After 2 years of getting back into windsurfing and then taking up windfoiling, I managed to ding my nose 6 times. I repaired each on ok-ish. Ok in that I think structurally it's fine. The finish wasn't great. Today I started poking around and prepping for improving the finish. Originally I thought I would have two choices. a) Put a layer of s-glass over all the repairs, fair/fill it with a microbubble mix, then prime and paint. b) Just fair/fill it with microbubbles, prime and paint.

My main concern right now is just how smooth I have to sand it before doing either a or b. When I run my finger across the repairs, I can feel when I'm hitting the edge of the epoxy/glass from some of my repairs. My guess is that if I try to glass over this I will get a lot of air bubbles/pockets. If I just fill/fair it with epoxy/microbubbles, I think small knocks on the nose will crack with filler.

Two more options would be to c) fill/fair, then one layer of glass over the whole thing; or, d) keep sanding to everything things is really smooth. My concern with this last option is that I'm going to sand through some of my repairs (maybe that's ok, and new glass will be the new repair). The photo below looks pretty bad but structurally I think it's ok. Looking back, I should have sanded more before applying glass when doing my repairs.

Any advice is appreciated.

Whatever you, after you fix, it put on a nose guard!

I'm sure you will get a more expert opinion, but i think i would sand back all the repairs evenly and the paint layer and put a layer of glass and a nose protector

Sand, glass, fair and paint the whole thing.

It's a bit up to you as you may continue damaging the board. In my case, during my front loop quest, I kept making ugly repairs until I stopped breaking the board.

Then, sand until level, fill and paint, depending on how wavy your surface is or you may need to reglass everything yes or maybe at least the low spots.

Glassing over everything will help binding it all together some and make the structure a bit more resistant.

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Sandman1221 said..
Whatever you, after you fix, it put on a nose guard!

Yes they are great for hiding the cracks underneath them that let in water

^^^ agreed.

I think you're overthinking it a little..... if you glass over all that, the little voids at the perimeter of an existing repair won;t be significant. So you can just glass over all of it.
However, in the name of adhesion, and probably a little less filler later (not that the 20g will matter but anyway...) sand it all back first. I'd do that with a block and 80-120g to get it flat flat and just a touch by hand on the corners. go 3 or 4x 4oz, getting slightly bigger each time and it will be lubberly

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Ben1973 said..

Sandman1221 said..
Whatever you, after you fix, it put on a nose guard!

Yes they are great for hiding the cracks underneath them that let in water

Not my nose protector!, make it right and the mast does not damage the board, my nose guard spreads out the impact so the mast cannot damage the board as long as it is on water.

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Mark _australia said..
I think you're overthinking it a little..... if you glass over all that, the little voids at the perimeter of an existing repair won;t be significant. So you can just glass over all of it.
However, in the name of adhesion, and probably a little less filler later (not that the 20g will matter but anyway...) sand it all back first. I'd do that with a block and 80-120g to get it flat flat and just a touch by hand on the corners. go 3 or 4x 4oz, getting slightly bigger each time and it will be lubberly

I agree with this fella ^^^^ the more layers the stronger it'll be. If the manufacturers gave the nose area a little more attention in the amount of materials used we wouldn't need ugly nose protectors.

Here is a pic of my nose protector, on top white 1/16" plastic water proof wall board with black 1/2" high density gym mat underneath it, all held together with spray contact cement. White duck tape on tail ends to keep mast/sail from pulling up on protector, that is also why tail ends are beveled. The hard white 1/16" plastic top cover allows me to flip the board over, with foil pointing upward, and drag whole kit (rig attached) to water with just nose protector touching the ground. I can carry whole kit to water, but it takes more effort, and puts more pressure on my feet which is an issue when I step on something hard and sharp.

Best is to set the protector on the mast itself.

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Manuel7 said..
Best is to set the protector on the mast itself.

I got an ION mast protector, but because the mast is round just a small area of the mast hits the protector, when the protector hits the board, and so the mast can punch through to the board. With my nose protector, the mast can not punch through to the board because the white plastic layer can not stretch enough during an impact to let the mast punch through to the board, in part because the black EVA padding under it is a lot denser than the padding in the ION nose protector.

The white plastic layer is like a catchers mitt, it spreads the impact across a wider area, while the black EVA just absorbs the impact.

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Manuel7 said..
Best is to set the protector on the mast itself.

+1 for this idea coz if you've got a number of boards then you don't need to reinforce every nose!