Mini-simmons from from old Longboard

I have a few beater long boards laying around. Not worth fixing, couldn't bring myself to get rid of them. they've just been taking up space.

Grabbed one the other day and laid it on some saw horses. It's just over 8'. Not a traditional longboard. It looks almost like a fish. Thing is damn near 24" wide. Picked it up decades ago as an "extra" for $50 when I was buying a longboard from someone. It was always a fund board. Was even a community board in my old neighborhood at the beach for a year.

Ok enough memory lane. it's ugly as hell. Countless strips of old duct tape, ugly patcghes, nearly 5 foot of the deck is delaminated, but sitting there on teh saw horses, I see the front 5-6 feet has a pretty nice outline, and pretty nice rocker. I laid a few of my small wave boards on top of it for comparison. An old retro fish, by current coil disc, and the rocker is similar. The old board is a little flatter then either, but the curves are in teh right spot.

So cut the the chase, I'm thing of hacking about the front 5'8" off, skinning the tail, and any other loose glass off, but leaving the sections of glass that are decent in tact. Reglassing it, and throwing some twin fins on there, and giving it a whirl.

One concern is the rails on what will be the tail. The rails in that section are "eggish" whats the term 50/50 rails? But the board is tthined down at the rails, so they aren't super thick like you might expect them to be in close to teh middle of a board. if i have to skin the rails and reshape them, I'll likrly destroy the thing, but I'm confident i can cut it, clean up the loose glass, and reglass it water tight (albeit ugly).

Best I can tell, the bottom what would now be the tail of this frankenstein board is just flat, no V, no concave, just flat. Mostly flat throughout with a touch of displacement towards the nose.

Am I crazy? Does this have any chance of working? Anyone ever try this? Complete waste of time?

It has good size twin fins, and a center box. I used to ride it as a twin, because it was fun as hell that way, although to look at it you wouldn't expect it to be. I was thinking of re-using those twin fins. They are in some kind of bozes I've never heard of. i would likely cut them and glass them on because I think I have a better shot of doing that successfully since I've reattached finds before. hell, i could use some old FCS fins I have laying around for that matter, but these 2 each have a small flat spot on the ends from a misfortunate "slide off the car roof on rt 35 incident", which could add some character to her.

Clearly this would be low budget, some glass resin and fin rope, and the saw of my choosing, all of which I may have in the garage.

Anyway, would love to hear thoughts. Stupid idea? Feel free to tear me apart on this

 

TAKE THAT BACK! I have the nicest turd collection around. I work 50 hours a week min, and have three kids ages 6 and under, I have all the time in the world

Your points are very valid. If I did it, my plan would be to strip the loose glass, that is already detached from the deck. Still, likely not worth the time, I get it. But what if it's the golden turd?

 

I like this plan, but I have to take some glass of. This thing is delammed on the deck so a lot of the glass is completely separated from the foam. IThe board is so sad in it's current state. But the worst of it is in the tail of the board, and the section i am eying doesn't include the worst of the delam.

Thanks!

 

I think this is beyond my skills. I've heard skinning the fiberglass off when it's attached, can be tough, as garbanzo mentioned. I heard a putty knife helps, you can slide it under the glass as you go, but the rails can be tricky and it can be time consuming. No doubt it would yield better results to start fresh, but then I would have to actually shape it!

I read the middle section of a longboard blank is a good starting point to, but this thing is not your typical longboard. if I wasn't at work I'd post a pic.

 

I have a Stewart Hydrohull that has part of the glass stripped off. Another delam casualty. I haven't been able to decide whether it's worth fixing, or doing something else with. So it just hangs on the garage wall in shame.

It was a pretty sweet board before it started to delam, so it's hard for me to attack that one. But if I was going to strip all the glass of a board to get a usable blank, that would be the one. It carries a lot of foam.

 

Took a better look at it. 3/4 of the deck is de-laminated Took a razor knife to it. In 10 sec I had a cut from rail to rail and I can literally peel the glass right off.

The foam is rough. Pretty compressed, and it's been wet many times. stringer is very proud of teh deck. I think I would have to peel more than half the glass off the piece I am planning on using, and at that point will have to address the foam before reglassing etc. If I'm going to do it, I may have to peel all the glass off and start fresh. It's seeming more and more involved. Might end up being better suited as a board for my kids. Right now they have one soft top to share.

here's some pics of the beast. need to mull this one over more. Thanks for all the feedback. by the way, that blue tape marks off 5'6" from the nose. That length would have the tail (1' up) at 23" wide

 

She's a looker. There's no way any water got past that well placed duct tape

 

hey, what'd you do?



I probably need to rethink this whole thing. Anyone have a mini simmons they want to sell me

 

You're right. And I realize I cant salvage any of the glass. I grabbed tht flap of glass and pulled, and the whole deck out to the nose peeled off in one pull. I can tell the rails will release rather easily also, and I expected them to be more difficult.

I'll strip it and clean it up. I have some block planes and stuff. Only ever used them on wood, but I know how to use them. Confident I can get it cleaned up, and then I'll ponder the next move. Mini simms or kids board....maybe minisimms that becomes kids board when I realize its goodfor nothing but going straight.

 

Consider it gone for. Skinned the glass off on my lunch break. Was very easy. Lost a little foam on one rail towards the nose. My fault, went too fast. The whole proces took about 40 min. I think the ridiculous condition of this board made it very easy.

Kind of amazing, board hasn't been in the water for years, I mean like 4-5 years, and the rail is still holding a tiny bit of moisture. last time I surfed it I did have to drain it afterwards....DOH.

Anyway, the blank ended up 6'5". It's really not very thick. By the time I clean it up, I'm not going to have that much left to work with. I also wish the tail had a bit less rocker, because I can't thin it out much.

Will probably keep the general shape, and most of the length and see what I can come up with. I'll ride, let my kids ride it, whatever.

Kind of afraid to glass a whole board though. That seems like it potentially has disaster written all over it.