I damaged the nose of my JP Magic Ride 118 in one of the famous 'Föhnstürm(e)' at lake Urner. The damage didn't look that bad at first but the board's surface felt soft at and around the spot on the railing where the boom hit the board indicating delamination. Here is how the board looked after the catapult:
The last picture above showes splintered paint where the boom/mast hit the board. The larger wrinkle on the surface looked bad at first but the paint was intact and it wasn't soft, so I decided not to touch this and only fix the damage at the railing including a smaller one from a previous impact.
The first step was to remove the soft upper layer with knife/mortise chisel/sanding paper after which it looked like this:
Then I laminated two layers of 180 g/m2 carbon fiber cloth and filled the dent with a mixture of epoxy + carbon chips + graphite powder. The graphite powder was recommended to me by a friend and extremely improves the sandability.
What followed was a layer of fine spray filler and sanding. First with 180-grit, then up to 400-grit sanding paper.
I used several color fans like the one below to find the proper color of my board, which turned out to be NCS color "S-1580-Y80R".
Once the color is known it can be ordered from one of many manufacturers online or in your local DIY market. I used a 1-compenent spray paint and applied too many layers at once which is why it took weeks(!) to properly harden. It is much better to apply many very thin layers and let each of them dry separately within hours or alternatively use 2-component paint.
This was the result:
Lessons learned in this repair:
- Adding graphite powder to epoxy extremely improves the sandability
- When painting with 1 component spray paint do many thin layers and let each of them dry completely until the next layer is applied. Same is true for thin filler spray. Otherwise, you will end up with a soft layer of paint that takes weeks to dry.
- You might need several color fans to find a fitting color (e.g. NCS, HKS, RAL in AUT/GER/CH)
- If you want the perfect result use 2-component paint.