You need contact cement. It's what everyone uses.

Also you might want to check out boardlady.com/ for some ideas

I tried water-based contact cement on one of my boards a few weeks ago because of the promise that it dries clear. It is hopeless. It doesn't set anywhere near as well as gel-grip or kwik-grip, and will only go off if spread thin enough to dry quickly. From reading the board lady's site, it seems it probably won't stay well adhered either.

On the other hand gel-grip and kwik-grip are coloured and with my lack of care usually means a big clean up of the excess which gets everywhere.

Anyone know a glue as good as gel-grip but dries clear?

Thanks for the feedback peoples. I remembered the Boardlady and found this, perfect. boardlady.com/softopbuckle.htm

It was a quick and dirty repair unlike the Boardlady's professional approach. Mine's not the prettiest of repairs but it looks OK in my eye, it blends in with the rest of the board's worn look. In hindsight I would have cut a whole section out from black pinstripe to the other black pinstripe rather than a small rectangular section as I have so you don't see too many edges in the EVA. First epoxy/EVA repair I've done so it was an interesting process.



Above shows the crack and caved-in bit. I think somebody in the factory bled on the skin. The longest bit of the job was cutting under the foam to free it from the deck, used an "Exacto" knife as the blade bends, sort of like filleting a fish. Scraped off bits of foam and rough sanded around the cracks and blew it clean.



I used an epoxy putty stick, kneaded it and pressed it into the crack and feathered the edges. Smoothed it out with a wet finger. Waste of time as the next pic shows.



To get the dried putty more level I used a chisel and scraped it, worked well. Left a criss-cross pattern to allow better glue adhesion with the foam. If I removed a larger section of foam I could have used a grinder. But it didn't take long anyway with a chisel, had a beer next to me so I was happy.



I used contact cement as recommended by the Boardlady, for shoe repairs, and spread it with a bit of card to both surfaces. Let it go tacky for around 3 minutes, stuck the EVA bits down and lightly wacked it with a rubber mallet till I couldn't hear anymore trapped air popping and all done. Well I hope it was trapped air not the epoxy cracking![}:)]

Not including the curing time of the epoxy (1 hour) I reckon I knocked this over in under half an hour.

It's now ready for another crash test, hoping to sail tomorrow, we're expecting 20-25knots S/SW and I've done garden chores today and scored some brownie points . I think I'll stay in the lake and practice my high speed gybes and finally use the harness and foot straps again, it's been so long! Then again if the surf is OK I might....nah I better do more practice before I go out there again....soooo tempting!

Fashioning a boom protector now. It's a long weekend and I've got nothing to do tonight!