I’m trying to improve my ding repair skills and hope I can get some questions answered about my current repair process. I’m trying to learn how to get the final repair feeling as unnoticeable by touch as possible.
I sand down to the weave of the original glass about 1 inch or so around the ding. I’ve tried sanding the filler slightly below the original glass but have had a slight dip in the finished repair after hot coating. Is that because I sanded too far below the surface, or have I worked the glass too flat?
I tape around the sanded area and have the big piece of cloth going past the tape so I can squeegee the cloth flat without the edges fraying off little pieces. I’ve tried laying the cloth patches in different orientations, large on top vs bottom. A large piece on the bottom might feather or level out slightly better, but it is much harder to squeeze the resin out of the small piece without it fraying. I’ve run into some problems cutting or trimming the cloth around the glass where I either slightly dig into the hot coat or lift the edge. You can see the changed edge in the final repair. Is this just a matter of practice, or is it better not to tape off the patches like that?
The hot coating stage I’ve been having a lot of trouble with. After I brush the coat on and it sets, the bump on the edges still seems noticeable even after I sanded it down before hot coating. I then try to level it out more and end up sanding through the hot coat. I’ve found that when I reapply the hot coat again, it levels out a lot better. Is that because some of the hot coat around the edge is still there, so doing another hot coat on top is kind of making layers that help level out the repair better? If so, would taping off the main repair and doing another hot coat layer around the edge from the start be preferable?
Sorry for the long post. I wasn’t sure how to simplify it without leaving out my thought process where I would be able to get the best feedback.
When I was a teen my dad taught me how to tape and spackle drywall. Working on boards is very similar to what he taught me. The cleaner you work the better your result. Don’t slop the resin on. One thing I use that helps tremendously is using scraps of laminating film you can get from a local print shop, wax paper and plastic sheeting over top of dings to really smooth things out. Another ding repair tip is to brush the resin onto the area being repaired and then set your cloth into the resin. The resin will wick into the cloth from underneeth. When hotcoating and sanding work from the center of the repair outwards. Also for your final finish sanding let the resin really harden up before you finish sand. For blending the repair into the original surrounding glass, Wet sand paper is your friend and you can start wet sanding at 220 and go up from there even.
Double hot coating a ding repair is not a new practice, I would go so far as to call it part and parcel with ding repair itself IMO. If you are having trouble with frays on your patches something you might like to try next time is to razor around the patch before the resin is fully cured. Very clean patch edge.
…or adding more layers of glass to fill the divot. As long as you end up a little high you can always sand it flush and feather the edges in the process
Thanks for the advice. I’ll definitely be trying those tips out.
In that other repair thread you linked, Huck, did you apply two patches to a pressure dent you wanted to level out better? So you wouldn’t be too worried about sanding through a little bit of the top patch as it had the glass of the original board still on it.
For those smaller patches, did you do any that had damage to multiple layers of glass exposing the foam, or was it only the top layer that was damaged/cracked? Meaning you could sand the repair to fit like a suncure patch because you had the original cloth underneath to bond to. As I always thought, the goal was to get an overlap of the new glass over the original glass in a repair but avoid sanding through patches where possible.
Each patch is a little different, some over raw foam and jagged edges of torn fiberglass, some just filling in a dent. If I had a picture to comment on I might make a suggestion on how I would handle it.
There’s not always a right or wrong answer, but some solutions are more logical, and stronger, than others. I’m not super focused on aesthetics cuz I tend to keep my boards for years, so the new has generally worn off already. But I like to keep them water tight and presentable looking.
I’ve posted what I’m working on now, which has a few things to fix. I hope the photos are clear enough to see what’s going on. This board has taken a beating, don’t ask how all those holes got there. They got professionally repaired before I got into repairs. One of those filled holes recently delamed as well as the crease forming. The hole was filled with a spare bit of foam and qcell on top. I’ve pulled the lose bit out and plan to try and refill it with a foam block again.
I read an old post from doc I think that said if the glass isn’t cracked/delaminated, you don’t need to cut out the dip created by the crease. You can just fill over the existing glass, Is this correct, or have I misunderstood? Because I want to minimize cutting the original glass where possible. I have made too many past repairs bigger than they needed to be.
So is the best approach to glass the full width of the board with some overlap on the bottom of the board. And 4 inches or so lengthwise from the crease. But have the glass patch in a diamond or butterfly shape to prevent developing a stress point.
Do those smaller crease lines on the other areas of the board need to be looked at as well?
Is it ok to paint over foam with acrylic paint for ding repairs before lamination? I heard it’s fine to do for laminating full boards, but I was unsure if the smaller scale of glass would mean the repair is more susceptible to delamination due to the bond with the paint.
You can paint foam before glassing, but I don’t see the need in your case. You can do a foam “dutchman”, or just use some q-cell thickener and resin. No need to remove the glass on a crease, as long as it hasn’t delammed (as doc sez). I just sand the area, glass over the low spots to build it up, then sand and feather everything. Repeat if necessary. Then a final coat. With a board as beat as that one, I usually sand the whole board, fill all the low spots I want filled, sand and feather all the patches, then put a final coat over the whole thing. That’s just me, lots of people would confine their work just to the specific area. Here’s a link to a thread I did awhile back.
