This is my first post after lurking for hours and hours and hours on the discussion forum - man, have I learned a lot (not only about building and repairs, but also about all of your unique personalities!).
So, I scored this free 10’ Hobie that needs a lot of work, and while I’ve done some successful and clean ding repairs in the past, this has become my proving ground for more complicated work. I would thoroughly appreciate any guidance on my plan of attack.
Nose
The nose had a good chunk hanging off (first pic) ths starboard side, so I removed the deck and bottom glass and also noticed a big area of rotted foam (maybe eaten by bugs?) also on the starboard side of the stringer. Cleaned that out and now I’m filling with epoxy and qcell (not terribly concerned about weight, what’s another pound on this log?) and epoxied the broken nose chunk. Plan is to:
sand flush the epoxy/qcell bits and lightly sand the foam, then skim with some spackle and sand
epoxy lam with 2x6oz on deck and bottom in a V shape overlapping the cut made when removing the original glass by about a foot or two (mabye I’ll paint the nose patch black after hotcoating, maybe not)
Deck
The deck (second pic) has a serious delam between those chunks of old glass as a reference point. Now, there are the Harbour and injection methods, and I’ve read way too much about each. Since this was a free beater, and I’d like to get it in the water sooner than later and not invest tooooooo much time, I was planning on going the epoxy injection route and weighing it all down with sandbags (and hoping for the best!). Then sand the deck and lam a 4 foot or so 6oz deck patch.
Hey man! How much foam is missing from the nose? I didn’t think it was THAT bad, figured I can reshape the nose rails with some qcell, then glass. There is no foam missing from the deck, and everything seems firm under the delam. The fact that it’s a Hobie means very little to me, and I’m estimating total time invested to be about 6 hours. Already have plenty of supplies. For a free longboard to last another year, maybe it’s worth it? Doesn’t need to pretty, just watertight.
Shaping my first board is on the horizon for next year. Not ready to commit to that just yet.
Just cut the whole nose area out and glue in new chuncks directly to the stringer. Shape it and then leave it outside for a few days in good sunlight (be sure to cook both sides). Foam will be a nice golden brown and match the rest.
Fix the dings and get that bad boy in the water.
If you check out JoeJoe’s Instagram he has a pretty good method of fixin delams. It’s a slice, cram and weight method.
You have to make the call yourself obviously, but if you say you dont wanna spend too much time, then the logical approach, based on the pics, is buy a blank and shape & glass it.
But if u want to do it for training purposes, then by all means go for it, and while you could easily invest more than a new board, maybe you won’t, the worst that could happen is you end up with a dog that’s heavy and ugly to boot. But it may be worth it for the learning involved, especially if professional ding repair is a career goal, or you just like a good challenge.
Myself, I have done a lot of repairing old and damaged boards, including one that was busted in half, and I learned a lot. One thing I learned is some projects aren’t worth starting on.
Have u checked out boardlady.com? Lots of good info there.
I like to cut away any delams and fresh glass over the foam. If the foam is badly damaged, I do like wideawake sez, and remove the bad foam and glue new foam in its place. If its minor then resin and thickener might do, or maybe just a few layers of glass cloth in a divot.
A pound or two might not be a big deal, unless the board is already heavy to start with, then it could be a deal breaker.
I’m a fixer, and like you mention this really is all about getting comfortable with larger repairs (honing my glassing technique, sanding, etc.) before I consider building my first board. Kinda crawling before I walk, in a weird way. And that first board will not be a 10 footer, a 7’ speed egg is more my style. So far my out of pocket has been $30 for cloth, the guy I got the board from included resin and hardener. Again, it was all free.
We’ll see how it goes, I’ll reassess the situation in the morning based on advice here.
And no, not seeking a career as a ding repairer, I already have two careers, thank you very much!
Totally dig what you guys are saying regarding time expenditure, but I’m now committed and need to see it through. And yes, I wholly agree that shaping a new board would be easier. Already looking to shape my first board this winter/spring - pretty sure the 7’10" egg D from Blending Curves is where it’s at for me. Just gotta lot of research to do before jumping right in.
Yesterday I cut 6" off the nose to remove the bad foam and reshaped it a bit. I also repaired the delam section using the Harbour method and weighed it down with some garbage bags full of pea gravel - worked like a charm, no more delam.
Its too bad you didnt wait a few days for more replys on how to fix this board. I know you dont care if it a Hobie, but it is a very nice board that could have been restored to it original beauty. Next time hopefully I can do an intervention before it gets to a point of sanding / reshaping the nose.
It’s all good man, thanks! At least at 9’6” I can now stand the board up in my house. Gotta find the bright side. If you don’t mind spilling some beans, can you detail what is you did to that board? Always looking for pointers!
And I’ll post some more progress pics as I get things done to my board.
Really dude? One response was to strip it or shape a new board - not there yet, bro. Another was to remove the nose completely and glue in new foam, which makes sense, but it just seemed easier to remove a bit of the nose and reshape it and keep the original foam intact. Plus I’m using fairly rudimentary tools, and I’m not a pro at this.
No thread on this one, kind of over Swaylocks…just poped in and saw this thread, read it…went ohhh nooo! (cause that board was a great candidiate for a classic look) and I chimed in.
Patch it, color it, sand it, hang it. Not much difference in weight…before patched it weighed 33 lbs, after fixing it weighed 36 lbs…still heavy as fark. You get the jist of what needs to be done from the pics. yellow first, then do black panels. Always remember dark colors over light. All dings must be glass panel flat, all heal dents flat…no wobbles, crack, proud spots or diviots…completely sealed and flat prior to color work.
Quick update - glassed the nose and added a 6oz deck patch for the delam. Next up is spraying the nose black to match the cigar band on the deck and then just getting it in the water.
Total time spent on this? About 7 hours. I really wish one of you old heads would’ve just said “You can shape a new board in less time.” JK.
Nice job. And yes you did it the Right way. Prep and repair first. Then get rid of all the divots, heel dents etc. multiple hot coats or a layer of 4oz. Whatever it takes to get it flat.
