Two spots of deck delam, one under each foot (where my feet go on the board near tail and nose). My friend says that he wants to drill a few holes and inject catalyzed resin then somehow vacum bag it using his mom’s vacum cleaner. Any thoughts? Wouldn’t the suction make the delaminated glass pull up instead of press against the foam? The whole idea is to make it flush instead of having a big heavy bump of resin under the delam.
anyone know if this would work?
dont really need to do that…inject the resin and press on some plastic sheet (freezer bag) over it with a bag of sand or something similar…when its dry the plastic comes off.
boardlady.com has pics of a vacuum repair if still interested
i have tried something similar - and it didn’t work at all. however, if you cut the delam loose, fill under it and then do a classic vaccum bag lamination, cutout deck glass with mebbe another layer over it, you should be fine.
hope that’s of use
doc…
thanks, ill give that a shot
I agree that this method works. just add a little stryene to your resin when doing this.
I drill 2 small holes ( #51 drill bit), inject resin with a syringe, work the resin around under the delam ensuring full filling of delam with a little extra over the holes for in/outflow of resin, then place said plastic over delam, over the plastic within the confines of the bag, use a “caul” plate or a piece of material that is able to conform to the area of repair, ( Like .32" sheet metal) then put weight bags over the caul plate…
This works for me… be patient don’t be too quick to remove the caul plate and plastic / bag film to check progress.
This will work if done correctly, you will need the following:
Some resin, a 1mm drill bit, some plastic (to use as a vac bag), some sealant tape (tack-tape), and a good source of vacuum… your mates vacuum cleaner might be ok but this realy depends on the seal you have between the vacumm and the plastic, and also the plastic and the board), you will also need a syringe to feed the resin into the damaged area.
heres what to do - you’ll need 2 holes in each delaminated bubble, one to inject the resin, one to let the air escape.
Drill the holes near the edge of the delamination at oposite ends to each other so the resin can flow from one to the other (use a 1mm drill bit for the holes) then give the surface a good clean/blow off.
Catalyse your resin and fill up your syring with the mix, inject it slowly into one of the holes - you will see it flow from one to the other - do it slowly so that you dont trap any air in the resin.
Once the resin has reached the second hole let it over flow a little (by a little I mean a tiny amount).
Now place your flat peice of plastic over the area and tape down with tacky-tape or some other kind of tape - This must be a very good seal, there is no point doing this technique if the seal isnt 100% perfect.
You now need to create a seal between the vacuum cleaner and the plastic - doesnt have to be pretty but must be a great seal - 100% air tight.
Turn on the vacuum and watch/listen as it sucks out the air from the area between the board and the flat peice of plastic. If you hear any hissing it means the seal is poor and needs to be fixed - so use more tape and make it better.
Keep an eye on the repair area - you will see a little of the resin being sqeezed out of the delamination, this is good.
When you are happy with the seal wait for the resin to cure - fix any leaks as they come up (if you have done the initial seal well then this shouldnt be an issue)
try to leave the vacuum on for the entire time if you can. Definately dont turn it off untill the resin is hard.
when finished, peel everything off, sand off any resin that may have come out of the repair and cured on the deck - if you sand it carefully and give it a polish you will not even be able to tell the area was repaired.
Good luck!
Prep is everything, and this is probably only worth the effort if you are sure you will get a reasonable result. The worst case is that you will fill the cavity with resin and it will cause surrounding areas to crack later in the boards life
Bye!
Heres the easy version; Drill holes for injection and 1 or more for "exhaust, inject it with resin, cover with plastic, if the area is concaved at all or oddly shaped, cover with zip loc baggy loosly filled with rice, tape rice bag down very firmly. Done it a thousand times, works every time! You can actually get more pressure from tape than vacuum if you use a good strong tape!
Hi Aqua, what size repairs have you done that too and what tape do you use?
(will try it next time)
I’ve done some on foam core and honeycomb core that were over 24" long x 8" wide. It also works well to just cut the old lam out, bevel the edge and use the same procedure on the new lam.
how is the life of the repair? do you ever find that is crazes at the edge do to the different resin contents in the original lam and the repair?
Anybody interested in board repair could do worse than checking out Eva Hollman’s “Boardlady” website. In this link she shows how she repaired a major delam using 2-part foam and vacuum bagging…
Quote:
… your mates vacuum cleaner might be ok but this realy depends on the seal you have between the vacumm and the plastic, and also the plastic and the board…
Actually, I think he said his mates moms vacuum cleaner. In that case, it’s probably a house vacuum and shouldn’t be used for this purpose as most house vacuums depend on the suction air to cool the electric motor (after passing through the filter). No leaks → no air → no cooling → no more functioning electric motor.
In contrast, shop vacs have a pair of “fans” – one for cooling the drive motor, the other for sucking up the dirt, etc…
mtb