Ding Repair or Done?

[Goodfish]

It was the day of days at one of the reefs over here this morning. Typhoon Kong-Rey sent the biggest, cleanest swell I've seen at my spot in the last 5 years. Double overhead on the sets, no wind, and fast, hollow waves. Got there at dawn, forgot about my coffee and dived in.

Anyway, caught a few fun ones, but on the way in I thought I was just about wide enough to avoid the rocks, but close enough to not get whipped away by the current in the nearby channel. Sadly, I was mistaken. As I rolled in with the whitewater on my belly, the very last few rocks reared up as the water drained from the previous wave. There was nothing I could do - it was either my board or my skin, so my board took one for the team. Here are the results:

Big chunk out of the rail, bunch of big long gauges, busted fin box, and a big crunch through the carbon and into the wood stringer. The ding doc I know here is good, but expensive. I'm guessing this will set me back about $250. Annoyingly, it had a loose fin box when I got it, but it was the other box that got busted.

So my decision is: get it repaired or...get a new one. Thoughts?

 

[GromsDad]

Throw it out and buy another. When you say, "get it repaired" it tells me you don't know how to do it yourself. Paying someone else to do this one is going to cost more than the board is worth even though there is only a few dollars in materials needed for the repair. You may want to use this as an opportunity to learn a basic skill that every surfer ought to know.

 

[Goodfish]

Haha, you're right. I do a mean Solarez fix, but I've never even tried to fix a ding of this magnitude. The cloth and resin are hard to come by over here, and I wouldn't know where to start in regards to filling in the missing chunks. Maybe I'll hold on to it for a while and see if I can pick up some off-cuts of cloth from visiting shaper friends...

 

[Aruka]

You need Q-cell to fill in those gouges. After cutting away all the busted fiberglass, and cleaning up the wounds you mix the q-cell or microballoons with resin until it's like mashed potato consistency and then fill the big voids with it. You want the most "dry" mix you can get, you're trying to fill the void with a lightweight foam replacement not a heavy resin-rich material. Once the filler dries you sand it down flush and then glass over it.

The fin box will probably be the biggest challenge depending on the severity.

If you can get all the materials and you have the time and desire, go for it. It's a good opportunity to learn some valuable repair skills and if you can pull this one off cleanly you'll be ready for just about any future mishaps which will probably seem easy by comparison. If you're on a trip and you can't get all the materials needed I don't think anyone would fault you for giving it a pass.I probably wouldn't pay that much to get it repaired myself.

 

[sushipop]

Sell it for $100 and apply that to a new one. Someone handy might be interested in scooping it up.

 

[Havoc]

lil solares n your back out there!

 

[sushipop]

Or duct tape. “If you can’t duct it, fvck it.”

 

[Duffy LaCoronilla]

it was either my board or my skin, so my board took one for the team.

Wrong choice.

 

[averagejoe]

its completely fuckedbeyondrepair

 

[Clamsmasher]

Two rules to live by:

1. Always check for an Adam’s apple.

2. Fix that board yourself.

Not with solarez, you’ll need to get the good stuff this time.

 

[silentbutdeadly]

Could be wrong but with that much to repair and it being light to begin with it's gonna make it klunky.

 

[Clamsmasher]

The angle probably makes that look overly dramatic as far as volume of q-cell required.

If you make the resin/q-cell fairly dry, at least that component of the repair will be light.

Pity you don’t live around the corner Fishgood, we’d knock that over in an arvo.

 

[Havoc]

Two rules to live by:

1. Always check for an Adam’s apple.

2. Fix that board yourself.

Not with solarez, you’ll need to get the good stuff this time.

 

[ghostshaper]

Take it back and show the shaper. He might give you a deal on the next one. Good time to talk about things you didn't like and changes for the next one (tweaked dims, etc.). Bring his favorite beer. Enjoy the surfer-shaper relationship which makes this craft unlike any other custom product experience.

 

[GromsDad]

Or take it back to the surf shop where you bought it and tell them it was poor craftsmanship and that this should never have happened to your new stick. Ask for your money back. People do it all the time.

 

[Goodfish]

You need Q-cell to fill in those gouges. After cutting away all the busted fiberglass, and cleaning up the wounds you mix the q-cell or microballoons with resin until it's like mashed potato consistency and then fill the big voids with it. You want the most "dry" mix you can get, you're trying to fill the void with a lightweight foam replacement not a heavy resin-rich material. Once the filler dries you sand it down flush and then glass over it.

The fin box will probably be the biggest challenge depending on the severity.

If you can get all the materials and you have the time and desire, go for it. It's a good opportunity to learn some valuable repair skills and if you can pull this one off cleanly you'll be ready for just about any future mishaps which will probably seem easy by comparison. If you're on a trip and you can't get all the materials needed I don't think anyone would fault you for giving it a pass.I probably wouldn't pay that much to get it repaired myself.

Sound advice and great knowledge, without the salty flavour of the following classics. Sadly, I don't have the space, time or access to all that good stuff. That's why ding doc is my only option to help the board to keep living the dream.

Sell it for $100 and apply that to a new one. Someone handy might be interested in scooping it up.

This is worth a try, but it'd still be a hard sale around here.

lil solares n your back out there!

Yewwww! I'm on it!

Or duct tape. “If you can’t duct it, fvck it.”

It would be painful and scratchy. I would worry about terrible friction burns.

its completely fuckedbeyondrepair

I love you.

it was either my board or my skin, so my board took one for the team.

Wrong choice.

Bone and skin dings would make me do a sad face.

Two rules to live by:

1. Always check for an Adam’s apple.

2. Fix that board yourself.

Not with solarez, you’ll need to get the good stuff this time.

Time and access to the goods make that difficult.

Could be wrong but with that much to repair and it being light to begin with it's gonna make it klunky.

Yeah, plus I'm not sure about what the issue would be of filling the holes with non-XTR materials.

The angle probably makes that look overly dramatic as far as volume of q-cell required.

If you make the resin/q-cell fairly dry, at least that component of the repair will be light.

Pity you don’t live around the corner Fishgood, we’d knock that over in an arvo.

Out of interest, what would you charge for a repair job like this down under?

Take it back and show the shaper. He might give you a deal on the next one. Good time to talk about things you didn't like and changes for the next one (tweaked dims, etc.). Bring his favorite beer. Enjoy the surfer-shaper relationship which makes this craft unlike any other custom product experience.

That would be epic, and I'm sure Javier would play ball, but it'd a couple of thousand dollars roundtrip after everything was included.

Final say: I love the errb. Saltiness is what makes us who we are! Apologies to all for being pathetic and not having the time, skills or resources to fix this mess myself.

 

[hackeysaky]

This is one of those situations where it would sit in the corner of my shed/shop and I'd use excess resins, cloth, etc. to sloooowly patch it back together enough with the goal of loaning it to local groms and eventually give it away to a deserving one in need OR patch it enough for an artist friend to use as a canvas if it can't be structurally shored up.

 

[racer1]

It's an XTR, so do you even need to fix it?

Joking, but I would fix it. XTR is strong enough (and waterproof) that you could do a poor job on it and it would probably still be fine.

 

[FARTHAMMER]

I would fix it, paint it and continue to destroy it. If it rode weird I would give it away or use it behind a boat or something.

 

[Goodfish]

Good points, all of you.

Racer, yeah it seems a shame to give up on it. I wonder if there would be any issue with the material they use to fill the missing chunks and the xtr foam?