I was riding at Pismo today and when I came in noticed that the nose of my Mako wide had delaminated. Not sure why, did not hit anything that I know of and never had stressed the nose that I am aware of.

Anyway I love this board and hoping to repair it but have never repaired a board before. Some of the ridgid foam on the interior and part of the plastic sidewall washed away. The top and bottom sheet are intact. I was thinking I could fill it up with expoy and clamp it and hopefully will be good enough to use. See attached photo

Any suggestions from someone with experience in repairing boards would be appreciated.

Thanks

Hi Underwood,
IF the laminates are still intact -  you should inspect it for cracks - here’s my take at how to repair it:
1. mask the parts of the deck and bottom you don’t want epoxy on with tape - safes time later.
2. clean out the inside of the board from sand, salt and shrimp. Leave foam in place
3. find some wood to replace the rail, or well gluing plastic (not including Nylon, polyprop, polyethylene, but including ABS, styrene, acrylic, PU)
4. try to get stuff called 3M microballoons, basically hollow glass dust, and mix it in with thin epoxy to make super light weight filler. try to get good tacky whipped cream like froth, and work it into the inside of the board. Or get light weight epoxy filler from a racing boat builder.
5. close the hull, press out excess filler and use ridiculous amounts of tape, clamps, weights etc. to hold it together. Wait until cured and dig out the board from the tape and mess.
Let us know how you go with it!

The repair area held but after one session the board delaminated further back. Seems like now that it is started there is no stopping it. Bummed as its a great board but did not last very long.

I’m about to try and fix one as well, has anyone successfully fixed it, or should I just bite the bullet and buy a new one. I actually had a new one OR sent as a replacement for the one that delaminated, but I lost it last weekend (long story, and it sucks)

@ Underwood: Bummer indeed! There’s a little trick you could try: get a syringe (w/o the needle) and drill a few holes through the laminate - just big enough to accept the tip of the syringe, and inject resin in there. I did this with delaminated stuff in the past and however crazy it sounds, it worked very well.

Has anyone been successful with repairing the delamination like this? I’m about to attempt it, and I’m just wondering if anyone has had any success.

I repaired my twice and you follow the instructions given further up in this thread the chances are good that the repaired area will hold. The problem that occurred for me is once the board started to delaminate it seemed to loose its overall structural integrity, the board became more flexible and the delamination would spread to a new area that had not been repaired. So you get in a session and then it opens up in a new area so its a viscous cycle and in the end you have to ask if its worth the time and expense. But considering how much these boards cost it pretty hard to give up and throw it in the trash without giving it a try!!

As this appears to be a known problem I am surprised that a company with as solid of a reputation as OR would not be willing to honor its warranty beyond a year. But in my case they didn’t even respond to my emails.

Tim,

I am sorry that you’ve had problems with your board, but to state that ” we didn’t respond to your emails ” is simply not true. You emailed me on May 2nd and I responded to you the same day.

Cheers,

Evan

i would think a OR would want that board back to inspect and send a new and or maybe a demo/used one to him ASAP? get the dude back out on the water on a mako

RbGar - 02 June 2010 08:31 AM

i would think a OR would want that board back to inspect and send a new and or maybe a demo/used one to him ASAP? get the dude back out on the water on a mako

The maximum OR can do (or at least did for me when my 1.5-year old Mako delaminated) is to offer a compensation discount on the new Mako. However, the discount applies to the full price (i.e. MSRP), NOT the price dealers advertise. Considering that you can always negotiate with dealers the price even lower (regardless whether you have five delaminated Makos or not), this “compensation” discount is a joke.

I wonder if my experience would have been any different if I had bought the board from my local dealer instead of Internet. It amazed me when my local dealer recently replaced my torn, 2-year old 2006 Mystic Warrior harness with the newest 2010 model, for less than 1/3 of the price. I am sure he didn’t make any profit on that sale, and was clearly much more concerned about his reputation than the profit.

Guys, the topic is on repairing a delamn’d foam core board, if you have experiences or hints please post them here. For a discussion on OR customer care please find or start an appropriate thread.

El Rudo - 07 June 2010 01:15 PM

Guys, the topic is on repairing a delamn’d foam core board, if you have experiences or hints please post them here. For a discussion on OR customer care please find or start an appropriate thread.

No question; the topic did start with a discussion about repairing a Mako but it did raise underlying questions of a) is there a durability problem with Mako’s and b) if so is OR addressing that problem in a manner that adequately meets customer requirements.

On the later the point my input as customer that really likes OR that there is room for improvement relative to other leading manufacturers in the industry.

If you would like me to start a new thread on the topic would be happy to do so.

that is a major delam w/core sheering, a straight delam when the skin to core bond lets go would not break the core and rip the skin.

But this said get some ProSet http://www.prosetepoxy.com/adhesives.html or Spabond http://www.gurit.com/sector_introduction.asp?section=0001000100220050&sectionTitle=SP-High+Modulus+Adhesives+for+Marine from a local boat builder etc, this stuff is basically composite welding and should hold it together.