Hi,

I just picked up a Tiga Wave 252 I bought off eBay. It cost me $6.50 with a Chinook boom thrown in as well. I didn't expect to win the auction as it was sitting at about $3 with an hour to go and I placed a maximum bid at $8.

Anyway the board isn't in bad shape. Its light and doesn't appear to have any terminal fractures or soft spots. The non slip seems to be okay. A few dings that have been repaired. However the nose is not the best and needs repairing.

Rather than just repairing would it be a bad idea to shorten it by about 150mm and then making it water tight? As the board owes me nothing it would be a bit of an experiment for me. What sort of tools and supplies would I require to do this?

Also the deck pad fabric is coming loose under the back footstrap. Could I use some sort of contact cement like Tarzan grip to fasten the fabric?

If it works out well it could be a good board for those days of very strong winds. I don't have a board suitable for those sorts of days.


Here is the board:





Here is its info:



Here is the damaged nose:





Are there any opinions on this board? I wouldn't be using it in waves. It will hopefully be a board to use on very windy days on lakes.

Can you tell what the outside skin is?? The Tigas I've seen weren't fibreglass, but some sort of moulded plastic.
If this is the case with yours, I wouldn't touch it, it's too hard to get a good seal on moulded plastic.
If it's fibre glass/carbon, with either epoxy or polyester resin, you'll be OK'
Loosing some nose rocker won't be a concern on a lake.

Cut the nose off and test the internal foam with a solvent, (petrol, nail polish remover, acetone, etc) if it melts you have to use epoxy resin if it doesn't you can use polyester or epoxy.

Feather the outside fibre glass back with some coarse sandpaper, and seal over with about 6 layers fibreglass (preferably use coremat with a layer of glass underneath and 2 or 3 ontop).
You won't need much, buying small enough quantities may be a problem.
If you can use polyester a surfboard factory may give you some glass offcuts and sell you a small amount of resin.
If you have to use epoxy, and can't source less than 5litres, 24hr araldite will probably do.

On the board is written that it has sandwich construction plus it has a vent screw like the Cobra manufactured boards. So I think its built with epoxy. The board's construction doesn't look that different to the average Cobra board either.

I'll try and source some sheets of fibreglass. I've got some two part epoxy stuff so I'll give that a go. Normally I'd try and get this fixed by a professional however as the board cost me bugger all I'd rather try and fix it myself.

Wow, I could have tried out this board today.....

I left it at home. I chatted to a few people about it and after considering our conversations I'll patch the nose up and then give it a go as is.

There were a few older style boards out today. The wind wad gusting over 30 knots. These older long and skinny boards were going really well.

However possible my favorite board ever was a Bombora proto that was quite short and wide.

Pfft don't listen to them, chop at least 200mm off it. I have an F2 Maui project that was about 260ish from memory and it was fine for a while but after seeing Barn's epic ahead of the time mods to his JP circa 2003?-ish I chopped 300mm off it. Made it heaps better, didn't look like a retarded surf ski while sailing anymore...it was still overall a fairly **** board though so it just sits in the garage...as I horde stuff

Tools/supplies needed

- Hacksaw
- sandpaper/block
- glass (carbon if aiming for baller spec)
- 2 part epoxy
- expanding foam
- ruler/pencil if pedantic
- beer

Combine those in appropriate order, profit

PS; At the point you lop the nose off you will notice it is now probably quite thick, to overcome this you need to apply 'advanced wedge techniques' in order to re-gain some nose rocker and prevent it looking stupid. See pic below