Hi, I’ve had my trusty surf sup for 4-5 years and recently a pebble scrapped the bottom of my board and punctured it. Need to figure out what to do about it. I also had special leak-prevention tape on the back of the board and I removed it for these pics - might as well deal with that one too. Finally, I looked carefully at the front of the board and found a sliver that looks punctured also. I have filed boards with holes before with a compbination of “beer cooler foam” and/or surf foam, then qcelled over it, finishing off with fiberglass, but my fiberglass skills are really bad and I was basically “practicing” on these boards to get good. But then I moved away from Hawaii sold all these board before I even found out how good my repairs wore, and I am now surfing the great lakes with this 1 good surftech board. I am a little afraid to attempt repairs on my own. A friend said just try to get things water tight now, and then see what to do later. So I may just use Solarez only, and perhaps apply a thin coating to all spots where it puntured through. On the other hand, maybe I should sand things down in each area, expand the area, and try to qcell and fiberglass it ? The main problem is that the ding from the pebble actually altered the surface so it is a little indented. If I just used SOlarez, would I apply just a very thin layer as is, and leave the indent? I think in the past what I found is that if you start messing with something, it quickly becomes even more problematic - I’ve ended up expanding holes, trying to sand them to be even, and in the end making it MORE noticeable vs making it appear like nothing ever happened.
If I get time later i may post up some more detailed suggestions, or others will likely show up & give some good advice, but for now I suggest you search the archives under epoxy repair, ding repair, surftech repair, etc. Lots of good information there to read up on.
will do! I’ll refresh my memory, this place used to be my “bible” - I think things have changed where they are but good to know its all still there!
Howzit, it’s been a long time since I checked, but back in the day Eva the boardlady had the most comprehensive website on repairing all things tuflite. I think it was boardlady.com.
Thank you! I forget why I mixed up the swaylocks site with the boardlady site. I’ve posted here in the past regarding board repair and know this is the place. But yes boardlady has everything here:
https://boardlady.com/repairmenu.htm
I had also started watching some Solarez videos from that company itself. I think I am leaning toward doing “minimally invasive surgury” eg apply a really light coat of Solarez to just get things sealed up, but still doing as professional a job as I can, e.g. make an overlay with the exact area to be fixed only cut out, and apply it very carefully and thinly, then put a mylar sheet over top (got to buy some) … I think even where the dent was created I’ll focus just on making it water tight, not trying to fill it to make it even again with the rest of the board. I can have a pro do that later
Thoroughly clean & sand the area to be repaired, no matter how small, & sand to fair in the repair afterwards. Goes a long way toward putting you ahead of 99% of the stuff I see on a regular basis.
I don’t see if it’s old tufflite tech with 3mm pvc foam sandwich skin or actual with thin red wood skin on heavier fiberglass.
For first one if you can’t see eps foam, just scrap pvc foam a bit and fill with epoxy solarez can work to water tight. Work clean because epoxy solarez never cured hard to be sand clean.
With last wood tech it’s better to do real repair with resin fiber and micro because if you have a leak wood will suck and board will death.
Hi Lemat,
Thanks for your comments. I got this board new around 2016. It’s a Surftech Gerry Lopez Big Darling and it has the Tuflite logo. It’s purple and smooth (or was) and built with some kind of military grade foam in the outer shell and has no wood / laminate. You can see a review / video here (except the board in the review has a black deckpad mine came white):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtR6P1S2QE4. I don’t know if that means this is “old” tuflite -if they have a new formula or composition.
So I’ll sand the back rear, and front side nose, and try to use my Solarez Epoxy blue tube to cover the area, I will do the same in the main ding in the underside of the middle of the nose.
The questions I have are:
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There must have been a pebble that created a bit of a depression (2nd pic and 3rd pic showing my hands). Should I attempt to “fill” that depression (making it a bigger area to repair) or just tab some solarez over the holes and crack/slit (see the picture with my fingers) - and not mess with trying to get that depression back to level?
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Do you think I should use solarez alone for all of the above, or try to buy and put some fiberglass cloth on top of each of the 3 areas? Without being a professional I won’t be able to sand it down just the right amount so that the glass ends up level with the rest of the board- but if it needs the strength of fiberglass to make it proper- I’ll do it (or take it to a pro). I used to just “repair” things with foam and qcell on top and leave off the fiberglass and of course when I fixed a big whole in a buddy’s board that way - it split later on in the water, since I did not realize that it is the fiberglass that actually provides the strength.
The main objective should be to repair in such a way that no water can get in. From the look of the pics seeing them on my little phone I would say that could be done with just resin. As long as you keep everything dry it will be much easier to come in later & do a more thorough & more attractive repair, if you decide to.
Fill,sand and 4oz, using Epoxy resin. Sanding or fill coat of Epoxy and sand/feather. Spray with a spray can as close in color as possible. Seal with a clear spray. Home Depot has lots of colors, some of which may be close. Otherwise use two part Epoxy putty. Fill, sand and leave it. Solar-Rez won’t do shit, but leak. Solar-Rez is Poly resin with UV Catalyst.
Thanks. But I DO have the (Blue) tube of Solarez which is labelled " Epoxy Resin" , see my pic of the tube above (last pic). The yellow tube is traditional surf boar Resin.
Mcdings comments reflect my thoughts until i saw the pic - still i have no experience with that product and very close to no confidence in it. But as i said, it should at least keep things watertight. Then get some quality products when you get around to doing a proper repair job
It’s still just resin. A coat of just resin will not waterproof those dings. Might as well just use duct tape. Resin by itself is not anymore effective at keeping out water than Gorilla tape.
Aero, Space, hi tech surfboards material are just basic materiald used in composites industrie. But better to sell …
Tufflite is surftech commercial name of composite sandwich tech windsurf standard. They change core skin material at least 3 Times move from pvc foam to xps to wood, each material have is plus and minus.
Solarez blue putty is a mix of resin and glass powder reinforcement that can be use to waterproof a ding but not to restore structural strengh. Blue is a modify epoxy compatible with eps foam but stay a bit flexy and so hard to Sand.
None of those look structural to me. Plus, the board basically looks like a beater… I’ve had reasonable success just masking off the damaged area, mixing up some 5-minute hardware store variety epoxy and spreading it over the dings with a credit card. Get it as smooth as you can and peel the masking tape immediately. Let cure. If you must, try color matching with spray paint. A much better use for your credit card than charging up new debt!
Thank you all for your input. Today I cleaned and taped off all areas and sanded them with 90 grit. Tommorow at noon I’ll apply the Solarez.
I want to use a sheet of Mylar to both push the epoxy down, making it uniform, and let the sunlight in at the same time, like they show in the Solarez video. In Hawaii all the hardware stores carried this stuff, here at Lowes in Canada I could not find Mylar. Maybe I’ll go to staples and buy one of those clear plastic things that go in your school binder to separate sections, I think that could work the same…
Just use packing tape over the solarez to smooth it. Peel off after it cures, it will not stick.
OK well I spent a couple hours on by board today but no luck. Either the Solarez was too old (I think the Tube is about 3 years old) and/or there was not enough sun (it was 21 Celcius today but a bit cloudy at 2 pm). Of all the places on my board, it seemed to cure in one spot only (back corner). Otherwise everywhere else, when I removed the tape, and tugged a little on the clear “hardened” epoxy to make sure the bond was solid - it just came off in my hand. In a few cases it took some purple paint with it, so now the board looks even worse. If it didn’t come off right away with a little work using my fingernails it would come off. Well I don’t think I’ll make it surfing tommorow even though we finally may have some good conditions. There is no local surf shop, so I may need to go to the hardware store to get that “garden variety 5-min epoxy”, or the boardlady says I couls use a “Ding Stick” or Marinetex. Ok well live and learn…
Bummer. I have a few boards, so something always needs work, but something’s always ready to go.
Yeah when I was into cars all the other enthusiasts always had a 2nd or 3rd car so they always had something to drive. In Hawaii I had 5 SUPs - a couple of which I never got to see how they performed in the water after buying them as projects from rental shops and attempting to repairing them. Thought I had learned a lot about everything related to SUP repair but apparently not! Today I bought a UV light from the hardware store, and re-tried my Solarez- no luck, the tube must be to old even though it’s suppose to be good for 5 years. Next I tried the J B Weld “5-minute Marine Epoxy” from the Canadian Tire Store. It has this pump with a double barrel and I pumped the epoxy right into all the areas. I was happy how easy it was to apply. It didn’t seem to dry in 5 minutes so I worked in the garage a couple hours. Came back and it was still wet. I brought my board inside and I’m having to wipe the failed-to-cure epoxy out of all the areas. And it’s white- not clear. Then I re-read the instructions on the back and in fine print it says to pump out a bunch of epoxy from the 2 barrels onto a flat surface, and then mix it thoroughly. THEN apply it to the area. G-R-E-A-T thanks for making that so obvious! I’ll have to try in the morning. If that doesn’t work, in the store they had Gorilla Glue Epoxy Stick (similar to the Ding Stick, just don’t know if the epoxy is water proof for that one- at least for the marine epoxy it is…