Hello,
I live in Greece and I am posting to ask for your advice. I recently got catapulted and my mast fell on the nose of my board. This happened to me for the first time so I have no idea how to deal with it. I asked at a shop how much it would cost to repair it and they told me around 140 euros. So my question is should I repair it or should I try fixing it on my own? The board is the freestyle wave by simmer and it is made out of carbon. Greetings fellow windsurfers of the world
Given the age of the board, not worth spending that money.
Anything from covering the crack WELL with strong waterproof cloth tape, to filling it with epoxy resin, to a proper repair, could all be done by yourself. And all work.
Try boardlady.com.
But grinding it out a bit, filling with epoxy resin and q-cells and then sanding it would cost you $30 and a weekend.
I have done this kind of repair a few times. I like to repair from the inside . I would remove 3mm of foam to the shell of the board to about 20mm back of the damaged area. You will have to gently open the front area to get in. Cut a piece of thick fibreglass cloth that will fit in between the foam and the shell of the board. Any epoxy resin or epoxy glue will work. This is the messy part. Stand the board upright. Tape off surrounding areas . Fill the gap with resin or glue and stuff in the fibreglass cloth. When this hardens it should be solid and waterproof and ugly. Now it's up to you if you want a perfect finish. As above you can then fill in the dents with resin and q cells ( or sanded foam) then sand and fill and repeat till perfect , then paint. It's really not that scary or hard , just take your time. Hint : for a small repair it is easy to buy two part epoxy glue from your hardware shop.
Your responses gave me enough confidence to choose the diy method 
I am a bit confused about what materials I need to start repairing my board. Does the material in the interrior of the board (carbon in my case) define what materials I have to use to repair it (should I use carbon or fiberglass?)? Or is it irrelevant?So to just check if I got it right. I need to grind everything around the affected area out and then using q cells and epoxy resin i will fill the dent and I will cover everything with a coat of fiberglass and epoxy resin?
Irrelevant as its just the nose.
You will need epoxy resin, it comes as two separate liquids you mix together then it hardens. You will need fibre glass woven cloth. You may need a dry lightweight powder material like qcell to thicken the epoxy up and make sanding it easier. As mentioned earlier go to the board lady website.
I would grind it all out then dry out the foam then a layer of glass and epoxy over the foam then fill build up with epoxy qcell sand to desired shape then cover with another layer of epoxy and glass.
I think I should do a YouTube tutorial for nose repairs.
You really NEED, EPOXY resin. Other resins may melt the core foam.
I don't see any carbon in those cracks, just because the board says it's carbon construction doesn't mean it's all carbon. The carbon may just be where it's really needed.
To repair your damage, you need, fiberglass cloth, epoxy resin and some sort of filler material (Q-cell, micro balloons, or similar) to convert the epoxy into a thick paste for filling afterwards.
There will be more damage to the core foam under those cracks. You can see the compression on top has forced the bottom to crack, so there been a lot of movement there that's sprung back a bit.
I'd sand the paint off the top dent so you can check the condition of the cloth on top, if there's no cracks there, and you don't want the dent, you can fill that with a thick mixture of q-cell and epoxy.
The bottom is more serious as the whole sandwich is damaged. The sandwich consists of high density foam with cloth on either side of it.
As Imax says, to restore it's structural integrity, you need to carefully remove the damaged high density foam, until you find the interior layer of cloth that's undamaged and still adhering to the core foam, then very carefully remove some more. I don't think you need 20mm of good underlying cloth showing, half that is probably adequate.
Then you need a layer of cloth in the hole, overlapping the good old interior cloth, ideally some more high density foam, but this will probably be too hard, a stiff mix of q-cells will do. When that's set, sand back smooth including 10-20mm of the outside paint, and whatever you did to the top. Then apply another 2 or 3 layers of cloth over the whole lot. If you've got some thin stretchy plastic you can stretch this over the repair pulling as tight and as smooth as you can over the repair with good adhesive tape. this will smooth the repair out, leaving you less filling to do afterwards.
Ok , everything you do is inside the board. Don't grind . Make big enough cut at front of board to get in. Relax ! 
It doesn't matter what the board is made of , it is apoxy based. Use the original outside shell. Carbon or fibreglass is the same. Carbon is just a fancy fibreglass. Make enough room inside the shell to fill with resin ( epoxy 2 part glue ) and fibreglass cloth. Job is done.
Oh , keep the foam balls that you pick out from between the shell. Rub these between your fingers into a powder, this is like q cell , mix with the resin to thicken .
^^ But if filling a big void like that in Greek summer - a slow slow hardener as it can get hot when it cures.
Select to expand quoteImax1 said..
Ok , everything you do is inside the board. Don't grind . Make big enough cut at front of board to get in. Relax ! It doesn't matter what the board is made of , it is apoxy based. Use the original outside shell. Carbon or fibreglass is the same. Carbon is just a fancy fibreglass. Make enough room inside the shell to fill with resin ( epoxy 2 part glue ) and fibreglass cloth. Job is done.
I use would use Imax1 method, very easy, use duct tape/electrical tape over the repair, until the epoxy has cured/dried to keep the glass below the level of the existing laminate, fill with car filler, sand and then paint.
I try and push the glass about 1cm UNDER the existing laminate with a thin knife, so that the new glass bonds to existing laminate. Be careful as sometimes the nose has a thicker part of the laminate, that may be difficult to cut, careful of your fingers or making a mess of the existing good laminate. DONT use polyester resin for the glue.
Hot alright , I remember making a board in winter with polyester resin , ( years ogo ) lots of hardener , and the left over pot ,Mabee 500ml cought Fire !!!!
Select to expand quoteImax1 said..
Ok , everything you do is inside the board. Don't grind . Make big enough cut at front of board to get in. Relax ! It doesn't matter what the board is made of , it is apoxy based. Use the original outside shell. Carbon or fibreglass is the same. Carbon is just a fancy fibreglass. Make enough room inside the shell to fill with resin ( epoxy 2 part glue ) and fibreglass cloth. Job is done.
Well I'm thinking what happens next time there's a nose impact. Yes your method will fill and seal the hole, but any impact will just knock all that epoxy straight out the bottom. You need overlapping cloth over the top to help stop that. Give it a bit more impact resistance.
I agree decrepit , more is better. I would hollow top and bottom and extra ! I believe my inside method is the same as the outside application but on the inside. I cant see how the resin and cloth can fall out. It covers the crack and top and bottom of the board. Then fill and pretty from the outside. It would
have to be the strongest part of the board. I could however see a mast snapping next time it hits that spot.
First let me say that I find it super cool getting help from people from so far away Imax ,unfortunately I missunderstood your first message and I grinded the area. Now it looks like this
So in the following pic I have marked the area of the dent. I have to fill this one with a mix of q cells and epoxy resin and afterwards put some layers of fiberglass and epoxy resin on it, grind it and paint it. Right?
In the following pic I have marked the crack. Do I need to remove the fiberglass in this area so I can fill it or can I just fill the crack and maybe put a layer of fiberglass on it? Like she did here: boardlady.com/repairbasics.htm ?
Maybe I am a bit too analytical but its because this is my only board and I want to make sure I will not do any mistakes. 
Sometimes you can avoid peeling back layers by drilling a small enough hole so that you can inject some resin below the surface uning a 5mL syringe. The resin will fill the void and you finish the job by putting a layer of cloth over the outside, with final sanding and finishing to make it pretty. Voids and delaminations under the surface cab detected by tapping the area with a coin, something you can do after injecting the resin to see if you have filled in all the voids. just remember to put in more than one hole so that the resin can escape.
Ok , now that you have ground the board it is hard to tell how much skin is left. You will have to cover the outside with fibreglass as the board lady suggests. Originally I was thinking about minimal disruption to the board , like keyhole surgery and only fixing up the black area and living with the dent on the purple area. Take your time and make sure it is solid before painting. Good luck.
Select to expand quoteIason1993 said..
Grind out the broken, loose outer skin and loose core foam until you expose a sound connection between outer skin and foam. Wet up fibre glass with epoxy and seal the foam and let set. Mix qcell or chopped fibre glass strand with epoxy and use to build the nose up to its previous shape. Let set and sand back to the original shape. Add another layer of fibre glass, let set and sand back with 240, 400 and 800 grit sand paper until smooth. Restore paint and it's good as new.
Select to expand quotedecrepit said...
Beat me rider. you're obviously much quicker on the keyboard than I am.
I only beat you as I kept my answer brief, I think yours is a better answer as its more detailed.
Iason, the syringe method is a possibility, but if I was doing it, I'd remove the damaged sandwich until you reach solid core foam. then fill with a stiff qcell mix. That way your sure to remove all voids. Then 2 layers of at least 4oz, (150gm) fiberglass, overlapping the good fiberglass by a couple of centimeters. What you've done so far looks great, that's exactly how it would look at this stage if I'd done it.
Now not everybody is going to agree with this, but if you want to impove the impact resistance of the nose, you can wrap some kevlar or carbon/kevlar around it.
There's good reasons why people don't like doing this, kevlar is a real pain to work with, it's very hard to cut, and just goes into fur if you sand it. But it will give the nose much better impact resistance. Because it doesn't sand you have to cover it with a layer of sacrificial fiberglass, which means quite a thick layup, so it's not going to look spectacular. I'm not advising you to do this it's your decision, a bit of a gamble as to how much trouble you want to go to in order to improve the nose strength. And as Imax has said if you make the nose indestructible there's an increased risk of damaging the mast.
Select to expand quoteIason1993 said..
First let me say that I find it super cool getting help from people from so far away >>>
Well you are on an Aussie site, generally we're a fairly helpful people.
Select to expand quotedecrepit said...
Iason, the syringe method is a possibility, but if I was doing it, I'd remove the damaged sandwich until you reach solid core foam. then fill with a stiff qcell mix. That way your sure to remove all voids. Then 2 layers of at least 4oz, (150gm) fiberglass, overlapping the good fiberglass by a couple of centimeters. What you've done so far looks great, that's exactly how it would look at this stage if I'd done it.
Now not everybody is going to agree with this, but if you want to impove the impact resistance of the nose, you can wrap some kevlar or carbon/kevlar around it.
There's good reasons why people don't like doing this, kevlar is a real pain to work with, it's very hard to cut, and just goes into fur if you sand it. But it will give the nose much better impact resistance. Because it doesn't sand you have to cover it with a layer of sacrificial fiberglass, which means quite a thick layup, so it's not going to look spectacular. I'm not advising you to do this it's your decision, a bit of a gamble as to how much trouble you want to go to in order to improve the nose strength. And as Imax has said if you make the nose indestructible there's an increased risk of damaging the mast.
I agree with this.
