent new dings.
Not gentle, just average use. My pupe longboards looked like golfballs on the deck within 12 months, especially over the fin on the tail from jamming cutbacks and pivot turns. And the old butt cheek impressions.
I reckon an outer glass layer then gloss would be a better finish.
