DIY Surfboard Repair…Almost Fail

If you remember,  We were preparing to go the the surf festival a few weeks ago.  I went to grab my surfboard, only to discover that it had a good size crack down the middle.  It was a very sad moment in my surfing history.    This Saturday was the day.  I was all siked up about repairing the three inch crack in my surfboard.  My husband, Steve and I drove to Home Depot for supplies to do the repair.

First, I laid my surfboard out in the yard for a little Florida sunshine for 15 minutes.  (This melts the wax enough so that I can scrape it off easily.)When the wax melts it should be soft and shiny but not so wet that it drips down the side of the board.  I scraped the wax off the top of my board and then washed the areas in need of repair with soap and water.

I set the board up on saw horses in the garage, turned on my music and started inspecting my board for more breaks and dings.  I found a few so I marked them with blue sticky notes.  I used 100 grit sand paper to sand down all the cracked areas on my board.  When I started to work on the long crack in the middle of my board, I opened up the crack with a knife and a made sure there was room for the fiberglass mixture to fit into the cracks so that it bonds correctly to the board.

Now, you should know that I have done a couple of repairs to my board in the past so I should have stopped when I noticed a few concerning issues.  I opened the container of Bondo and saw some green paste.  Ok, granted I should have stopped there but, I kept going.  I kneaded the tube of hardener as instructed.  I put some green Bondo on the hard surface and added the hardener and mixed almost completely.  Then I took it over to the surfboard and started applying the fiberglass mixture to my board.  By this time it was brown in color but I was hoping that once it dried  that it would some how magically dry to a crystal clear appearance.

So, here I am spreading this brown goop on my board and suddenly before I can thin it out, it dries up on me.  “For the love of Peanut Butter!”  Shortly after I did this, crying ensued.  But, I continued to work on the other areas of my board.  I was upset about the color but at the same time I was determined to fix my board so that I could go surfing on Sunday.  This green to brown, hopefully magical fiberglass mixture was all that I had to work with and I didn’t want to stop.

I spent a good hour sanding down all four areas where I added the the fiberglass blend.  Unfortunately, it dried so fast that I couldn’t thin it out fast enough.  This meant that I spent the next hour and a half sanding down the fiberglass splooges (if it’s not a word, it should be).  Every twenty minutes I would take a break inside and then get back to work on my board.  In the end, I managed to make it look acceptable.  I sanded it down as much as possible and tried to keep in mind that I’ll be getting a new surfboard soon.  After all, my birthday is coming up.  I’m turning 32…again.

I’ve decided to make this board the one that I paint a mural on later.  I’ll hang up on my back porch when I’m a little more confident in my painting abilities.

Here are  the before and after photos.  It’s kinda funny lookin’ but the repair worked.  I took it out for a test drive on Sunday and you almost don’t see it once the board is covered with wax.