How To: Fix a Wakeboard

"BJohnson11" (brettjohnson01) 08/10/2013 at 22:26 • Filed to: None

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I know, this has little relevance on a motoring site, but it's what I spent my day doing, so buck up and read if you want some cheap, easy to follow fiberglass repair tech. Last summer I was riding my brother's wakeboard when I fell pretty bad. I was jumping the wake and as I came out of my trick, the nose of the board landed in the water first, rotated me around, and somehow ripped the binding out of the board. Yes, my feet should have came out of the binding, but that's beside the point. My brother wrote the board off as a loss (even though he could've done what I did today and wrote Hyperlite asking for a new board because this one failed in a way I've never seen), and this summer he got a new one.

I took it upon myself to fix the old one.

First, I had to asses the damage. I had ripped one of the G10 inserts that housed the metal screw insert out of the board, leaving a void that needed filling.

I went out and bought a Sun Cure surfboard patch kit that comes with a mylar patch and their poly resin. I used a mixture of the poly resin, as well as a 2-part epoxy to fill the void left by the no longer there insert. I clamped a wood board across the area to get it to lay flat again as the resin cured.

Then I layed up some epoxy over the surface of the crack so as to provide a bit of waterproofing, and to fill in surface cracks.

Then I broke out the sander, and sanded the area, and prepped it for the first layer of glass.

Next step was to lay the glass. I cut a square to size, soaked it in the Sun Cure resin, and layed it up. I squeegeed all of the air bubbles out, and set it outside to cure. The cure only takes about 5 minutes. I let it sit for 10 before sanding. I put 2 layers of mylar over the area, the second one bigger than the first. I sanded the area in between laying the 2 layers.

A little bit of finish sanding to make sure the area was flat and there were no edges around the glass, and it was time for paint.

I know, the paint doesn't match, but it's what I had at the shop. That, and the area is going to be covered by the binding. I'll sand it down a little to knock the edges down, but the area is water tight, and that's what's important. It isn't going to be really load bearing as I'm not going to be mounting the board into the insert that ripped out (I lost the insert, so just filled the hole anyways), so I think it's a good repair. I'm going up to the lake next weekend, so that will be it's test.

Overall, I'm happy with the repair. It wasn't the first glass work I've done, but it was good experience. Now I just need to find new bindings (my brother sold the old ones). Much cheaper than a new board though!

dogisbadob > BJohnson11 08/10/2013 at 22:35

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duct tape :p

newcarousel > BJohnson11 08/11/2014 at 17:23

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Hey there! So, how did this repair hold up after use on the lake? Thanks!

BJohnson11 > newcarousel 08/11/2014 at 21:46

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So far all is good. There's a little bit of softness under where the repair is but as far as I can tell, the board is holding up perfectly well.

bethj > dogisbadob 12/17/2014 at 21:12

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