iRide
Zaskoda’s Snowboarding Journal

Last season, I took my relatively new Burton Custom through some trees at Winter Park. It was extremely fun. The powder was deep and navigating the trees kept me focused. Apparently, I lost a little focus at one point, as I managed to nail the front corner of my board pretty hard, peeling up some of the top surface layer. This exposed some of the wood core, which really shouldn’t be getting wet.I’m scheduled to hit Winter Park again this Thanksgiving so I needed to get my board repaired. There’s a shop just down the road, but for whatever reason, I decided to do the repair myself. I asked some questions at the shop and did my best to followed instructions. I’ll do my best to share those instructions here.

Step 1: Preparation

The first thing you need to do is make sure you board is very dry. You don’t want to capture any moisture inside the board. My board was away from snow (and water) for about 9 months. You’re probably safe after a few days to a week. Once your board is dry, you want to clean up the scar a little. I considered ripping out all of the damaged pieces (to be replaced by epoxy) but I chose to try to glue the top layer back down instead. Unfortunately, my tear was such that it was easy to tear it further while cleaning out the scar. I used a c-clamp to help keep the top layer from peeling back any further.

Step 2: Epoxy

Once the scar is cleaned up, it’s time to glue it down. I used some ‘Extra Time’ epoxy from Walmart. I chose the extra time hoping it would be a stronger epoxy than the fast dry stuff. Even though I only needed a little bit, I had to buy a big tube of it. Anyway, I liberally applied the epoxy all over the scar. Then I mashed the top layer down and wiped off some of the excess that squished out around the scar. Had I not tried to put the top layer down, I would have tried ‘filling’ the scar with epoxy to be smoothed down after it dried.

Step 3: Clampage

I used that same c-clamp to hold the top layer in place while the epoxy set. Again, this wouldn’t be needed if I had filled the scar instead of trying to glue the surface back down. I avoided letting the c-clamp touch the board directly by using pieces of cardboard from the epoxy packaging. Hoping to avoid gluing the cardboard to the snowboard, I put the smooth printed side of the cardboard against the glue. This almost worked, but I still had a little paper stuck the board when I removed it later. Note: I’ve read that plastic (such as a plastic bag) is easier to peel off the apoxy.

Step 4: Cleaning and Smoothing

I let the epoxy set for about 12 hours. It takes 24 hours to completely harden, but it ’sets’ in 90 minutes. Because I wiped away a lot of the excess, my repair came out fairly smooth. I used a razor blade to scrape away most of the excess dried epoxy and to scratch off little bits of paper left from the card board. The epoxy was still just a little pliable, making it easier to scrape. I think it was probably a good idea to do the scraping before the full 24 hour dry time. Unfortunately, the slivers of top layer didn’t tear just right, so there’s a bit of a ridge where the pieces laid back down. Still, I think it came out cleaner looking than having filled a big scar with epoxy. Had I done that method, I would have also needed to spend more time cleaning up the dried surface. I’m not sure what tools to recommend for that. I would have probably tried the razor first, then some sand paper. If that was too slow, I might have gotten the dremel out.

Conclusion

The repair looks fine to my eyes. I’ll find out how well it holds up soon. I think the most important thing is keeping moisture out of the core of the board. I’m concerned about how well this spot will hold up next time I get the edges of the board ground down. If anything of interest comes up in the future, I’ll make an update about it.