One of our friends and good customers, John, brought in this Hobie that he had stored in his attic for the last 5 years or so.  He wasn’t sure if it was worth restoring or not and after we saw it we felt the same way. We love a challenge though, so we said we would do it.  After sitting in the corner of the shop for a month we decided to take a closer look.  Man was this thing bad!  If we had taken a closer look I doubt that we would have taken on the challenge but now we were in deep and had to trudge on.

After closer inspections we found that the original 2 inch balsa stringer was rotten 1/2 way up the board.  The two side 1/4 inch redwood stringers still seemed intact though.  Most of the foam seemed in good condition so we were happy with that.  When we do restorations we try to leave as much of the original board as possible so it can retain its original character.  We knew the middle section had to go so we broke out the circular saw and proceeded to cut out the rotten balsa stringer.  This would leave both halves with the original fiberglass intact.  Thus leaving some of the original character.  Since the original logo was in the center of the board we had to carefully remove it so we could reinstall it at a later date.  We took a Dremel tool with a small cut off wheel and went gently around the old logo to remove it.  More coming.

Post from: Cross Step: A Surf Blog by Austin Surfboards

Hobie Restoration Part 1