Hey, wanted to raid the fountain of knowledge if possible. Thanks for the replies.


i bought a board a while back and want to take the track pads off it to assess for damage before using it. What's the best way to get them off?

And it has a couple of small dings on it. I don't want to put the sun cure stuff on it but get it fixed properly. Anyone on the godly specialise in small dings to get it water tight.

And last of all, how do you guys wrap the bottom of your cabon fibre paddle. I did it with duct tape before and it was a **** job and didn't knife into the water like before.

Thanks for for all the responses.

In the first photo, that looks like dried salt. It's on the inside of the board, does this mean it has taken in water?

Removing the pad: I pull/roll up the pad with one hand, and the other I "bump" where it sticks with a paint scraper. Some people use a multi-tool for this. The trick is to try to pull the pad in big pieces, and avoid ripping them in small pieces.

Cleaning the remaining glue: wet a cloth or paper towel with solvent F, apply on the glue flat, and cover with some plastic, and fix with tape on the edges to seal the solvent in place. remove after 10 / 15mn, the glue will come off like a dream with an (old) credit card or paint scraper. You may also use alcohol instead of solvent F, but NEVER acetone.

Checking for leaks: make a small basin around the area with tape (create a fold in the middle to act as a ridge), put the board in the sun with the area horizontal, immediately pour soapy water in it. Wait for 2 minutes (no more, sun destroys boards), if you see bubbles, there is a leak.

The best thing to protect a paddle blade is 3M helicopter tape (8671HS). It is magic. I use 2 layers. The great thing is that it sticks so perfectly that you can just add small patches to it when some part gets used (I hit always on the same place on my paddle blade), no need to redo all the edge. It has a protective backing, so it is easy to buy the wide ones (cheaper), and cut small strips with a scissor.

Thanks Colas.
What do you recommend for the few small cracks that are in it? They are no bigger then a centimetre. I just wanna get it water tight before I use it, it looks like a gun board.

I use more and more some Solarez. It works quite well, if you apply it properly:
- sand all the places it will go, to roughen then up and make a better bond
- apply it outside of sunlight, behind glass (glass stops the UV).
- cover tightly with a clear tape (PVC), stretched to apply pressure. I apply tape on the edges to push the resin towards the center of the repair so that the edges of the repair are flush with the board, no need to sand them: I only have to sand the tape marks at the center of the repair. Oxygen will make the solarez stay sticky, but it is only on the outside. You can remove the sticky part with alcohol. The key is to apply pressure to create a powerful bond.
- put under the sun for at least 3mn or under an UV lamp

If you just put solarez on a ding and put it in the sun, the repair will not stay in place long. That's why sun cure repair patches have a bad reputation.

Otherwise, the white you see in the 2nd & 3rd pics is the glass fibers that have moved inside the resin during a stress, and the junction is now opaque (white). It may or may not be still waterproof. To make things transparent again, you need to sand to expose the fiber and re-"wet" it with resin. I would make a proper repair for the fin box however, as it is now weaker.

If the white is at the surface, i.e. it disappears when you wet the board, just a spray of clear varnish will make them disappear.

For the 1rst pic, I don't see what could be the cause. It looks like the silk paper bearing the logo has become "un-wet" by delaminating from the resin layers? But I am not sure.

Thanks

All looks fine just surf it.

I have taken deckpads off before and it is an absolute mission.

Deck pads soak in turps. Put old towel on top, pour turps on, cover with glad wrap and leave 24 hours.
Turps will go through and dissolve the glue. Try and leave until the bond between glue and board has dissolved, not just between pad and glue or you have to re do to get the glue off. Plastic scrapers (Bunnings paint aisle) will lift the glue without damaging the board. Pad should lift off without resistance in one piece if it has soaked long enough. Beware getting turps on railsaver tape or stickers if you don't want to remove them too.

Without seeing the board, hard to say but look like slight delaminations. I wouldn't worry about them, or follow Colas' advice.

Paddle edge Nitto electrical tape - easy to put on after the first go, cheap, looks professional.

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Nozza said..
Deck pads soak in turps. Put old towel on top, pour turps on, cover with glad wrap and leave 24 hours.
Turps will go through and dissolve the glue. Try and leave until the bond between glue and board has dissolved, not just between pad and glue or you have to re do to get the glue off. Plastic scrapers (Bunnings paint aisle) will lift the glue without damaging the board. Pad should lift off without resistance in one piece if it has soaked long enough. Beware getting turps on railsaver tape or stickers if you don't want to remove them too.

Without seeing the board, hard to say but look like slight delaminations. I wouldn't worry about them, or follow Colas' advice.

Paddle edge Nitto electrical tape - easy to put on after the first go, cheap, looks professional.

Got two deck pads deep and decided **** it leave them on. I'm going to solar ex the small dings. Three of the fun boxes are like the photo (out of 5). What you reckon about them? They have cracked through the surface. Thanks for the advice.

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JosephBetts said..
Got two deck pads deep and decided **** it leave them on. I'm going to solar ex the small dings. Three of the fun boxes are like the photo (out of 5). What you reckon about them? They have cracked through the surface. Thanks for the advice.

I would do a structural repair. Cracks around a fin box means there have been stress, and it is weakened.

The simplest solution is just to sand the area to roughen it and expose the whitened glass,, fill the box holes with colored child molding putty, and put layers of glass over the box, the resin will re-wet the old glass. Then it is easy to see the colored putty under the glass and cut/drill/grind the glass above the holes, and remove the putty with some water from a hose.

The glass layers will make a bump, but it is not a real problem on the water. The more complex solution is to inject resin + microspheres around the box walls to reinforce it, sand the board bottom around the box to create a depression, and apply the glass layer as above, and sand flat.

You can do the simple solution now, and later do (or have done) the proper repair.

Fin box looks fine, that is just the edge of where a layer of glass has been sanded through. They put extra layers on top of the boxes and sand back down to get it flat. If you want to cosmetically improve it then a layer of clear would wet it out and the edge would disappear.