From Whit Matthews
I just recently repaired a hole in the nose of my friend’s board, and it turned out really well. So well I decided I would do the same on my board and document it w/ pics, so hopefully it will help somebody in the future. Unfortunately it didn’t quite go as smoothly as the first time, but the process is documented nonetheless and should still be helpful.
Disclaimer: Everything I know about working w/ fiberglass and epoxy I learned from reading the internet and working with it. I’m far from an expert and if you see anything I’m doing wrong please let me know so I can correct it.
So, here we go. Here’s the hole in my board, I’m sure a lot of you have gotten this to varying degrees. Mine was repaired with some cheap 5 min epoxy a few years back and it had broken up and yellowed, so I took a butterknife and scooped it out.
For this job, I used MAS epoxies. I’ve used them before to make skateboards and I have no complaints. I got these at Boater’s World. Notice I got non-blushing hardener, so it would dry clear and not yellowish. The stuff on the right is silica powder, it’s really fine and when added to resin it hardens it up. It not only adds structural integrity, it also makes it thicker and easier to work with. Makes it less like honey and more like that little can of glue you used back in Kindergarten with the brush attached to the cap. The more you add, the thicker it gets, so just experiment.
I also picked up a little bit of fiberglass cloth, some rubber gloves, and some little paper dixie cups. When resin cures it gets surprisingly hot, and will melt a hole in a Styrofoam cup, so use paper. Not pictured is the dust mask (or better yet, gas mask) I should have been wearing.
MAS epoxy is 2 parts resin, 1 part hardener, so what I did was picked an arbitrary amount of water and filled the cup, then marked the line, and did so 3 times. I picked 2 tsp, but I could have gone less for this first batch. I could have used 1tsp.
When you add the hardener to the resin, the clock starts and you have limited time before it starts to cure and get goopy and lumpy. If you can get everything done in 5 mins you’re golden. 10 mins is pushing it, in my experience, though it depends on the resin/hardener you use. As you can see I’m using “Fast” hardener so I had limited time. Make sure you stir it really well, and that you are exact on your proportions of resin to hardener. One of the first times I used resin I didn’t mix it well and I had spots that never really cured right and stayed sticky for months. Then once you’ve mixed it, add the silica powder. Be careful not to breathe that stuff in.
Then, I simply scooped some out and filled the hole till it was about level.
I then covered it with saran wrap because I had to turn the board over to work on other spots (I may show those later)
I let the board cure overnight. Then next night (I try to wait 24 hours) I sanded it down smooth and this is what it looked like.
Now it was time to do the second and final layer. I mixed up the same amount of resin as before, but this time, before adding the hardener, I poured some of it (maybe about half) out into another dixie cup. The reason for this is, I needed really thick resin to build up a hump on the nose, but I needed thin resin to lay the fiberglass. I cut out a piece of fiberglass to fit over the nose and down the sides a little:
I also cut up some of the frayed ends on the cloth to add to the thick resin, along w/ the silica powder, to make it thicker and easier to shape.
Then it was time to build up the hump:
And then I took the thin resin from the other cup and kind of iced the top where I’d be laying down the glass. You can see that in this pic, as I’m laying down the glass.
Then I add some more thin resin on top of the glass and smooth it all out. Be careful to get all bubbles out. If you can”t work them out the sides, you can take a pin and poke the cloth to release the air. I was sloppy and left one there on the left side. Oops.
I then let it cure for 2 days.
And, then I sanded it down really well:
