My neighbor gave me this board to fix up. It’s an old 60s era Bunger, and I am beyond stoked to be in possesion of it. It has 2 bad dings from moving, but other than that, it was basically NEVER ridden. The main gripe is this fin, which is original and needs fixing. I don’t know how to go about this, or if I should hand it off to a professional.
Thoughts?
If you just got a new old board for free , fall off your wallet and hand it over to a professional .
Ye gods, a Bunger. In New Old Stock condition- haven’t seen one of those in roughly forever. In fact, I don’t know if I ever saw one that nice. And it’s good you appreciate what you have.
Personally, if I was in your shoes, I would hand it off to somebody who is a pro and a good one at that. This board deserves a good job and there’s a lot of monkeys out there doing dings, badly. I screwed up a few of these fin jobs when I was starting out. I know guys who did dings for years and never really got it. Ask around. see who does the best work. Have them do the other dings as well.
One of the good guys can use (among other things) heavy duty sander/grinders to cut the fin loose, clean it up and reattach it just like new and if you’re not familiar with the tools you can screw up a lot, real fast. But the right tools do a better job. They’ll have the right materials as well. It wouldn’t be worth it to pick those up for just this one job.
And, if he will let you, pay a little extra so that you can watch and ask questions.
Yes, you can probably learn enough ( searching the archives here) to do some sort of repair, maybe even an okay job. Maybe. But probably not.
But… look, I just got a nice old motorcycle. Naturally, it needs some work. I can do the mechanical stuff, fine,. but it also needs paint and I’m not so great at that. In fact I suck at it. A buddy of mine is very good as well as experienced. So I’m handing that particular job off to him.
It’s good to know stuff. It’s even better to know what you don’t know.
hope that’s of use
doc…
If you have to ask I’d say hand it off to a pro. I don’t know what that first guy was talking about. Wiggling it off and adding hd foam? Don’t do that.
That fin doesn’t look that bad at all. Got any pics of the whole board?
I was gonna say grind off the roving with a grinder around the base, remove the fin, clean up the surface and reglass the fin on. But, I don’t know what you’ve got there and if doc and gene says hand it off to a pro then hand it off to a pro. Will somebody please educate me about this board. Mike
I was gonna say grind off the roving with a grinder around the base, remove the fin, clean up the surface and reglass the fin on. But, I don’t know what you’ve got there and if doc and gene says hand it off to a pro then hand it off to a pro. Will somebody please educate me about this board. Mike
Hi Mike,
The Reader’s Digest version, as I’m sitting here waiting for a crazy lady. And in the absence of SammyA who really, really knows about this, see if I can give you a lead in/intro to things Bunger.
Back when, 1960s onwards, out on Long Island (New York) was Bunger Surf Shop, owned and run by a guy called Charlie Bunger, hence the name.
He built, or had built, some longboards in the '60s and '70s, I think he transitioned to shorter boards during the '70s. They were nothing fabulous, kind of run of the mill boards as regards design and innovation but they were well made, held up pretty good, though then again just about everything they built back then did if it wasn’t left out in a back yard for ten years with unfixed dings. Something of a novelty being made in the Northeast, my buddy Jimmy had one as his first board that he liked in,say, 1970 or so, red rails as I recall, black fin. . Perfectly adequate board.
As an aside, Jimmy’s brother Sugar Bear had a Newport Paipo Wedge Vector in a truly horrible red color scheme, looked like somebody took red and green paint to the foam in some sort of truly bad plaid. Strange. Good little paipo, though.
There was, as another aside, another brand made on Long Island in the '70s, Design 1 they were called. Again, for the day, perfectly adequate board.
In any event, from what little I can see in the OP’s photo, this one seems to be what he says, unused, pristine white foam, what I call ‘garage dings’ and the fin busted loose from being moved around and prolly dropped a few times. Nice enough that somebody who can do restoration-quality work should be brought in. Again, it’s not a groundbreaking innovation board or something with a provenance that would make it museum grade and it might well wind up a wall hanger for another fifty years. That’s fine. Just no reason to ruin it with botch jobs and SolarCrap, ya know?
Again, I’m hoping Sammy chimes in with a more complete story
hope that’s of use
doc…
