How to Repair Small Dings in a Surfboard
I was surfing with a friend recently and he made the comment that his surfboard was starting to get waterlogged. I couldn’t see any visible damage to his board, so I asked him to show me the damage. I was surprised to hear that it was just several very small dings. Really just tiny holes not much bigger than you could make by puncturing the surfboard, say with your pencil. It won’t work on larger cracks or larger holes, were just talking about small punctures. Any dings larger than 50% of the size of a dime are too large for Sun Cure to work.
My friend hadn’t repaired these small holes because he thought it would mean taking the surfboard into the surf shop to have it repaired. He would then be without the surfboard for a few days or perhaps he was just too darned cheap to have the surfboard repaired.
There is a very simple to use product on the market to repair small dings in your surfboard. It is so simple, you really can’t mess up a repair with this stuff, and the bonus is that it doesn’t even cost ten dollars. It is called Sun Cure and one tube of the stuff is enough to do about 10 small ding repairs. I keep mine in the fridge and it’s still good after a year. After we finished surfing that day, we stopped in at the surf shop in Dominical Costa Rica and he bought a tube.
On the ride home, he was asking me how to do the repair and he was certain I was leaving something out. The next day he showed me the surfboard and was laughing because it was so easy.
Here are the steps to easy repair using Sun Cure:
Make sure you are working in a shady, ventilated area. The shade is so that the wax on your surfboard doesn’t melt while you’re doing this repair. Also, you can’t do this on a day when it is raining, but you can still do it on an overcast day, the Sun Cure just takes longer to dry.
Lightly sand the area you need to repair. Now if your ding isn’t big, go easy here because you really don’t need to use more than is necessary to fill the hole.
Once you’ve lightly sanded the area, wipe it clean with a clean dry cloth. Make sure the repair area is fully dry before you begin.
Find a wooden Popsicle stick to apply the Sun Cure (or something else you don’t mind throwing away when your done). You do not need to mix this, it’s ready to go right out of the tube. Open up the tube of Sun Cure and put a little dab on the stick. Simply spread the Sun Cure into the hole. Try to get it as smooth as possible to eliminate sanding when it’s dry.
Take your surfboard out into the sun and angle the surfboard so that the area you want to harden is facing in the direction of the sun.
Put a towel down over the rest of your surfboard and as long as you don’t forget to come get your surfboard in a few minutes, your wax will still be alright on your surfboard.
If it’s a sunny day the Sun Cure will be hard in only 5 minutes. If it’s partial sun you give it 6 to 8 minutes and if it’s a cloudy day give it 10 to 20 minutes.
Once it has hardened, take your surfboard out of the sun and it’s ready for a light sanding to get it nice and smooth. If you don’t do this part, there are usually hard little bits that stick up. I was in a hurry once and didn’t bother sanding it down. The repair was along one of the rails and the whole session I was out, I kept hitting my hand on this little sharp bump. So take the 60 seconds to lightly sand down your repair once it’s done curing in the sun.
That’s it, you and your surfboard are ready to hit the beach, unless of course you went and did something else while it was drying in the sun and forgot about it. If that happened you will have come out to see a soggy, waxy mess on your surfboard. Now you will have to add the step of cleaning up the mess and re-applying a new coat of wax to your surfboard. So take my advice, once you’ve put your surfboard out in the sun don’t go doing something else while it’s drying, don’t even answer the phone. I learned this the hard way.
Whether you are young or old YOU CAN SURF! Head over to http://www.surfhow.com to learn more about surfing. You’ll find a free online surf guide and instructional surf videos. You will learn surf basics such as how to paddle and popping up on a surfboard.
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