So literally the night before I flew to barbados this Feb and was packing my boards I noticed a huge ding (rail to rail crack on the bottom, like a reverse buckle). it was my go to short board and in a paniced rush I did one of the crappiest ding repairs I've done in years. so I'm wondering the best way to go about fixing it. I originally cut the busted glass, q-celled and tried to lay glass at the same time, and it came out all lumpy and shitty. Hot coated and sanded when I got to barbados and promptly didn't surf it the whole trip (cause I was on my step up due to good sized waves, so that's a plus). Do I just sand through the glass with some 50 grit into the qcell, re-qcell as needed, let cure, sand smooth and reglass, or would it be better to just cut out the repair all together and just redo. I'm just worried about the effect of repeatedly cutting into the same general area.
If it's water tight and good, just ugly, I'd leave it. If you really must id sand it down and and reglass. Should be pretty simple. Although i may be misunderstanding, but why did you qcell if it was just a crack? I don't qcell unless foams been removed.
I probably should have said the glass was smashed inwards, like the bottom of the board had been hit with a rod. By the time I cut the bad glass away, there was a fairly deep gouge running from rail to rail, about 1/4 inch deep and an inch or so wide. There are now a bunch of divots in the repair because in an attempt to just get the board to a point where I could take it with me I rushed the job and didn't let the filled area fully set before I glasses over it
Ahhhh ok i got you now. I was thinking it was just a crack. I'd leave it if it's water tight. Mere mortals like us wouldn't notice any ill effects of a bumpy repair. If your going to repair it, you could really do it either way. Sanding through the repair and redoing it will be harder to get a crisp looking repair though. Cutting it out would look better, but i don't like cutting into a board if it's not 100% needed. Depending how bad the divots are you might be able to just give it a quick coat of resin to "fill in the gaps". Iv done this before to smooth out shaky repairs before.
Without pics its very hard to say. In general, If the stringer isn't snapped, and since its on the bottom of the board, and the buckle doesn't wrap around the rails, it doesn't sound like a structural issue. So - you just want it to be flat, smooth and watertight. If those divots are small and on the surface and you can accomplish that without cutting out anything then you probably aren't hurting anything by saving the time and just filling them re-hoatcoating and sanding. Honestly, cutting out a poorly done repair to try and improve on it can sometime start to be like getting out of a hole...the first step is to stop digging. Edit...Bass and i pretty much writing same thought at same time.
Yea... agree you shouldn't re-cut the ding. Just rough sand it, tape it off and re hotcoat. If there are areas that are too deep for just resin, lay in some layers of cloth, fully saturate it with resin, sand when cured. I never like to fill divots with just resin... they can spider crack, pop out... all kinds of weird stuff. I use cloth, but you could use qcell. Once the deep divots are filled and sanded, then hotcoat over the whole thing to get it flat and perfect.
Sell the board; buy a new one. That cracked one, will never be the same and it WILL FAIL you at a critical moment. Murphys Law : if some can go wrong, it will!!
