Hey all just looking for any advice and a place to document a delam repair on my prone board.
Back story, picked up a cheap secondhand craft of a reputable brand. Didn’t notice initially but after some use noticed some delamination around both rails. Decided to strip grip and investigate further. Extent of delam is circled in pink, down both rails and most soft under hand placement for pushup. Deck seems fine. Board has had previous repairs, could have had water in and spent time in the sun causing the delamination.
Method, thinking of making a few slices in carbon skin along the external side (hidden within black rail band). Filling with epoxy, cabosil/ Q cell, glass fibre and black pigment. Clamp down back to rail shape using sandbags/clamps. Ideally trying to avoid removing whole deck skin and/or adding new visible carbon to repair. Thinking this way repair can be fairly well hidden after repainting black rails and rebond the two surfaces somewhat
For delamination on flat bottom/deck, the BertBurger trick as been working for me. Basically drilling two small holes, syringue-it up with resin and clamp/weight it down. A vacuum pump is even better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhqqkGOtoZI
In your case, that will probably dont work because of the radius shape of the radius of the rail. Worth a try. If not, I would do a classic repair.
Cut every bubble with a dremel
Remove bad foam
Apply two part foam (or epoxy Qcell/Cabosil) on the exposed foam,
Sand everything ready for lamination
Laminate and Hotcoat/fillcoat
Sand
Paint + ClearCoat (if you care)
I would favor a classic repair as It will save you money and time on the long run, I’ve learn that trying to cut corner on repair almost always end up with you have to redo the repair the correct way. If you want differents advises, you could ask it here : https://www.facebook.com/groups/232666917793846/?ref=share
Why black out the labels? You should show what it looks like after you removed the grip! A large bubble is a problem, but soft spots aren’t. As long as it isn’t taking on water and the fin box area looks fine, I’d just ride it. But again, a picture of the problem would be more helpful that what looks like a perfectly fine board…
LaPaloude, thanks for the helpful reply! Yea was watching Bert’s video thinking of doing the same as another option. Was just concerned the resin would absorb too much into the eps core over such a long distance. Maybe performing upside down and a series of broken up sections, gravity would keep resin at surface under delam.
Trying to avoid traditional repair, delam isn’t incredibly bad, still surfable. Hoping for abit of a quick fix to get it back in the water.
Hwy1North, Didn’t want to show labels as to knock the brand. Board just hasn’t been cared for adequately by a previous owner. Once removed I removed grip, the deck looks great just a few small foot compressions. You’re right, just trying to fix a few soft spots and get it back out.
Their boards were great (with a bit of work…) for the price. The two I had showed up with the handle insert already cracked (the replacement was worse than the warranty board!) The vent screws not drilled through to the core, but they did vent the boards by drilling through a few of the footstrap vents! After the minor fix, the boards have held up extremely well which is proof that if you just do a good job of laminating, you don’t need fancy double sandwhich (Duotone and F-One which couldn’t be fixed) and extra weight (Appletree) if your’re not jumping the board.
In update … I ended up going down the less invasive injection route. Inspired by the Bert Burger method, I decided to drill a series of small holes and inject an expanding polyurethane glue (Gorilla Glue.) from my research these seem to be used a fair bit in boating delams, and easily available. Worst case I would cut back and do properly with a slurry and new carbon patches. This seemed the least invasive.
Tested on a small patch, one of the worst areas, under right hand for pop up. Drilled 3 holes about 50mm apart. Added a few drops of water to glue mix (needs moisture to cure) injected and worked in with hand then clamped down for 24hrs. Seemed to work well. Not rock hard but seemed to adhere carbon and foam with solid feel (not spongy at all) also didn’t expand too much to create any bulge or unevenness.
Followed it by the same process down one whole side of board. Ideally a vac bag would have been best but just clamped down worst areas with a series of weights, clamps and sand bags.
Now ready for a sand, small glass patches over each hole and a spray.
