I built a board for the Texas Wakesurf Championship backyard board building competition. I used new materials so I built a prototype before building the board for the competition.
I built the prototype using 1 pound EPS, only one layer of 4 ounce glass on the top and bottom, no gloss coat on the deck, home made stringer, and Hula Deck for traction. All of those features resulted in a very light board.
Rail to rail the board was very fast. It was fast down the line too. And since it was so light it was very buoyant. I rode the prototype only once. I few friends rode it too. I really enjoyed the board.
However the board didn’t survive the first day. The glass near the front of the deck tore and the foam near the tail was compressed. I used this lesson learned to improve the charity board. I built the charity board with a prismatic birch plywood deck patch. I added a teak deck and I used two layers of glass on the deck. The charity board should be much stronger.
I liked the board so much I decide to try to repair the board. I cut the glass off of the deck with a razor blade knife. I sanded the foam down an eighth of an inch and vacuum bagged balsa deck patch on the board to cover the hole. I covered the deck of the board with a fiber glass deck patch and lapped another layer of glass over the deck.
I’ve been having trouble with epoxy creatoring and zits. I tried a couple of fluoro supersurfactants. Both were awful, lots of creatoring. So the finish on the repaired board isn’t that great.
I tapped on a pin line at the balsa boarder. I’ve applied my last few pin lines in a two step resin swirl. I think this one came out fairly well. I taped off the pin line again and rollered Hula Deck over the remaining white portions of the board.
I didn’t take that many pictures. Here are the ones that I have.
Heal dents in the back tear in the front
Removed glass
New surface and pin line
Pin line close ups
(Message edited by Bigshow on August 05, 2008)