Here is the restoration process of Bing #70. Done by our very own Bing historian Tom Moss!
Not quite Mena Suvari in a bed of roses... but it's a beauty, again!
Finished board. Still a classic "pig".
The glass was specially treated on the fin to show the weave, giving it that early 60s look, and to help hide some of the repaired damage underneath.
Original condition, with a dark suntan, lots of fiberglass delamination and nose and tail dings.
After stripping the glass off, the surface of the foam was very brown, exfoliating (peeling) and bubbled. The blank was sanded down to good foam and all the bubbles cleaned out.
The stringer had separated from the foam and was broken in five places and punky (rotten) in the nose and tail.
Glued and taped (I used too much glue - I didn't realize it was going to expand).
What do you use to fill hundreds of craters in a surfboard blank? Remember it needs to be lightweight and sand as easily as the surrounding foam. I used lightweight spackle (several quarts!). Not recommended, but as long as the board stays out of the sun in the future, it should be ok... maybe.
The stringer has been reglued and the foam has been filled and reshaped. All the repairs have been color-matched and textured.
Ready to glass.
First layer of 10 ounce glass, trimmed and ready for resin.
One quart of laminating resin per layer of fiberglass.
The reproduced lam (with original number) is set in resin, before pulling second layer of fiberglass over the board.
Sanding the hot coat. The resin/fiberglass dust is really hell on my eyeball pterigiums, even with all the gear on. I bet Bing never had to sand a new board as much as I have sanded this one. At this rate, I'd be lucky to make one board a week working full-time at it.
I ran the tape out the length of the board and then dropped it down to pencil marks that I had made on the ends of the board, a half inch outside of the stringer. This is how I was told that the pros typically get a straight line along their panels. After taping off the stringer, I poured on my colored resin mix, spreading it evenly over the board. After the resin began to kick, I pulled the tape off, which revealed a big problem, as you can see in this picture - the clear space along both sides of the stringer was uneven… this was because the board’s stringer varies in width and is bowed, a lot (Thanks, Bing!).
– I decided that an unstraight line would not be as noticeable as the uneven space I presently had on the board. So, after sanding the color off, I measured and drew a line a half inch out from the stringer on both sides and then ran the tape along it. On the positive side, this mistake allowed me to have a second attempt at matching the color, which looked too red compared to the original carrot-juice color of the board.
– I added some more resin and mixed in various colors of pigment, finally getting the color to match the piece of colored fiberglass that I had kept from the original board. Blue pigment was the key to toning down the International Orange pigment. (For some reason, the camera does not pick up the orange hue very well.)
After pulling the tape, you can see that the space between the color and the stringer is very clean and even looking – can’t even tell that it is zig-zagging with the stringer.
Next lesson…With both sides color coated, it was time to lightly sand it, as preparation for the resin gloss coat. This is also the last chance to flatten out any remaining bumps and dips in the surface (the color coat is like an extra sanding coat, you know, at least that’s the way I was thinking). After sanding it pretty good, I noticed there was still one minor dip that bothered me, and I thought I’d hit it one more time. Woops! (not even close to what I said) – foam underneath suddenly became visible. Cringe. Of course, I didn’t have any colored resin mix left to try and patch it with. So, after thinking about it for a day, I started the entire process over – sand the color down on both sides of the board, remix resin and pigments, retape, clean off every speck of dust, pour and brush the color coat on, wait til its tacky, and pull the tape. One thing about surfboard repairs, you can always redo and correct, or hide, your mistakes, if you have enough patience or nothing better to do.
Filing the seam where the gloss coats on the deck and bottom overlap.
Wet sanding the gloss coat. Dr. Ding said that if I applied the gloss coat correctly, I might only need to hit it with the fine 400 and 600 grit paper... Yaeh right! I started with the much coarser 150 (because I had created more bumps and dips with the finishing resin) and then progressed to 220, then 320, 400 and finally 600.
Ready to be buffed. Tomorrow. I'm ready for a beer.
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