Subsonic said..
Depends on what level you want to take it to. Do you want to do a full refurb and give the board a new lease on life? Or would you be happy to just get another year or two of action out of it?
If you've got a bit of time on your hands you can do it properly, which would involve some fibreglass repair/filling, respray the board with some decent paint (not Bunnings rattle can grade), then regrip it. (And do all of the associated sanding etc that goes with that.)
Other option is to sand out those damaged areas and fill them over with some epoxy filler, sand them back into shape, and then spray up with some half decent rattle can paint as close as you can colour match to the original colour then regrip the board.
Regripping the board is the easy bit, and maybe that's all you want to do? Clean off all the loose flaking clear coat, tape off the area/s you want regripped, then give the area/s a light scuff with sand paper, don't take the paint off. Give the area/s a clean down with degreaser (from Bunnings), once dry retape if necessary, then use a mini roller to apply a thinnish coat of uv stable clear resin, which you can buy from fibreglass and resin sales in kewdale, or kirkside in Osborne park. There's another shop in O'Connor that sells it, but I forget the name. Then sprinkle caster sugar all over it thoroughly and evenly, which is best done with a sieve. Pull the tape off whilst still wet, and then don't take it out till the manufacturers stated cure time has been reached (which is generally at least 48 hrs) The caster sugar washes out and leaves a nice grip behind. I would at the very least fill the bad looking cracks over with some epoxy filler. That bottom pic looks like the foam is exposed. Use epoxy, not polyester resin. Polyester resin will melt the boards core foam if it comes into contact with it.
I'm presuming you're in Western Australia going off your profile? if that all sounds too hard, contact Mark Australia on here and I'm sure he'll be able to make it look shmick again (for a fee).
wow! you're a wealth of knowledge Subsonic, thanks for taking the time to respond with all that detail.Considering all you've suggested, I'm going to prioritise filling the bad cracks with some epoxy filler, sand back into shape, then re-coat it with either blue paint or a UV stable clear resin. I probably won't even replace the grips at this point. So a partial refurb is ideal for now.But, with your advice above I'll likely do a full refurb in another couple years when these grips have turned to powder and I've run it across another couple of reefs at Watermans.Bl--dy legends, thanks for your responses Subsonic and Hydrosurf.
