G'Day Guys,

Made the first of hopefully a few windsurf board repair videos with Mark at Moz Customs in Geraldton. I'll add the videos as they come to hand over the summer.

The first video is how to repair the nose of your epoxy board. Apologies for the abrupt ending to the video I wasn't able to film the board getting painted on the final day. Mark did a quick video on his phone to show the finished product.

Such a great video

I need clarification
I tend to avoid two layers of glass for fear of making the repair thicker than neighbouring surface, but I am overdoing the resin for sure.

I was a bit surprized at the 15 min point in the video where mark was sanding the glass and then again when he was sanding the filler. I was under the impression we should avoid sanding down into the glass fibers. Not sure if that is true or not, but he was going for it and I imagine he was hitting glass fibres.

How does he fade out the paint?

I was psyched to see this. I have a nose repair project (my first) on my to do list and this video is just the inspiration I need to get started.
Mark, a temperature question ... I'll be working in 5-10 degrees celsius (N American winter). Any recommendation for epoxy/fillers to use in cold temperature environment? Or what is the minimum temperature to use West system 105/q-cells?

Thanks!

door,

When sanding I was not really hitting the glass that I knew would remain. Of course I did a bit, but it needs a little bit of a scratch to help filler adhere. My sanding is all right on the edge to blend the glass to the perimeter of the paint. In the middle there is no real romoval of fibre but also remember the carbon (under the orange bit) is still intact, it was only glassed to be safe. It looks like I'm going hard but I'm not really.
As to thickness its an experience thing. I used to sand too deep and end up with lots of glass and then uneccessary filler. I've only sanded that down about 1mm at the most and then added 2x glass so the level is very very close to correct but thats an experience thing.

Paint fade: very close close match and a spraygun.... but we will try and do a painting video as it seems a few people want that

TC- fastest resin you can get but you're going to have to warm that room up a bit, no resin likes under about 15C really. Having said that some snow dweller might chime in and let us know -obviously its never been a consideration for me, out problem is trying to laminate a board in 40C plus!
Also mix it up, let it sit for a couple mins so chemical bonds are starting to form,then mix it again, then let sit for couple mins. Not too long as then its going to get hot and gel up in the pot, but mix and sit twice can help with a better cure.

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Mark _australia said..
door,

When sanding I was not really hitting the glass that I knew would remain. Of course I did a bit, but it needs a little bit of a scratch to help filler adhere. My sanding is all right on the edge to blend the glass to the perimeter of the paint. In the middle there is no real romoval of fibre but also remember the carbon (under the orange bit) is still intact, it was only glassed to be safe. It looks like I'm going hard but I'm not really.
As to thickness its an experience thing. I used to sand too deep and end up with lots of glass and then uneccessary filler. I've only sanded that down about 1mm at the most and then added 2x glass so the level is very very close to correct but thats an experience thing.

Paint fade: very close close match and a spraygun.... but we will try and do a painting video as it seems a few people want that

OK very cool. It was such a great video thanks so much for doing it. Nose jobs is by far the most frequent job I ever attempt. Adding footstrap inserts would be another job that seems to come up a fair bit among the DIY crowd. Never been game myself. And then there is the adding of foil tracks . Just in case you needed ideas for more material :)

Feel like we should be sending you some beer money.

Thanks for giving your time to make this video Mark and Paul, really useful info

Thanks Mark and Paul, you really have provided help and good advice to many in making this video. Keep them coming.

Great video guys. Entertaining and loads of tips and tricks. Especially liked the part about how to bog up those dam tiny fibreglass holes. My last project l, I filled the little holes with just epoxy and I still could not get it right. Even the do it in afternoon tip was great. And finally nice to put a name to a face. Much appreciated.

What's a good airbrush to get? I always struggle with the paint side of repairs. Tried the cheap ones but they just don't like the 2 pack paint

Paint video coming - but forget airbrushes, too fine. Unless you need it for crazy small detail work. I'm presuming you need just normal repairs?
If so, get a HVLP touchup gun with a 0.8 tip as you can dial that down to zero flow and about a 5mm circle spot. Almost like airbrush.... but you can get a nice 4" fan also. That's all I used for ages but now run a bigger gun for dual use (0.8 too small for painting whole board) - to be shown in video!


Cheap eBay ones are fine if you clean well and only get 20 or30 uses out of it. But at $30 thats OK !!!

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JCBoston said..
I was psyched to see this. I have a nose repair project (my first) on my to do list and this video is just the inspiration I need to get started.
Mark, a temperature question ... I'll be working in 5-10 degrees celsius (N American winter). Any recommendation for epoxy/fillers to use in cold temperature environment? Or what is the minimum temperature to use West system 105/q-cells?

Thanks!

Firstly great to see Mark and Paul make the video and a nose repair probably the most common repair.

I'm no snow dweller JCBoston but minimum building boards in 10 degrees so understand the lower end of temperature range.
West epoxy is great system but as Mark says repairs are easier with 2:1 ratio not 4 or 5:1, saying that if you go for 5:1 you will need to mix a higher quantity to get the ratio correct. So you need a bigger measuring cup like Mark was using for his q cell mix. Another tip is to pour into a 4litre lice cream container so you have more working time.
Definitely heat the room your working in (20 degrees) and the resin/hardener, really careful not too close to heat source (building boards you could wrap an old electric blanket around 20l resin). If you heat the resin it becomes thinner and easier to wet out cloth with and obviously goes off faster so you won't always have to buy the 'winter hardner' which are generally thicker.
Good luck

I use these for mixing small amounts of resin accurately. West system resin is thin enough to suck up without warming, thicker resins need warming up to thin them out a bit. You can wipe them down and re use them if you want but be careful not to cross contaminate resin and hardener. Easy to do if you want to mix a little more in a hurry.

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Mark _australia said..
Paint video coming - but forget airbrushes, too fine. Unless you need it for crazy small detail work. I'm presuming you need just normal repairs?
If so, get a HVLP touchup gun with a 0.8 tip as you can dial that down to zero flow and about a 5mm circle spot. Almost like airbrush.... but you can get a nice 4" fan also. That's all I used for ages but now run a bigger gun for dual use (0.8 too small for painting whole board) - to be shown in video!


Cheap eBay ones are fine if you clean well and only get 20 or30 uses out of it. But at $30 thats OK !!!

Thanks Mark, already got one , I'll just change the tip.
With mixing, I've always used a great set of digital scales that will measure 1 gram. Perfect for the small amounts. Decrepit's method of a 4 to 1 balance is great too

^^^ that is a good point. or even like 10ml of resin in the measuring cup and then the syringe to measure 2ml hardener as its considerably thinner and does suck up easy.



having said that - runnier resins have more solvents and less solids. Now far from an expert but an industrial chemist in the epoxy field told me some that are thinner don't have as much good stuff. To me that makes sense... why are adhesives so thick? Its not all filler or fibres etc. We have to thin them to make laminating possible....but a lot of improvements in epoxy chemistry in the last decade so I'm not a fan of things that have not changed in two decades and have far more use in home-build boats than they do extreme sports or aircraft etc.....

Kato - 1mm dials down OK too

I also forgot to mention to all - scrape the bottom and sides well and wipe the stick on the sides.... when doing any mix. But even more so with small qty - just the blob of resin on the stick and the layer on the bottom of the cup might not incorporate and you have 10% error already.

Great video, Thanks. Thinking about comments on the vent plug being left open, falling temps etc, has anyone tried attaching a vac pump to the vent plug thread to give the board (slight ) -ve pressure to stop any expansion?

^^^ I have done when needed -but gotta be desperate
BIG syringe connected to vent plug with a weight pulling it down.... provides negative pressure but the air coming out is way more than that volume = fail as it stops pulling negative real quick
Vac pump is too much.

If you must work in hot and/or it is expected that temp is to go up.... easiest to chuck a bag of frozen peas on it adjacent to repair.... as long as water drains away from repair.

Follow up video on preparing & painting a board.

And one for the fin aficionados.

Regarding mixing of small batches, I prefer to go by the weight. A simple kitchen scale will provide a resolution of 0.1g which is more accurate than I could ever manage with the volume.

Another tip for mixing is to use two mixing cups. Start mixing in one cup, then transfer to the second (making sure to scrape of as much as possible from the walls of the first cup) mix for a while and then transfer back to the first cup and mix it again there. The idea is to avoid getting unmixed resin on the walls of the cup, as mention earlier here too.

For those that are into boat building and sailing I can recommend the youtube channel our local legend Sven Yrvind, here you can follow the work on his latest creation:

Good video, thanks Mark and Paul, guess I have been lucky so far, my repairs have just been minor cracks on the nose edge, just coated with Devcon epoxy and then painted with a fine tip brush (1/8" wide) and acrylic paint from the craft store (1 oz bottles, blended two colors to get the right color). But if I ever have a big one, now I know how to repair it.

About mixing - thinking through it the other day, realized I'd been making a faulty assumption all along because I've been going by weight. I use a 2:1 (by volume) epoxy. I use system three and by weight, the correct ration is 100:43 ie resin and hardener have different densities - some of you are now recognizing my error. For small batches, the difference isn't much but for bigger batches, it probably is. For another brand, you should read their literature to get the proper weight ratio.

More and lots of good mixing tips in general: www.systemthree.com/blogs/epoxy-files/83509252-section-iv-measuring-and-mixing

Great videos, gents.

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Flying Dutchman said..
G'Day Guys,

Made the first of hopefully a few windsurf board repair videos with Mark at Moz Customs in Geraldton. I'll add the videos as they come to hand over the summer.

The first video is how to repair the nose of your epoxy board. Apologies for the abrupt ending to the video I wasn't able to film the board getting painted on the final day. Mark did a quick video on his phone to show the finished product.

Thank you such a great helpful video. I have a few mast strikes that need this type of work. I botched them up with attempting that green putty stuff which you mix. Sealed but looking ugly. Reckon I can go with confidence and fix correctly now.

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Flying Dutchman said..
Follow up video on preparing & painting a board.

Absolute gold.

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Flying Dutchman said..
And one for the fin aficionados.

Any chance the board whisperer can do a foil repair video?

I find the West System plastic pumps work very well for mixing small batches of resin. They come as a kit of 3, one for the 105 resin, one for the 5:1 ratio fast and slow hardeners and a 3:1 for the extra slow hardeners. They seem to last a long time. I am probably on my 3rd set in 25 years.

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Riowind said..
I find the West System plastic pumps work very well for mixing small batches of resin. They come as a kit of 3, one for the 105 resin, one for the 5:1 ratio fast and slow hardeners and a 3:1 for the extra slow hardeners. They seem to last a long time. I am probably on my 3rd set in 25 years.

I use those too, but I often end up wasting quite a bit of epoxy

If the pumps sit for a long period of time they may lose their prime. I usually press the pump down far enough so a little bit starts to come out of the each nozzle and then release it. One they are primed you can mix a batch as small as one full pump of each.

More wisdom from our fearless leader.

That Mark guy does some dodgy stuff hey.

Loving the youtube comments , I can't reply but please don't read into them too much. Like "shouldn't you use an airbrush" and we specifically said we're doing the painting that anyone can do cheap and easy. Not doing a pro painting video - it would be 90mins long and cover how to spend $2K on equipment and waste 4 days of your life learning to do an acceptable job. Spraying in a proper gun is exactly that. Took me years and years to learn how to spray like I did in that first video.

Or "you can't just put two layers of glass over that" - it was solid, we didn't show all the pushing and prodding that showed we could just do a basic repair. Basic videos to show what normal folks can do, and a few little tips to avoid the pitfalls.

More videos coming and happy to answer questions here. Not too many, I'm gonna do myself out of a job.....