Back to what this thread started being about.
Helmy's Nalu


Plan was to fit a foward windsurf centreboard fin..
Lockdown intervened, the Nalu went away to be paddled, today it returned.
Time to start work.
I had retained my router guides, centrelines were marked, box position decided on.
Bit conncerned we were going to find the handle when we routered out - should have had about 25mm clearance.


Measurements decided on, guide taped in place.
Still using the tape measure with feet and inches and metres on it - initial measurement of 4 ft. 6" marked at 196 cm or something.
Usual mistake of marking the back of the box position and preparing to use it as the cetreline.


Time to reember how to use the router.
And remember that to get 30mm depth, had to make 2 passes as the router bit wasn't long enough.


Had consulted the Gun Da Windy thread, cut the skin around the perimeter and in the box area.
Broken bit of DC still in use for router testing.



Widen out to leave a couple of "islands" to rest the router on.
Take to full depth.


Freehand the Islands away, use a sureform to get rid of the rest.


Neatened and cleaned up.


Measure and cut the divynicel interts.
Re cut to corrrect size.
Bit of fine tuning on the depth of the hole, still no sign of the handle.
Bit of trimming of the inserts.


Let Helmy decide how much glue to mix up.
Time to glue down.



Second mix of glue required.
Fitted in and weighted down.


Stage 1 complete in about 2 1/2 hours.
I think on the Gun Da Windy conversion, that was actually about stage 16 and 2 weeks work in.
More tomorrow......

Select to expand quote

Nozza said..
had a lot of trouble blending in to the surrounding board without damaging a wider area.

Yes, it is very tricky for me too. I definitively have not high sanding skills, so these are the amateur tricks that works best for me:

- Use smooth color tape to mask parts I dont want to damage, so the sander grain kind of slide over it and I can see clearly when I eat it

- Take time to shear the edges of the repair with high quality cutting blades. Ceramic can work if you are cautious as they break very easily. With a blade you see exactly what you are doing. Use delicate see-saw movements to avoid having to use too much force. Practice can give surprisingly good results, and it is harder to do mistakes than with machine sanding.

- Pigments in the resin can be useful:
- try to roughly match the board color, so that you will need a lot less paint to cover the finished repair
- on the opposite, color the resin which will cover the existing board skin differently from it, but still somewhat translucid. This way it becomes very easy to see the thickness of the layer you are trying to sand flush

- When sanding at the edge of the repair, I tend to always water and a hand wood block. Water sanding seems to bite less easily into the unrepaired part.

- I tend to build a strong waterproof layer first, under the board level, by using lots of microspheres and injecting them with a syringe in the blank also under the skin edge. This way I "wet" the blank under where I will sand, building a solid layer (of a different color), so oversanding will not be a structural strength issue, I can simply fill the holes with some solarez. Plus it avoids any air bubbling when doing the last repair layer.

Problem at the end with air coming out of the box, and the join on the side closest to camera causing bubbling in the carbon and the peel ply.
Went for Jonathan's poor man's vacuum bag.
Beers and left it alone.

And yesterday.....

6 months or more of mind fog, had revisited the loft the last few weeks, cleaned up a bit, not doing much.
Helmy's Nalu conversion finished well.
Today I got back to revisiting the repair on the Nozza.
Had decided I had ****ed this up, too much repair on too smaller ding.
Went for a wet sand....


Concerned I had already gone through the colour, patches too big and too high.
Using a rigid bit of dyvinicel as a sanding block.
Getting better.


Had a bit of a go at the white repair, decided it was better left alone.


Persisted sanding the red repair, it's still proud of the board, but concerned I have sanded through the colour surrounding it.
Took a tip from one of Bert's videos, and got a texta and coloured in the white.


Looking better...
Think I will call that good enough....

Good you are feeling better. Saw your post in the LB page. I know what you mean when a little repair turns out larger than expected. I have a 10' 6" Munoz. Old Surftech model in very good condition. It has a small ding on the bottom. I have just put resin in hole and and pushed it back together with clamps. If it was done properly there would be a larger area of mismatched paint which I feel looks worse. Your Sunova might not look 100% but it will perform exactly the same now as before. Also I recently put a finbox about 750mm from the tail of a SUP. I think I have under engineered my effort compared to yours. Feels solid at the moment tho.