I am sure that everyone has heard of Murphy’s Law that states that if something can go wrong it will. Well Murphy’s Law was in full effect during this Lance Carson Restoration. A customer brought in this vintage lance Carson to see if we could repair it. It had a ton of delams, which usually means a slow death for a board, but the Carson was one of 25 of this type ever being made so we said that we would try. Austin decided to show Joe his new trick of connecting a couple of delam spots to make just one repair. You take a drill a little hole in one of the delams and use an air nozzle to pump a stream of air in that delam until it pops free into the other delam. Well that works really well unless your whole board is one big delam. In that case you get one huge bang and a board blown up like a football. No really it looks like a oblong shaped huge football. Everyone in the shop came running. Joe’s eyes were as big as scaucers and I think Austin took a dump in his pants.
2 Comments
Well, I’m glad to hear that it’s not always easy! I say that because you guys inspired me to try a restoration… and now that I’ve started I’m not sure where to go from here. Fortunately, my cousin is an expert glasser, and he’s agreed to finish it off (pigmented resin, gloss coat), if I do the grunt work. I have a little tail delam, that I figured I should cut out and re do. Should I inject it instead? I want to ride it, not look at it! And second, what about pressure dings? I’m taking it down to the cloth, but still see the pressured dings. Do you then sand them by hand? Then do you you build them back up with resin? How do you get safely get rid of them without adding too much weight to get a fairly smooth finish? Thanks in advance. You guys inspired me! Best regards, Big Steve in Florida
Hey Steve,
Nope things don’t often go perfect. In fact the joke that runs around glassing factories is that its not how you build them its how you fix them because things rarely come out perfect the first time but the extra time and patience is what makes a beautifully finished board. My advice is to not inject it because rarely do you get the perfect bond. Most often its best to use a dremel tool and cut out the delam and then use the old glass and lay it back down on the delam with weight. Make sure you cut it out an inch bigger than the actual delam to make sure you have it all. Use lost of extra resin and let it just run out to make sure you have no air bubbles. Then grind it hard to the weave and add extra cloth over top to seal the cut area. Blast again. Hotcoat. Blast again. Gloss coat or pigment. I hope that helps. I will come back when I have more time and answer about your dents. Troy