Creased my Drifter stupid stupid flat landing.
This is an amazing board, well used, generally well looked after and strong.
Is the damage unrepairable?
Deck is fine no de lamination, rails are cracked bottom edge.
Have done basic repairs but never a crease.
Keen to hear opinions or repair contacts in the Byron / Tweed areas.
A new drifter has been added to my Christmas list just in case.
Thanks

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dowls said..
Creased my Drifter stupid stupid flat landing.
This is an amazing board, well used, generally well looked after and strong.
Is the damage unrepairable?
Deck is fine no de lamination, rails are cracked bottom edge.
Have done basic repairs but never a crease.
Keen to hear opinions or repair contacts in the Byron / Tweed areas.
A new drifter has been added to my Christmas list just in case.
Thanks

can repair
in short sand back, qcell if you have depression into the foam, then glass, sand, hot coat sand to desired finish etc.
got 2 at home waiting for some attention... one paddle board one from kiting.

won't feel quite as good as before, bit heavier, stiffer etc and may be prone to snap either side - or might hold up forever again!

post in surfboard forum for more detail than my backyard effort if you want to do yourself, or ask for repairers in your area... and make sure you still get a new one for chrissey ;-) great board for the small stuff i thought

Why not get a board that won't crease... the new 2015 Naish Skater is so fun in the small stuff!!!!

It is expensive to get repairs around Byron. I'm mates with a few of them, and there isn't any I would recommend. Check sir V's thread on his repairs up the goldy. They looked good and were about as cost effective as you can get.
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Kitesurfing/General/Anthony-Kandinski-Pols-The-Ding-shop-repair-QLD/

Clearly it's a super strong board. It's a well know fact the stronger the board the easier it creases. I would just do the smart thing and buy another one or two and put them in the landfill with the current one after they have creased aswell. That bit of 1970's technology running down the middle of the board looks fab. I wonder why it hasn't broken yet. It's a wonder the aerospace industry can't put more wood in their planes, looks like it would make them indestructible. Boeing clearly made a huge mistake using lots of carbon fibre in the 787 instead of wood.

try your luck at a repair

boardlady.com/

perhaps get a bit informed before your next purchase

boardlady.com/stringers.htm

or give up kiting and try flushing plastic 100's down the toilet.

This...

boardlady.com/stringers.htm

Is rubbish and is similar to a few conversations i've had of late, which goes a bit like this...

The difference between the kiter who has grown up as a surfer will despise the epoxy low volume stringer less boards, timber stringers have feel, flex, spring, vibration attenuation that surfers are familiar with.

Conversely

The kiters who get into the waves coming from twin tips or sailboarding, won't really be able to know or appreciate the difference, which isn't a bad thing really.

Just my opinion

Creased boards that are repaired generally fail shortly after the repair, they are also under performers, being heavier and stiffer and chances are your rocker line is altered also, 5% of creased boards that are repaired may keep going for years, but do you really want an under performing board for ever?

Unless its around the nose you really wouldn't bother repairing a crease or a snap.
+1 for all above comments.

You're better off just using it until it breaks, it's fun riding a board you don't care about anyway - they always seem to last longer!

Every time I start going to my board repairer I seem to be on a rotation with him!

jedibrad what is rubbish is how long it's taken pro surfers to switch to stringerless designs. Which are highly praised by them now by the way. What is even more rubbish is how most surfers fear image so much they wouldn't dare ride anything slightly different. The fact is most don't have the skill nor can even ride long enough to discern benefit in a new design. As to volume there is nothing stopping a stringerless board having high volume. Except maybe a designer who has the brains to remove the stringer might have also cottoned onto this large misconception that boards with higher volume ride better, they don't.

Dont mind me. Keep enjoying boards that are heavy/break/ding/ridecrap.

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registeringisga said..

perhaps get a bit informed before your next purchase

boardlady.com/stringers.htm

Can't find much to argue with in this article... from a structural point of view.
My 2c worth. I'm not a surfer tho.

Did you actually read this ??

Picture the fiberglass skin (the steel cable): it is immensely strong (approx 25,000psi) and will not stretch appreciably (elongation approx 1%). Let our stringer (the rubber band) be made of Cedar, with a tensile strength of around 450psi (and that’s being charitable), and an elongation of approx 5%, i.e. about 5 times stretchy-er than fiberglass. As a load is applied, the fiberglass skin will remain virtually unchanged, until finally, as its yield strength is approached, it will stretch a minute bit, and then snap. The Cedar stringer will initially not see any load whatever, because it is happily bending along, not even close to its elastic limit. By the time the fiberglass gives out at its 25,000psi tensile strength, and all the load is transferred to the Cedar stringer, it – with its puny tensile strength of 450psi – is hopelessly outclassed and will fall over dead immediately. Worse yet - not only is a stringer not helpful as far as strength of the board, it is downright harmful, since it introduces a hard edge: while relatively weak, a wooden stringer – being a “plank-on-edge” – is very stiff vis-à-vis the predominant bending mode of a board, i.e. up & down. On the other hand, a single skin of fiberglass, being very strong in tension, is very flexible. Put the two together, with a surfer hopping around on the deck, and the stringer will remain unchanged, while the foam core on either side slowly collapses, allowing the fiberglass to follow suit, forming depressions, with a sharp crease on top of the stringer. Given enough time, this will fracture, leak, and kill the board.Without a stringer, the deck would have been able to collapse into gentle depressions without hard edges, and, while not pretty, would have lived infinitely longer than its stringered cousin.

As for the creases in the drifter i'd fix it myself, or pay a balinese magician to fix it… but wouldn't spend more than $50 on it

I have to wonder if you read it.

Disagree with her if you want. What she is saying is the the stringer is much weaker than the Glass. The design of the stringer does not bear load either.

If you build a board with no stringer how strong is it vs if you build one with no glass? Bit extreme and unfair, try a stringerless board with 1kg of glass/epoxy vs glassless board with 1kg of stringers vs say a board with half kilo stringers and half kilo glass/epoxy. 1kg glass/epoxy wins. Guess which is most profitable and sells the most boards, especially to repeat fools.

I don't agree with the boardlady on everything, but this I do.

I watched a doco on the history of surfing. In it the original foam/glass builders stated that the first boards were stringerless and that the stringer was introduced to prevent delams.

Dowls! The Drifter continues to take a hammering!

Mate I would ride it til it's buggered and not bother with a repair. Unless you're heading to Bali soon maybe consider getting it done there for cheap.

Drifter fixed "Doctor Ding" @ Byron did a great job.
touch heavier but was already on the heavy end of polyurethane boards.
still a good K'board for small surf and light winds.
yep a crease repair is a risk of re-break but ....
cant decide on what next

What the board lady fails to consider is that creasing is essentially a buckling failure - it has nothing to do with how strong the deck or stringer is in tension. Anything that keeps the skin from deforming (eg heel dents) like thicker laminate (heavier) PVC sandwich or cork or a thicker heel patch is going to help with preventing buckling/creasing failure. I don't think the stringer has much bearing on whether the board will crease or not seen as it's not placed where the indentations will occur.

Maybe she's right, but for the wrong reasons....

Your missing my point whilst agreeing with me….

Someone who has surfed for 30yrs isn't going to like the feel of a stringerless epoxy

Someone who hasn't won't feel the difference

As i said above…"which isn't a bad thing really"