Home Surf Survival Doctor's Corner Repair: Fixing a busted nose
Surfline RSS Break Report for Virginia

Deals so far:


View My Stats
Repair: Fixing a busted nose PDF Print E-mail
User Rating: / 0
PoorBest 
Written by beachjunkey   
Sunday, 13 April 2008 10:00

Purpose: Shallow East Coast surf eats jetski noses for breakfast when tricks such as the nose stab, backflip, or re-entry land too steep (aka: lawn dart). Superjet hulls are very weak before they are reinforced and it does not take much to crush the nose in the sand. A couple extra layers of fiberglass is great insurance, and of course is often required.

Recommended for: All Superjet owners interested in shredding some surf.

Difficulty: Not fun. But it can be easily done with a basic understanding of wet layup and attention to detail.

Process:

It will be a several day job to get the nose repaired. Phase 1:

  1. Pull waterbox, gas tank, battery, pipe, and anything else hindering access to inside front nose area. You want to be able to get your head and shoulders/arms up in this area.
    • Pulling motor will help but maybe not required.
    • Pulling handlepole and controls will help but not required.
  2. Clean up and grind inside front nose area
    • If your nose is hanging, cut it out like this and use some aluminum strapping to secure the two pieces together like this
  3. Lay up 2-3 layers biax, wait for it to cure (could take 24hrs with old or slower resin/hardener or you can pick up a quart of West Systems resin and medium hardener with pumps from a boat store and hope it works quicker.)
Phase 2:
  1. Grind out all cracks from the outside. Taper out several inches to minimize curves.
  2. Test different types of cloth, biax, mat for best layup
  3. Lay it up
    • May need to split phase to flip the ski and get the bottom of the lip also
Phase 3:
  1. Clean everything up
  2. Break out the body filler - Bondo Fiberglass Resin Jelly
  3. Sand, body filler, repeat until done.
  4. Break out the Bondo glazing compound to fill in any swirl marks left from sanding

Tip: Taylor Curtis or Blowsion makes a replacement nose that works by cutting out the old nose, slipping the new one on, securing it, and glassing it in. This could be a good option if your nose is fubar-ed.
Last Updated ( Monday, 14 April 2008 09:22 )
 
Banner