I ordered “vinyl ester epoxy” from solarez, not knowing that vinyl ester was just as bad as polyester for EPS blanks. Since Solarez sells a polyester resin, I thought “vinyl ester epoxy” was epoxy resin. Not to mention it has the word epoxy in the title.
I now have an EPS 11’ SUP blank that was eaten on the bottom by “vinyl ester epoxy.” The bottom is the only layer I glassed. Before glassing I did apply some zerovoc, but I ran out and didn’t have enough to cover the rails of the board and all of the the last 28 inches of the tail. For the most part, the fiberglass held the original shape of the board, but the foam underneath is eaten. The tail got eaten to the point that the last 28 inches of the tail has a thickness of around three quarters of an inch. There’s also two holes in that section of the tail where the resin ate completely through the foam and left two 2 inch diameter cavities. So I have an 11’ SUP blank with the last 28 inches eaten up and some minor damage to the rails (the rails can just be sanded down, so that’s not my biggest concern).
All of the resin is dry, so I’m ready for the repair. At this point I just want a board that I can paddle on calm flatwater. I’m not too focused on hydrodynamics. Below, I typed four options with some notes in parentheses. Please tell me if any of these techniques will do or tell me your own.
1)Fill any voids with the foam-in-a-can stuff, apply the “vinyl ester epoxy” the right way, and glass on a fin, or try to install a fin box (I’ve seen people say in other posts that this foam in a can wouldn’t support a fin box).
2)Fill any voids with spackle or some other putty, apply the “vinyl ester epoxy” the right way, and glass on a fin (I doubt spackle could hold a fin box or would offer much volume)
3) Cut the eaten tail off, shape a tail from the remains, and I now have a ~ 8’ 8" SUP. ( The original shape had a volume of 132 liters. Also the rails are very thick and boxy. The board only needs to float my 125lb, so doing some cutting might still keep it floating.)
4) Scrap the whole thing (I’d rather not do this, since this is my first board)
To add, if it sounds like I complained about solarez anywhere above, I didn’t intend to. This resin was good stuff when I applied it to the areas covered with zerovoc.