You say that you've never built one, does that mean that you don't have any of the equipment or anything?
So vaccing new wood on, and all that might be out of the question?
Yeah, I've got nothing. I can find raw materials easily enough, but I've got no hardware. This might be the perfect excuse to get some though. I've got my eye on a vac pump, I might pick up one of those Japanese saws Paul talks about and I might get a surform. I've got various grades of sandpaper and sanding blocks for previous minor repairs. I've got a variable speed sander/polisher. I've got a boatbuilder's shop nearby with suitable epoxy (Epiglass brand) and glass, a foam shop relatively close, balsa is plentiful from the hardware conglomerate down the road.
Let us know what you thing you are capable of with the resources/skills you have, and we'll sort out a plan of attack!
I'm willing to try anything. I've been reading sways for a couple of years and here for a fair while. I'm about as familiar with the build process as you can get without actually having built a board. Given the resources I reckon I could have a fair crack at building a board from scratch. If I don't fix it it's pretty much useless and I really love the board so it's worth trying to save it. It'd be a shame to throw it away when it's only a few months old. I really doubt there's anyone around me who'd be willing or capable of fixing it for a reasonable price and I've always wanted to put theory into practice.
What I'm most worried about is discontinuities - e.g. in Mark's pictures he's interleaved the sheets of balsa, presumably to strengthen the board across its width. What's going on with the glass under the balsa? There must be a pretty weak bond at the old glass/new glass junction, even if it's joined in an interleaved fashion.
Same thing with the rails, do I cut several inches down towards the tail past the break and try to make a staggered join? I've got 4 bands of rail to cut through, so I could have 4 steps in the join. 4 steps over how long? 4"? 8"?
Do I try to salvage the nose rails and splice a section in joining the old tail section to the old nose section or do I get rid of them and make a new nose rail to nose block section spliced with the old tail section? It's only about 4" in from the nose so it's a pretty small area I'm going to be working in, might be better to save a join if I can.
Do I worry about the deck balsa or just glass over the 2 split sheets? I can imagine replacing those would be much more difficult than just working on the bottom of the board.
Do I worry about the side sheet of balsa to the top of the picture on the bottom? Obviously I need to replace the middle sheet, the bottom sheet's OK but can I just glass over the top one? The rail split is to the left of the picture, under where the terminating split is in the glass (i.e. not in line with the rest of the break).
Foam's not as critical is it (strengthwise), so I can just have a square join between old and new (it's very thin there anyway)?
If I do get a vac setup, how do I seal the bag to the board just over the nose section (i.e. do any mastic-type products leave/not leave a residue that'll be impossible to remove from the board), or do I need to get a full board bag?
I've always been scared of snapping this board, it's very thin, but I've had much closer calls than this, lots of nosedives in super shallow sucky sand. I always check it when something like that happens as a matter of habit so even though I didn't feel it hit anything this time I checked. So I guess that's one good thing, as soon as I noticed I carried it out of the water to the beach so it didn't get very wet. It was pretty embarrassing walking up the crowded beach on a waist-high day with a snapped nose though, would've felt better if it was a heavy day.
