Hi all would really appreciate some advice on this one.
The board is an Epoxy Sunover 9’2. A crack appeared on the rail I actually heard it go crack. It hasnt broken through the glass but I am concerned that it may. How would one go about repairing this? Its located about 2 1/2ft up from the tail so is in a flexy part of the board.
I have been thinking about maybe taking out the air realease plug and sealing a vacuum pump to that then drill a small hole say 1/8" through the glass where the crack is and inject epoxy with a syringe while engaging the vac pump which im hoping would pull it in . But I could just end up with another hole where the crack is further comprmising the rail strength. I can’t tell whether the crack is just through one section of the laminated rail or all.
Its a good board and i dont want to do nothing as i dont want it to get worse. Any ideas anyone ?
Seeing as it’s on the rail you can simply sand the area where the crack is until it’s completely flat and planar and the crack no longer runs through to the edge of your flat sanded area. Then glue on a new flat patch of timber and reshape the rail to what it should be. A patch of glass over the whole lot which you can then feather out to the surrounding surface easily because of the compound curve of the rail. Gloss coat and your done. This will be the strongest way to fix something like this. Just filling the crack with resin will most probably end in it cracking again eventually under stress.
Thanks RDM sounds good. Two questions though . Any thoughts on if the grack runs all the way through the lams. same idea i guess but laminate into the existing lams ? bigger job of course. Secondly you dont think that inserting a new piece and glassing over will compromise the integrity of the rail ?
I should have qualified my methodology a bit. Your board would be best to have solid timber perimeter rails rather than just a timber skin in order to do what I’ve suggested.
I seem to recall that Bert’s early Sunova designs did have solid timber perimeter rails but I could be wrong. Maybe they don’t have them anymore (even if they used to).
Would be best to wait and see if someone here can confirm the construction, or might have a better suggestion to fix it.
I would consider that scarfing a break like this is strongest way to fix it. The inserted piece is not just cut and placed in. It is essentially scarfed in, and any reduction in strength will be minimised. Bridging the replaced core area with a new laminating patch joined back into the surrounding lamination should not be substantially weaker than the original lamination in the area I believe - just another scarf type joint again.
I could be wrong on this one but it looks to me like there is already epoxy in the crack which would lead me to believe it may have been a manufacturing defect… I.E. maybe the wood cracked while they clamped it in place and it was simply glassed over? Hard to tell from the pic but it does not appear to have cracked the glass.
If you think about how the boards are made with the balsa planks glued to the blank, it is possible that what you heard was something giving way inside the board - like maybe a single glued area cracking away from the foam(?) Check for any indications of balsa planks lifting/delaminating. Under strenuous flexing, I can easily imagine some cracking noises happening inside.
Take a careful look at the rail crack and see if there is any damage to the outer fiberglass. Maybe set the board on saw horses and put some weight on it with your hands - listen carefully for any weird sounds. Flip the board over and try again with the board flexing in the other direction.
If it isn’t leaking at the crack you posted, I’d be inclined to keep riding and just keep an eye on it. Again, I could be wrong but I wouldn’t jump in to drilling, sanding, etc. just yet…
Thanks for all the advice everyone, much appreciated.
Here is another photo that shows the rail construction. I flexed the board with about 40kg of Girlfriend pressing down on the board upside down. I kept an eye on the crack . I couldn’t see any appreciable movement. The glass has not been compromised. Hard to tell even with a magnifying glass whether there is glass in the crack.
Looking at the rail it would "seem " that the other 3 lams are intact . You can see the crack in the top half of the photo. I think there should be enough integrity in those lams to hold the rail in place. So I think I’ll just keep surfing her and keep an eye on it.
As a side. I have been surfing Berts boards since he was in Mandura. West Aus I havent bought one for a long time so I dont know how they are constructed these days. A friend and I had a go at constructing this type of board though. We were resonably successful albeit with a few mistakes. One of the issues we couldnt agree upon was whether to laminate the rail with full length balsa strips or use smaller 400mm long strips as Bert did. I believe that Berts boards had much more spring/life in them compared to the firewires of similar length and i put this down to the smaller pieces allowing more movement between but then i think a brickwork laminated join is stronger so maybe less flex. Should be a seperate topic i spose.
That’s a very good picture, and I think it confirms John’s suspicion. I would leave it alone. Hate to see you tearing up a work of art like that unnecessarily. If it were to have actually been a complete crack of the balsa and rail glass, then I would have favored RDM’s scarf approach. I thought that was a brilliant suggestion.
It’s pretty cool that you’ve had access to Bert’s boards for so long. He is sorely missed around here.
