2010 Excite Ride. Something about this poor board - never dinged a board before this one. It copped its first ding on its second outing. Had that one professionally repaired. But over the years since it's had a few doses of Knead It in the same spot on the nose. In the past it's just seemed like the outer paint layer was damaged and the layer underneath was okay. But yesterday a new layer was revealed. The old Knead It just seems to shatter with light contact and chips off.

It was only on the water for 1-2 runs after. I've left if in the sun all day today. Do you think it should be okay to cop some more Knead It? Or should I try something else? Could water be in the core and should I be worried? I don't think it's worth $100+ for a professional repair, but it is a super comfy light wind board and I don't want to wreck it either.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

Not a difficult repair - what do you want to achieve?
Usable and strong and looks OK
Or just watertight
Or really strong?

For (1) - any of the repair threads here
(2) gaffa tape over it would do, or more knead-it

(3) a bit more work (see #1 and add more materials over wider area)

DIY would be $50 ish.

repeated dings and just knead it has weakened the sandwich. If you want a good job, all the cracked area needs to be sanded back so that all the damaged fiberglass is removed, also any damaged d-cell. When you remove the damaged d-cell you'll be able to tell what the inside core is like, if, there's a layer of intact and dry fiberglass under the d-cell the core is probably OK. If not then also remove the interior damaged fiberglass, then see how wet the core foam is. If that's wet, you can help it dry, by standing nose down, with a soaking up type of material, (ie towel) pressed against the foam, this will "wick" the moisture out into the atmosphere, but it could take a while, perhaps a week or so.

After that use an epoxy based bog to fill the holes and sand off level with the d-cell, then you need 2 or 3 layers of fiberglass over the whole area.
I'd be using a layer of Carbon kevlar with a couple of layers of glass over the top, this will make the nose much tougher. But be warned if you're tempted to try this, sanding kevlar is a no no, it goes into fluff, making any sort of finish impossible.
If I sand into it, there's 2 alternatives.
1, another layer of glass over the top.
2, a sequence of shaving the kevlar fluff with a very sharp blade, followed by a thick coat of paint that is heavily thinned so it shrinks when it drys, pulling the fluff back towards the board. Repeat this until all fluff has gone.

Awesome. Thanks so much. We are all very lucky to have you both

Looks like you need to do what I just tried, only a little less sanding!
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/General/Board-Repair-7/

you can save yourself some sanding of the fiberglass, by taping some flexible plastic over it. make sure the plastic extends past the fiberglass, and use masking tape to stretch it as tight as you can in all directions. This will squeeze out any surplus resin and if you're careful and stretch all the creases out of the plastic, give you a nice smooth finish.

Time I matured past Knead It. I think I'm going to have a crack (excuse the pun)

Great photos berowne - thank you! You mentioned that you over-sanded the d cell, but it looks like the crack was still visible when you started your fill. So it's not necessary to completely remove the crack? If not, how do you know how far to go down? Did you use a layer of carbon kevlar as decrepit has suggested, or just glass?

Thank you!

The d-cell is there for compression strength, filling any cracks with resin is fine. I regularly butt join d-cell in my boards without any issue. It's the stuff in tension, (the fibers, be they glass, kevlar or carbon) that needs to be well overlapped.
I don't think he cloth under the d-cell is quite as important as the stuff on top, but still I'd feel a lot more secure knowing the stuff underneath had structural integrity.
In berowne's case though, the crack appears to be running along the board rather than across it, this is also a bit less critical.

Thanks so much for all this info decrepit. Sorry if these are stupid questions - do you have any hot tips for where to source the materials, particularly carbon kevlar? Any recommendations for preferred brand/type of epoxy bog or glass sheets? I've noticed there's even a few different types of glass sheet out there, some with different weave? Thank you!

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needsalt said...
Thanks so much for all this info decrepit. Sorry if these are stupid questions - do you have any hot tips for where to source the materials, particularly carbon kevlar? Any recommendations for preferred brand/type of epoxy bog or glass sheets? I've noticed there's even a few different types of glass sheet out there, some with different weave? Thank you!

No, stay away from carbon kevlar. You have a high chance of creating a disaster for yourself if you use it. For the repair you want, glass is fine. As others have pointed out, kevlar is a paint to cut, and won't sand.

I'm not as up to speed as some of the other guys, but a twil weave is used for complex curves as it wraps around much better. Again, you probably don't need it. I have seen it in carbon, but not glass.

Can you buy epoxy, fibreglass cloth, and microballons where you are?

You can get glass in a twill or satin weave that will go around curves nicely.
Needsalt, you don't need epoxy bog - mixing q-cell (microbaloons) in with the epoxy makes it into a filler. So u use the resin for laminating the glass, and then for making your filler

Uh oh. Decrepit mentions epoxy based bog. Would he have been referring to q-cell and resin?

Hmmm... maybe I am out of my league and should go with dodge-up advice you gave DudeAbides?

Hey Nic, I've got Q-cell here if you want some. Ain't got any resin or mat though... My suggestion, take it up to Loyd at Nambucca surf shop. Do it once, do it right

You don't need much of any of the materials, so if there's a boat builder or surfboard factory near you they'll probably have off cuts of fiberglass fairly cheap. Hardware stores, and marine suppliers quite often sell fiberglass cloth in small quantities.
For your purposes the weave isn't all that important, but don't get anything heavier than 6oz or 200gm 4oz or 125gm is also OK.
Don't use matt! And make sure you don't only use epoxy resin! polyester or vinylester will melt the core foam.

Yep, by epoxy bog I meant epoxy with a filler of some kind to thicken it up.
Qcell is good as it also make an easy to sand bog, but I've heard of people using flour as a filler, don't know how that works, never done it.
Surfboard manufacturers/repairers should have some sort of filler.
Not sure where you'll get epoxy resin though, our boat chandlers carry it here, you may need google. And it's only available in 5litre packs. Much more than you need.

100ml should be adequate to fix your board. If you can't find anything else 24hr araldite will suffice, but it's a bit thick and doesn't "wet out" cloth very well, so it's a last resort only.

I wouldn't recommend trying the carbon kevlar until you've had a bit more experience. There's not many professionals that will attempt it, if you sand through it, it's a time consuming process to get a decent finish.

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needsalt said...
Uh oh. Decrepit mentions epoxy based bog. Would he have been referring to q-cell and resin?

Hmmm... maybe I am out of my league and should go with dodge-up advice you gave DudeAbides?

Yes, that's exactly what he is referring to.

It can be easy repairing boards, but sometimes you have to buy a decent amount of materials, and only end up using a small amount in your repairs, so it makes the repairs look expensive. If you do a few repairs over time it is cheap, but for a one-off probably not.

There is also some skill in it. You don't need much, but again, it gets better the more experience you have and the better tools you have to work with.

You guys are all awesome. Thank you so much

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decrepit said...
Not sure where you'll get epoxy resin though, our boat chandlers carry it here, you may need google. And it's only available in 5litre packs. Much more than you need.

Dunno about that.
West 105 resin with a 205 fast or 206 slow hardener comes in a 250ml/50ml (ish) combo for about $30

Enough to do about 10 simple board repairs - and every windsurfer on the planet should buy that kit and some q-cell IMHO.
Then when you ding it you may need 3 bits of fibregflass cloth about the size of a cigarette packet.

Not nice to ding your board - but it is real nice to ding it, think "I don't care" and have a proper repair done in 2 evenings and be back on the water....

Thanks Mark, guess I've only bought west system in big packs, nice to know it comes that small. At that price it's probably cheaper than 100ml of araldite.

Okey dokey. Try not to laugh - nothing to lose remember ;-)

Sanded back damage today. Sanded through damaged glass. Foam was dry but a bit crumbly underneath so I kept going until it was firm. What do you think?? Too much sanding?? Not enough??



What is the grey stuff? It's hard. Does the orange ring mean anything?

On top there was a surface crease/crack. Couldn't tell if it was watertight so I sanded until it was gone. It was right in the middle of the wood below and can't be seen now. Should I just leave it now or could there be damage underneath?



Thank you very much! I might have gotten a LITTLE carried away with some 'oooh I wonder what's underneath here...'

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needsalt said..
Okey dokey. Try not to laugh - nothing to lose remember ;-)

Sanded back damage today. Sanded through damaged glass. Foam was dry but a bit crumbly underneath so I kept going until it was firm. What do you think?? Too much sanding?? Not enough??

What is the grey stuff? It's hard. Does the orange ring mean anything?

On top there was a surface crease/crack. Couldn't tell if it was watertight so I sanded until it was gone. It was right in the middle of the wood below and can't be seen now. Should I just leave it now or could there be damage underneath?

I think you sanded too far, but it depends on how much effort you wanted to restore it. The orange ring is the divinycell, which is a stronger type of foam that is meant to surround the styrofoam. It gives the board strength. Without it, it would dent really easy. It is also impervious to water. Styrofoam isn't.

The grey stuff looks to me to be fibreglass.

I think you could have repaired it without sanding past the first layer of fibreglass, even if the divinycell was cracked. You can seal it with epoxy and filler without having to rebuild the whole lot.

To repair it now is more work than it would have been before. I know you wanted to sand out the damage, but without the proper equipment its hard to get it back to the way it should be.

Now, you need to use an epoxy and filler paste as a glue, and glue a block of styrofoam to the damaged section. Once this sets, you are then going to have to shape it to the shape that it needs to be to give the board its nose. You can shape it with a random orbit sander on SLOW.

You will then have to form some divinycell over that shape, and glue it down with the epoxy filler paste.

Once that sets, be careful shaping it as the divinycell is not too thick. This is going to be your final shape.

Then you need to use fibreglass (i.e. epoxy and fibreglass cloth) over the lot of it.

In fact, given you have probably sanded it flat, it might be easier for you to just use layers of divinycell one on top of the other, and then sand this to shape to give you back the nose profile.

Did you find a supplier of epoxy, glass, and divinycell?

On second look, maybe the grey stuff you are talking about is some sort of filler from a previous repair. It could be 'knead it', and be pretty tough. but structurally not a great idea. (Don't sand it away, leave it there!)

Nichol it depends on what materials you have and if you just want to seal it or you want it back to original , if you just want to seal it you will need to sand a bit more around the surface of the repair about 20cm, and you mite need to take just a small amount of the white foam away from the brown stuff,if you don't have any divinicell, epoxy resin (like mark said ) get some araldite and give every thing you have sanded a good smear , then wait for it to go tacky then lay two layers of glass over it and add some more araldite and wet the glass out, again wait for it to go tacky then get some heavy duty blue making tape and tape the whole repair

when it has cured give it a sand and repeat e.g. araldite 2 more layers of glass and more araldite wait for it to go tacky again and tape again , if the aradite hasn't cured to much it should move under the tape and you can fare it in reasonable close to the original board
it wont look pretty but it will be sealed an you can get the stuff from the hardware

you will also need to sand underneath the board to give it a good bond

Lol. Or I can just seal it and have a board with a flat nose? Isn't the nose of a freeride board just for looks and dents anyway?

The grey stuff must be factory grey stuff whatever it is!

I have epoxy resin and hardener, and some sort of q-cells. So I need divinycell too? I wanna do it the hard way and make it strong and pretty again

Thanks so much for all your advice

Think I might try FN's layers of divinycell plan. Any hot tips for the type of divinycell I should get and a source? Seems to be different thicknesses etc out there?

THANK YOU!!! I wish I could share a carton with all my advisors like we would if we were all standing round talking about how to fix my mess in real

I'd buy 3mm as that is most common for sandwich board repairs and you will find the leftovers very helpful later on

found this guys blog on the topic of nose repairs.
Looks like a good job and similar to what you require

www.pablocases.com/?page_id=823

^^ Quite overly complex I think....

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needsalt said..
Think I might try FN's layers of divinycell plan. Any hot tips for the type of divinycell I should get and a source? Seems to be different thicknesses etc out there?

THANK YOU!!! I wish I could share a carton with all my advisors like we would if we were all standing round talking about how to fix my mess in real

nichole theres nothing wrong with a square nose, theres a lot of work adding foam and 3mm divinicell to your board , divinicell doesn't come pre shaped you will need to use a heat gun you will also need to cut some flutes to make it fit , if you still want to go ahead with the full nose job , don't try an laminate the divinicell when its wet, again you will need too wet the divinicell out and stick some wet glass over the core and wait until the both goes tacky then tape it down with some strong blue masking tape , the easy way out is if you want to use divinicell stick it on the flat core , again it wont look pretty
most of the tips you have been given with the divinicell is the way to go but no one has told you how hard it is to apply around the nose ,

Just glue a nose block of Divinicell onto the end of the nose, once dry reshape the divinnicell to the nose shape you want, then glass top and bottom with 6 layers of 4oz glass, sand, then paint.

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OESaustralia said..
Just glue a nose block of Divinicell onto the end of the nose, once dry reshape the divinnicell to the nose shape you want, then glass top and bottom with 6 layers of 4oz glass, sand, then paint.

great idea OES ,or surfboad foam mite be easier to find but she will need to give it a good coat of bog so the epoxy with stick to it

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OESaustralia said..
Just glue a nose block of Divinicell onto the end of the nose, once dry reshape the divinnicell to the nose shape you want, then glass top and bottom with 6 layers of 4oz glass, sand, then paint.

Yep that's what I was thinking when I looked at that repair blog, was trying to be nice when I said overly complex.....
Trouble is, I find it hard to get big blocks can only get sheets up to 10mm thick. Any leads on bigger stuff?