Shatter Repair Advice

I recently was gifted a Harbour Rapier from my brother. Slightly used, no dings but  has some shatters in it, mostly on the rails.  I would like to repair it properly before it goes in the water, but I am not real familiar with best materials and techniques.  The board is Polyurethane foam, with a Clear Volan glass job.  I would appreciate solid advice for properly making the repairs as inconspicuous as possible.  I have had many conflicting suggestions on how to approach this repair.  If there is anyone out there who does this sort of repair for a living and has vast experience in such matters I would sure appreciate some advice or a link to a good online tutorial.  I am retired and have plenty of time on my hands, and have lots of woodworking/finishing experience in case that matters.

Thank you

Pictures?

What Huck said. Without pictures of the damage in question we cannot help you a whole lot.

Finally got a moment to upload some pics.  Here are pics of my board damage and also some of my handy board racks I built over the garage door.  They work well.

Thank you for your help and advice.













Drat, was hoping your photos would come through as part of the quote. Alas.

Ohhhkay, fortunately there’s nothing major here. For the most part you don’t have anything but minor shatters, as you said. I’d sand lightly with 100 grit, clean the dust off with a white rag and acetone ( colored rags can have dye that’;s soluble in the acetone, leaving an ugly smear) and then have at it. Sanding resin, brushed on only enough to wet out the cloth or fill the area, use a little 4 oz cloth if you want, sand smooth, another coat of sanding resin, sand, wet sand and polish. sand these by hand, don’t bother with any power sander, don’t cut anything. 

Now, I said ‘for the most part’,you have shatters. You do have one pressure ding, your 5th photo. That may have come from a rack strap tightened too much, banging it into something, who knows. Generally you live with those. You might be able to bring it back a little with a little gentle heat ( ironing the area with a wet towel on the surface, under your iron, that sometimes works ) to try to re-expand the squashed foam underneath, but there is a risk of starting a delamination with that, I probably wouldn’t risk it. Definitely don’t go wild with a heat gun or similar.

Like your racks. The cotter pins in there, the ends of the support sticks, those are a good move.They tuck in ovber the garage door nicely. 

hope that’s of use

doc…

Thanks for the reply Doc.  

If I may, I would like to ask a few more questions:  I am assuming that with a little light sanding even the small shatters could be brushed with sanding resin, blended and polished?  My goal is to seal the board off from water infiltration and the resulting yellowing damage. Also, I wondered about the polishing stage.  How is it done and what products would you recommend?  I have no idea.  I have all manner of hand - held grinders and car polishers, but I thought for such a small area I could rig a soft pad to my Random Orbital Sander using whatever compound is appropriate.  Although I realize I can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear I would like to do the repairs as professionally as possible.  Quality is my aim in everything I do.  So I will practice patching shatters first on my old 9-6 Gordie which was almost destroyed by my nephews to whom I loaned it.  They stored it out in the sun and it ended up with twist, de-laminations and big time yellowing.  I got the twist out by bagging it in dark 50 gal trash bags and clamping it to my scaffolding frames in the hot sun using progressive pressure.  I would love to skin that shucker and re-glass it, but would hate to lose the great logos: Gordie/Clark Foam/Pacific Fiberglass.  Any suggestions?  I will eventually probably get a 9-8 blank and shape an exact replica of it, since it is a super smooth and stable long board ride.  Good for old timers like me.  I included here a picture of my multi-purpose side shop I just remodeled/ upgraded electrical, lighting and air lines in case I ever get to shaping.  In the meantime I am doing woodworking aand electronics projects in there.

The ceiling racks are super easy to use and every pair of boards shares a set of stantions by virtue of the offset bar cu-outs , reducing the number of pieces necessary, and making it possible to remove any board without disturbing the others.  These things will easily hold 200#‘s so they can be re-purposed for other storage.  Easy to lift the tail a few inches, remove the bar and let it hang freeing both hands and slide the board back literally a few inches and it is out.  You can do it all from the floor if you have an 8’ ceiling.  I have a 9’ ceiling so it requires a small step stool.  Those racks freed up a lot of space for me.

All the best to you Doc and thanks much for the advice!


I’m an idiot- I blew right by 

 

I am retired and have plenty of time on my hands, and have lots of woodworking/finishing experience in case that matters.

in your original post. That changes everything. So, piecewise- 

 

If I may, I would like to ask a few more questions:  I am assuming that with a little light sanding even the small shatters could be brushed with sanding resin, blended and polished?  My goal is to seal the board off from water infiltration and the resulting yellowing damage.

Absolutely. Like you’d fix chipped varnish, say. You don’t need to add cloth unless there’s damage to the underlying glass. 

You might want to do two coats, thin the first one with acetone or styrene so it’ll penetrate and fill the cracks, sand that, then a finish coat. Go for something like milk viscocity for the thinned coat. Whole milk, not skim.  I like the throwaway chip brushes to work the resin into the cracks and for general ding work, but again, like varnishing, getting the loose bristles out of said brush before hand with a fine-toothed comb will prevent screams later. 

I like to mask around the repairs, pulling the tape as it just starts to gel, the edge collapses down and saves some sanding/feathering. 

 

Also, I wondered about the polishing stage.  How is it done and what products would you recommend?  I have no idea.  I have all manner of hand - held grinders and car polishers, but I thought for such a small area I could rig a soft pad to my Random Orbital Sander using whatever compound is appropriate. 

Again, absolutely. 3M makes some nice compounds specifically for this, stay clear of the rouge rubbing polishes which can actually stain the resin. The only thing about the pro-grade 3M stuff is it comes in gallons or larger which is ridiculously more than you want or need. My move ( now that I’m mostly out of the ding biz) would be to swing by the back door of the local fancy boat repair place with some baby food jars or pickle jars and a sixpack or two of good stuff.  

The random orbital sander is the ding guy’s friend. Not too aggressive, especially some of the older and likely discontinued variable speed Porter Cables shown below, controllable, and that nice soft pad does rounded surfaces without making them suddenly flat. And there are buffing/polishing pads made for most of the upper end models.

I mentioned gentle heat on the pressure ding before, much the same as getting a dent out of a piece of wood but you definitely can delam it if you go at it too hard. 

Nice approach on the Gordie, by the way. Did you use winding sticks to check how the twist was coming out?

I’ll note that skinning and reglassing a board never really works out, too much foam comes away with the glass to give you anything you really want to work with, you wind up going with far too much filler and more. You’ve got the experience to take good templates and work from them, all good.

Likewise the tools- yes, there are a lot of ‘shaper’ tools, but if you have stuff you’ve got experience with and are comfortable with, stick with those. Well, unless you really really want some new tools to play with. It’s an occupational hazard. 

Thinking that those racks might be handy for wood as well. In my old age, like later this year, going back to furniture making looks like a move. Like your shop - you might want to look at the local ads for a lowball dust collector to rig for foam dust and similar sometime down the line. The dust gets in your finish work and yeah, no fun. Likewise, when prices go down and availability goes up…and if you don;t have them already, a mask or masks with organic vapor cartridges are nice to have. The effects of resin fumes and dust add up. 

hope that’s of use and don’t hesitate to ask more questions

doc…

Thanks again for your reply.  This is the detail I was looking for.  I live in Gig Harbor, WA so finding a boat shop with polishing compound should be no problem. Also Fiberglass Supply is up north a few hours away, so I can have them ship the resin and whatever styrene is.  I do have acetone though. Also 4 and 8 oz glass on hand.  I have the type of 3M resin you get at Home Depot , but I don’t think it is the right kind to use here.  I used it to repair and glass the Fascia Tails on my house that were rotting due to rain water.  Also I have an Automotive paint supply, Wesco, near me so I can see about pads and polish over there if I can’t hornswoggle the polish out of the boatyard boys. That Porter-Cable looks like the shiznitt.  Mine is  just a handheld square pad DeWalt - not variable so I will cruise EBay or Craigslist to see if I can pick one up.  I like to do automotive painting and that would be a good addition for repairs and polishing headlight lenses. 

I do have a couple of old Skil 100’s around here for the shaping, but I have found them to be quite heavy.  I have a newer Skil 1500 series that was given to me and it is the one I mostly use for stuff around the place here.  Nice and light and easy to wield. I have never shaped with the Skil 100 so maybe the extra weight is a plus?  Fact is, I have never shaped with a planer. I used Surforms in the old days (late '60’s).  I have only shaped a couple of boards, and never glassed one personally.  I did set up a 240V circuit and plug on the other side of the wall for a serious dust collection system which can sit on the garage side. Less noise and space.

As far as the twist in the Gordie, I set out some veneer scaffolds on the driveway and leveled them up perfectly.  Then just kept twisting the clamps periodically. At first I started with the scaffolds closer to the center and slowly moved them out towards the tail and nose as the twist started coming out.  Since the scaffolds were perfectly level I could see where they were touching on the scaffold to see if the twist was out, and just basically using my eye.  Keeping it bagged in the hot sun of the Eastern WA Desert.

Since I have your attention, I was wondering about nose and tail blocks?  The Gordie has both, and I wondered how to install them, getting them attached and shaped to the board shape without screwing up the foam that has already been shaped.  Assuming you have to use a block plane to get the shape of the nose/tail block to conform to the foam which has already been shaped?  The way we install recoil pads on gun stocks is to set the rough recoil pad up to the butt of the gun stock and then mark the shape of the stock on to the recoil pad, then shape the pad to that mark, shaping and refining until it fits perfectly, and then it is attached without any damage to the gun stock finish.  I can see that if you attach the rough nose or tail block to the shaped board then you will have to shape it down to the foam, and that seems like a great chance to make some serious mistakes?  Maybe you know a better way?  I am gonna get a 9-8Y and see what kind of damage I can do and I sure would like the three stringer and nose and tail block configuration.  Hope I am not biting off more than I can chew.  But then again I have no pressure of time constraints.

By the way, as far as putting heat to the pressure dent in the bottom, I will not attempt that.  I do it with wood all the time, but I have a tendency to try and over do things and I really don’t want to delam this nice board…  I was just down to San Clemente for a wedding and wished I had that board with me.  It looks like an easy paddler and the surf was perfect size for my old body! haha

Why do they call you Doc?  were you an HMC in the Navy?

Thanks again and it is great rappin’ with ya

 





Gig Harbor is a great boatbuilding town, and boatbuilders are inventive types, , if they cant find a tool they make one. 

Anywho- yeah, the styrene you can get from Ace Hardware generally, and the hazmat shipping fees don’t eat you alive.But for this, you just need drops of thinner in tiny batches of resin, go with the acetone you have. 

Resin- and if I’m telling you what you know already, be patient with me. 

See, your basic polyester resin is laminating resin. Surfboard grade resin is a water-clear flavor, water clear when it goes off, many others (Home Depot or what’s called ‘boatyard resin’ in the handy gallon can)  go a little reddish-purple when they cure. 

But laminating resin is meant to have more layers put on it, ideally chemically bonding to those layers. It doesn’t completely harden when it is exposed to air which allows that chemical bond to happen. A hard gel, lets say, and no more. That is what you use ( no surprises) for laminating cloth. 

Now, what will harden completely? Sanding resin. But what that is is actually laminating resin plus a little of a styrene wax solution (often called sanding wax or similar) mixed in, which acts like a soap film or maybe a wee bit of oil on water, a very very thin surface layer that seals it off from the air and allows it to get very hard so you can sand it. That gets used for hotcoats or gloss coats, like you’re gonna be using for this repair. 

Oh, and once the laminating resin is covered with sanding resin, it does cure completely. 

If I was getting a pint or a quart for these repairs or for straight ding work, I’d get sanding resin, but if you’re buying gallons to make a board or boards, I think I’d get just laminating resin plus the wax on the side.  

Also I have an Automotive paint supply, Wesco, near me so I can see about pads and polish over there if I can’t hornswoggle the polish out of the boatyard boys. That Porter-Cable looks like the shiznitt.  Mine is  just a handheld square pad DeWalt - not variable so I will cruise EBay or Craigslist to see if I can pick one up.  I like to do automotive painting and that would be a good addition for repairs and polishing headlight lenses. 

Right? I like the Porter Cable square/quarter sheet models, same sort of deal, but for bigger work on non-flat stuff, the random prbital rigs are neat. I haunt used tool stores, Facebook Marketplace is up and coming too. Or, if your air system is up to it, there are some very nice pneumatic rigs, some are small disc rigs that can be random orbital or disc sanders by flicking a lever, nice foam backing pads and all. And yes, they are the auto body guy’s friend,. 

I do have a couple of old Skil 100’s around here for the shaping, but I have found them to be quite heavy.  I have a newer Skil 1500 series that was given to me and it is the one I mostly use for stuff around the place here.  Nice and light and easy to wield. I have never shaped with the Skil 100 so maybe the extra weight is a plus?  Fact is, I have never shaped with a planer. I used Surforms in the old days (late '60’s).  I have only shaped a couple of boards, and never glassed one personally.  I did set up a 240V circuit and plug on the other side of the wall for a serious dust collection system which can sit on the garage side. Less noise and space.

Now, I’m not a shaper. My time with planers is pretty much limited to timber work and boatbuilding ( wooden commercial fishing vessels 40’ and up, an extinct occupation like buggy whip manufacturng) and I’ve used the cheap plastic planers, the Skil 100s and my personal favorite, the Porter Cable 653 Versa Plane, a brute of a spiral cutter thing that devours oak and was, I am told, Phil Becker’s favorite, and he was ( is?) as good a production shaper as has walked the face of the earth… And I’ll also note that there are those who will offer you their firstborn for one of your 100s. 

So- my thoughts are for very rough shaping, it really doesn’t matter what you use. Heresy, I know. If you’re not doing production but rather some repairs, a board for yourself now and then, well, hey, there is absolutely nothing wrong with hand tools, it’s much harder to screw something up, you can be patient- you know how that goes. Surform, screen paper, you know the drill.

Dust system, good. I’m guessing that you’re also planning a wood shop somewhere in the mix, or a paint and auto body bay? Me, I’m trying to figure out how to do furniture, small engine (lawnmower through motorcycle) work, a metal lathe and maybe a small mill, plus welding in the same shop to eke out the social security, and it’s by no means a big shop, so I can feel for ya. . 

As far as the twist in the Gordie, I set out some veneer scaffolds on the driveway and leveled them up perfectly.  Then just kept twisting the clamps periodically. At first I started with the scaffolds closer to the center and slowly moved them out towards the tail and nose as the twist started coming out.  Since the scaffolds were perfectly level I could see where they were touching on the scaffold to see if the twist was out, and just basically using my eye.  Keeping it bagged in the hot sun of the Eastern WA Desert.

Nice. Again, it’s amazing what you can do if you’re willing to be patient. 

Since I have your attention, I was wondering about nose and tail blocks?  The Gordie has both, and I wondered how to install them, getting them attached and shaped to the board shape without screwing up the foam that has already been shaped.  Assuming you have to use a block plane to get the shape of the nose/tail block to conform to the foam which has already been shaped?  The way we install recoil pads on gun stocks is to set the rough recoil pad up to the butt of the gun stock and then mark the shape of the stock on to the recoil pad, then shape the pad to that mark, shaping and refining until it fits perfectly, and then it is attached without any damage to the gun stock finish.  I can see that if you attach the rough nose or tail block to the shaped board then you will have to shape it down to the foam, and that seems like a great chance to make some serious mistakes?  Maybe you know a better way?  I am gonna get a 9-8Y and see what kind of damage I can do and I sure would like the three stringer and nose and tail block configuration.  Hope I am not biting off more than I can chew.  But then again I have no pressure of time constraints.

Chuckling- I need to replace the pad on my old Model 12 and you reminded me of it. It came with one of those rigs, a rubber sleeve cum recoil pad that didn’t impress me when I got it.Now that;s dead and I can put on something I like, 

You have it nailed. If you have access to one of those disc and belt shop sanders then you can set the table at the appropriate angle to rough it, get the very last with rasp and sandpaper. If you’ve got access to a carver’s vise or gunsmith’s vise, you’re golden.

As an aside, I’ve noticed that many of the more interesting boards are made by people who come to this with a strong background in other trades. 

By the way, as far as putting heat to the pressure dent in the bottom, I will not attempt that.  I do it with wood all the time, but I have a tendency to try and over do things and I really don’t want to delam this nice board…  I was just down to San Clemente for a wedding and wished I had that board with me.  It looks like an easy paddler and the surf was perfect size for my old body! haha

Why do they call you Doc?  were you an HMC in the Navy?

Thanks again and it is great rappin’ with ya

Good. A lot of boards get ruined by somebody going overboard. The people who want to cut things out like wanna be surgeons or go nuts with a router are the worst. That dent won’t make any difference you’ll notice n how it surfs. 

Doc- okay, this is a story. I’ll try to give you the Reader’s Digest version.

See, I used to run a surf shop. I say surf shop, it was as much a social club and hangout as anything else. The hangers ranged from heart surgeons to F-14 pilots to marine science types to surfers and included a number of lifeguards and besides that we had the contract to supply them with their guard uniforms, Birdwells with the appropriate patches, sweatshirts and pants and tees printed to order, etc, 

And a couple of them come by one afternoon, a day or several after a nice swell. One of our guys who worked at Woods Hole had dropped off a big printout of a frequency chart from an offshore buoy, It showed the count of swells that went by the buoy, how many at say five seconds apart, so many at ten seconds apart and so on, with a big peak in the graph at ( roughly remembering) fifteen seconds, the majority of 'em.

So I proceeded to explain the connection between swell size and frequency, the further apart they were the bigger thay were. There may have been diagrams. There definitely was excruciating detail.

These poor guys were college kids, business or phys ed majors. Eventually, they left for home, I think all they wanted was a couple of bars of wax, but I had lumbered them with a wee bit of physical oceanography. And I’m told that once the glazed look wore off, about fifteen miles down the road, one says to another “That phuckin’ guy has .his phuckin’ doctorate in Surf”.

From then on, the lifeguards called me Doctor Surf, still do. Much kinder than, say, ‘baldy’. 

Though I just go with

doc…

Haha! That’s a great story.  

Sounds like we are two peas in a pod!  I like to work on engines and do all manner of repairs and maintenance on just about everything.  My shop does double duty for just about everything.   I was a bricklayer for 25 years and eventually the daily physical stress got to me and I had to go back to school at 48 years old.  Bricklaying fit me to a tee.I loved it. Later I graduated with degrees in Electronics Eng Technology and Biomedical Equipment Technology.  During the '80’s I rode bulls and studied Animal Sciences at Cal Poly Pomona.  Lived there and was assistant herdsman at the Beef Unit.  So I know what you mean.  Now I just maintain my 5 acres here and am working to get set up for wood working primarily.  I like doing Marquetry work but it seems like the property keeps me so busy spring summer and fall, and I never really get to do what I want.  I’m working on modding a solid state guitar amp to have a Vacuum tube output stage. And since it is raining all the time now I can get on it.  I think that idea to work on small engines is a good one for you.  I bet there is a need for that out there.

Well I think I have a good idea of the glassing and repair jobs thanks to you.  I will probably have more questions about the board building and repair stuff, so I hope you won’t mind me buggin you in the future.  You have a great knowledge base.  It has been great to make your aquaintence.  Thanks for everything.

All the best to you!

Chris

Not sure if my experience is “vast”, and I don’t claim professional status, but i’ll go ahead and risk violaing your prerequisites to respond :wink:

With pressure dings I will often sand the crater and lay a small piece or two of fiberglass cloth (descending in size) the shape of the ding, with resin, then sand / feather to blend, usually disappears with a final coat of resin over the patch.

In my experience with twists you have to go past straight to twist a little in the opposite direction, as there will always be a little springback. They can be stubborn.

They can also be hard to see. I use salsa cups, two up front, by the rail, and two in back, with a straight stick laid across. Makes it easy to step back & eyeball the 2 sticks to see if they are parallel.

Your setup looks good. Let us know how it goes.

Isn’t there an Englund Marine up there?  They sell Fiberglast Surfboard resin.  I think that’s the brand.  Not very good resin, but better than that junk from Home Depot.  Like Fiberglass Supply I sell resin, cloth etc. but prefer not to ship.  Cosmetics will be the hard part on those repairs.  Color match.  Otherwise pretty simple fix.  Lowel/Oregon Shapers

Not sure, but I will check.  That would be a good contact in the long run anyway.  I think I will give Matthew a call at Fiberglass Supply.  He does a lot of surfboard related work in his shop. An puts on some glassing demos.

Maybe you were at Evo a couple years ago for the Surfboard expo they put on?  By the time I got there most of the shapers (who I do not know personally) were “in the rear with the gear”  - with the food and kegger that is.  They didn’t seem to be too anxious to talk about board design at that point, so I split.  But there were some nice boards there on display.  I have only been in Gig Harbor for 5 year in Dec. so I am still getting to know the place and its people.  I keep hunkered down mostly on the Peninsula.

Thanks for the tip Lowel.  My Daughter lives in Portland, so maybe we will run across one another some day.

Thanks Huck,

I got the twist out of the Gordie just fine - that was actually a few years ago.  I really just wanted to get it straight so I could get the rocker dimensions off of it.  I want to make a copy of it since it rides and paddles nice. And it is still nice to look at!  I actually did go past the twist the other way a little and you are right, there was a little spring back.  My nephews almost destroyed it when I lent it to them and they stored it in the hot sun.  It was pristine when I loaned it to them.  Stupid me. 

I may try that pressure dent technique on the Gordie before trying it on the Harbour.  Thank you!