Hi All! I managed to ding the rail of my boart recently and was looking for a little help on the best way to repair it. The first thing I did was stuff it full of wax so I could keep riding that day, but I've since removed that patch for a more permanent fix. My experience of repairing dings is from years ago when I would just stuff suncure in it and barely sand it, leaving something ugly but sort of functional. To do a better job this time, I was planning to get a ding all repair kit and follow their instructions in the video below. My main questions are should I mix cut up fiberglass cloth into the resin, or would it be ok without for something this small? Does a repair like this need to be covered with fiberglass, or would it be ok with just the resin? Does it need q-cel, or am I over thinking it and suncure from the choob would actually be fine? I'm not really concerned with color matching, but any suggestions on that as well? Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. In hindsight, I should have practiced repairs on my old beat to crap boards before donating them.
First off, never stuff wax into a ding. To do it right you need to grind it out, fill it with qcell and patch it over with glass.
What CJ said is how anyone would do it. You can use a utility knife ("box cutter") with a new/clean blade and just using the tip cut out everything loose. Sand at least an inch around the ding with 80 grit, taking the hotcoat off completely. I prefer to use very little filler because it leaves the ding super white. Just a little to thicken the resin and to match the surrounding area... or use chopped strand. Slightly overfill the void, using tape to dam the flow, and grind that down to reshape. At least one layer 6oz or two layers of 4 to patch over an inch around. Fair the edges of the patches once fully cured, hotcoat, finish sand.
Thanks @CJsurf and @LBCrew, that's what I'll do and hopefully won't make a mess of it! The only reason I stuffed wax in it was it was either that or be done for the day, and the waves were super fun. I'll toss a couple stickers in my bag for next time.
LB and CJ both know what they are talking about, not trying to over-ride their input. This is just a supplement. For a ding that shallow, on a board that I own, I would go for a simple process that yields a strong repair and gets you back in the water quickly (48 hours or less). If i'm working on someone else's boards (for money), I'll take a slower more detailed approach. It's like fixing a beater car compared to fixing a show car. On this exact ding I would: 1) Use a sharp, clean razor to clean out any wax, crushed foam, and broken glass. If it doesn't easily chip away, leave it in there. To finish this step I like to wipe with mineral spirits to remove any residual wax or oils. 2) Keeping your work area small will save you tons of time in the final steps. I use a pencil and draw a circle about 3-4 inches out around the ding. Now carefully sand the entire area inside the circle with 80 grit sand paper, being careful not to go outside the circle. Blow off with compressed air. 3) Cut a ROUND fiberglass cloth patch that will cover the ding and extend out 1-1.5 inches on all sides of the crack. I use 4oz cloth because it's easier to blend (in the final steps), but anything you have on hand will work. Cutting the fiberglass patch with no corners or straight edges will pay off in the final steps as well. Wipe the whole repair area again with some kind of solvent or paint thinner. 4) Apply the patch. I use UV cure resin, Dr.Phix (or something like that) sells a small bottle of the stuff that's enough for a half dozen small repairs. Suncure from the tube is crap in my experience. WEAR GLOVES, work in the shade, and work quickly. First, dump a little resin into the crack and use your finger to push it into the wound, and tap tap tap on the crack to push the resin down in and pull bubbles out, then spread some around where your patch will go, staying inside your pencil circle. This is to help hold the patch in place. Now carefully put the patch in place and slowly apply resin til the cloth is saturated, but not dripping. Use your fingers to "pull" the cloth in all directions against the board, so it's tight over the crack. If there are any air pockets in the crack, under the cloth, apply a little resin and gently tap tap tap the crack with your finger to get the resin down in there. When the cloth is saturated and pulled tight, and you can see the weave of the cloth with no air bubbles, you're done. Put it in the sun to cure. 5) After about 5-7 minutes the resin should be pretty solid but not fully cured, so take a new piece of 80 grit and carefully knock down the high spots around the edge of the cloth ONLY. Since the resin is not fully cured you do not need to sand the whole area. Blow the repair off with compressed air or a leaf blower. 6) Apply some masking tape around the circle you drew in the beginning. The more tape the better. This will prevent the hotcoat from getting all over your board. If you know how do bend the tape out so it drips away from the board, do that. Now, back in the shade, pour some resin into a cup. I like to shine a little sunlight on the cup for a couple SECONDS, so the resin starts to kick a TINY bit. Now slowly pour the resin over the whole repair. At this point you can use a small paintbrush or your finger to spread it to the edge of your work area. Now pour some more, this time let gravity do the work and don't touch it too much. Less touching toward the end is always better as the hotcoat will self level. After you have a complete coat, put it back in the sun for 3-4 minutes, only until the resin is like firm jelly, and remove the tape. Put back in the sun for a full cure. 7) You can now safely surf the board again, but we still need to make it look good. To protect the non damaged parts of the board, put fresh masking tape back on the edge of the hotcoat, right where it was for the last step. Now sand the edge of the repair area with 120 grit until it's almost blended with the original glass of the board. Remove the tape, lightly sand the whole repair with 120, and VERY CAREFULLY blend the rest of the edge (this is strictly for looks, don't do it if you're not comfortable with sanding.) 8) Sand the whole repair with progressively finer sand paper (220, 360, 400, 600, 800, 1000 wet, 1200 wet). If you start to see cloth in the middle of the repair or on the rail STOP SANDING. Once you get to 600 grit start working your way out from the repair slightly to blend it all in. If the board is glossy finish you'll need to buff it with some Meguiar's #7 on a high speed rotary buffer. If you stayed inside your work area circle, all the deep sanding scratches should be gone. I've found over the years that the best way to save time on a ding is to not create more work for yourself by sanding too large of an area. At this point you have a durable, and almost invisible repair. Let me know if you have any questions and post up some progress pics! If you can't tell, I love ding repair.
My experience with Dr. Phix has been limited to the stuff they say you can use on both poly and epoxy boards, and it's UV cure. Not sure what that could be, exctly... might be some kind of thermoplastic that's neither poly nor epoxy... some kind of vinyl ester or acrylated urethane. Anyway... the stuff will only bond to surfboard resins if sanded VERY well with at least 80 grit. 100 grit won't cut it... 80 or lower. But like headhigh said, you can get excellent results with it. The Suncure system stuff is good if you get the liquid in the bottle and do a regular repair with fiberglass cloth... the stuff in the tube is strictly for emergencies and travel... IMO
@headhigh thank you so much for taking the time to write that all out! Super helpful for me (as were the previous replies) and I’m sure for others in the future. I’ll keep you posted on how the repair goes, and update this thread with pics when I’m done!
I took a few pictures of a repair I did on my newest longboard, and figured I'd post them up. I was kicking out of a wave and my knee blasted a whole in my rail, near the tail. These photos line up to the steps above. Step 1 - all cleaned up. I scraped everything broken out of the wound, but I left anything that was still relatively solid. It will all be locked down under a layer of glass, and I don't want to create more work for myself.
End of step 4 - Only use as much resin as you need to saturate the cloth. "Less is more", as a wise man once said. Notice how you can see the wave of the cloth and the cloth is pulled tight. Also notice how i'm not getting resin that far outside of the cloth. Again, this prevents making more work for yourself.
Start of step 7 - I actually just got back from a surf in this photo. As I said, once you hotcoat you are really good to go, the rest of the work is cosmetic. I'm just about to re-tape and do my final sanding here. Remember to sand veeeery lightly around the rails. It's so easy to burn into the cloth in this step, especially so around the rails. If you're worried about sanding thru, just leave the material there. The repair will be just as strong.
End of step 7 - Everything is blended, and wet sanded to 1200 grit. If the board isn't polished from the factory, this is the end of the process.
Finished! - High speed polished with a cheap polishing mat and Meguiar's #7. Meg's #7 makes stuff shine like magic. The repair is invisible from 10 feet away since I didn't use any q-cell. Up close you can see some old cracks but one touch and you notice it's all glued back together under a layer of glass. As long as you see the job thru to completion, and the board is water tight, you did a good job. Obviously if I'm working on a high-dollar rich-person board like a Hobie I'll do a few things different. But for my personal board, that I'll ride til it's garbage, this is plenty, and I was surfing it again in just under 24 hours.
I was going to respond but headhigh nailed it. In the future use duct tape or black vinyl tape instead of wax btw.
Hi All. I finally got around to completing this ding repair. I guess letting the board dry out for 8 months couldn't hurt. After cleaning it out with a sharp blade to remove all the damaged fiberglass, it ended up being a bit bigger than I thought. I basically just did exactly what you all recommended, and I think for my first repair, it came out good enough. I cleaned it out real good, sanded, filled it, covered it with a small and larger piece of glass, covered it in just enough resin, and sanded it again. Probably should've taken more time, but It's water-tight, strong, and smooth so it hits all my requirements. I figure this white spot on the rail is like a scar, it tells a story of how I bashed my shin on the rail that one time. I've attached a couple terrible photos so you can chime in and tell me where I screwed up. No idea where that dark ring around the edge came from, but again not too worried about it aesthetically. I did sand it more after that last photo! I figure my next repair will be even better. Thanks again for all the great replies and help!
You definitely get an, "atta boy," Steef... nice work for your first attempt. That black ring is probably from your sandpaper. I only use high quality 3M Pro Grade paper so the little bits of grit don't fall off the paper and get ground into the repair. A touch of white pigment in the resin helps blend in the repair area, too. and I mean just a touch.
Hey All, don't know if this is the right forum to ask this, but if not, pls send me the correct site or forum for my question I just found a pretty nice board in Bulky waste in my street. The nose is pretty broken, unfortunately I have too less experience in repair to assess the whole. Can you still save the board and at least repair it so that it does not draw water? I think I would take it as a riversurf board. Any tipps or advices? Cheers
That looks like a very difficult repair, but doable. Take a utility knife and cut out all of the loose material, then reshape the nose with a surform or sanding block to get a symmetrical shape back. Apply two layers of 6oz cloth to the top, lapping around the noserail an inch onto the bottom. Fair the edges when cured. Do the same to the bottom. Paint on a coat of resin as a "sanding coat" and sand smooth when fully cured. Not an easy task, but it will work in terms of being able to take it out and ride it.
