Waterlogged board question

General Discussion
1

First of all thank you for having this website and sharing your knowledge.  Up front I’m not a shaper and am very new to surfing (about 1 year), but I’m absolutely addicted to it.  You guys have excellent info which has, among other things, helped me do some previous ding repairs.

 

I have searched a bit on the topic of fixing a waterlogged board (PU foam I believe), but I just wanted to confirm a few things since the repair area is bigger than any I’ve worked on before, and this board is half of my quiver.

I discovered a crack in the deck of my 6’9" funboard, basically right on the left edge of the stringer.  The glass in that area was somewhat concave in relation to the crowned/convex curvature of the deck of the board, but I didn’t realize until about a week ago that it had actually cracked.  When I scraped the wax off, a large portion of the concave glass had yellowing underneath, so I knew that was bad news.

 

So far I have:

-cut away most of the glass located over the wet foam (see picture; brown marks are due to rusty boxcutter blade).  I am realizing that perhaps I should have just drilled holes in order to dry the board out (per other posts regarding drying a waterlogged board).  However, the glass there was concave, so I’d like to take the opportunity to restore the board’s normal deck curvature to this damaged area, either by cutting out the bad foam and using a new block, or by letting the foam dry, and then putting some filler on top before reglassing. 

-sprayed the exposed foam with freshwater from a hose (per advice that had been given about flushing salty foam with freshwater)…is this the correct way of flushing?

-weighed the board: about 10.0 lb right now

 

Next steps for drying:

-possibly using the vacuum technique that was posted (plastic bag taped around damage periphery, vacuum hose, mason jar setup)?

-just let it dry (not in the sun) for several days or weeks. Every other day, should I spray with flush with freshwater again to really make sure the salt gets out?

-sounds stupid, but would putting rice on the wet foam be adviseable?  if not I can wait it out.

-Will the stringer dry out OK too?

 

After drying:

-prep sand around repair area

-put down a layer of resin/filler (this would be so I can restore the normal deck crowning to the damaged area)

-sand smooth to match deck curvature

-3 or 4 layers of glass?? with the successive layers being larger than the previous 

-hot coat

-sand

 

As I said, this is much bigger than any other ding repair I’ve done (previous would be size of a fist).  So are there any other measures I should take to make sure this deck repair is robust?  Are there any big flaws in my gameplan?

 

Many thanks again.

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2

Cut away the glass, put it in the sun until dry, then do your plan.  It may take some time to dry as the stringer will wick water up/down the length. 

3

No.     You should end up with a good result.

4

Ok thanks

5

The One Big Problem as I see it is you need to drink a few Fine crafted beers while watching the board dry. If you don't the gods might seek revenge.

 

 

 

6

Listen to Thrailkill, Artz, and Aerosmith…but mostly listen to Artz!

7

Phew, I knew I was missing something.  Coulda really messed up the job.

I also heard that if you drink more beer, you can get away with less catalyst since the resin will appear to cure in the same amount of time as with no beer and more catalyst.

8

I don’t mean to hijack this thread, however I didn’t want to start a repetitive thread.  I also have a board I’m trying to get the water out of.  I sold a buddy a board a couple of years ago and he recently gave it back to me.  He put a couple of dings in it and improperly repaired them and it got waterlogged.  It is EPS and in great shape.  It was one of my favorite boards but he wanted to get back into surfing and he loved the board so I sold it to him.  I have been draining it since Sept 14th.  I have drilled 2 small holes on each side of the stringer in both the nose and tail.  I have set in the sun, shop vacced it, etc.  my problem is now the outside temps have gotten cooler and the board doesn’t heat up in the sun.  My question is… What else can I do to get the rest of the water out?  I was thinking about using a brooder light and heating up the board and trying to get the rest of the water out.  Maybe set the light a couple of feet away.  Is this ok?  Will it work?  I have removed the broken glass and left open also.  Any help is appreciated!!! Thanks.

9

Drying is different for eps.  If there’s water throughout the inside of the board and not just where the local damage was, it probably will never get out.  For local damage water soaked foam, the fastest method is removing a large piece of the glass and just let it air dry.  If the entire board is full of water (obviously heavier), drill 1/4" holes and the nose and tail (both sides of the stringer) and set it upright in a warm place.  Could take months.  If after that length of time it still feels the same, it’s a write-off.   Don’t put heat lamps on it or anything that focuses heat, just up to 100F ambient temp.  You can pump some water out (see archives) which will reduce the weight, but the pump will be continuously running for a couple of days.  Even then the foam will still be wet and you’ll have to dry any repairs as previous stated.

10

      Howzit WaterDamage, After you finish scrapor or cutting any damaged foam and before you do the next step. Rinse the heck out of the exposed foambecause you don't want any salt still in the foam even after it's dry. You will do the whole repair but then the first time the board is in the sun repaired side up ,the saltine crystalls will melt and delam the repair. Aloha,Kokua

11

 

PU foam does not get “waterlogged”. That’s a myth. You could take a block of PU foam and submerge it in a bucket of water for a year. When the year was up you would find bone dry foam less than a 1/4 inch from the surface.

12

 

What kind of foam is it then?  It’s definitely not polystyrene.  When I removed the damaged glass and barely pressed my fingertips into the foam, lots of water beads would emerge…

 

Fortunately it appears to be dry now.

13

 

Hi Kokua,thanks for the tip… So I’ll remove the foam that had been soaked to get rid of the salt crystals, rinse the exposed cavity, and then just cut a fresh block of foam to size.