Your base was brutally assaulted by a rock and is now looking pretty torn up? Well, unless you leave your board at home and try to carve the slopes on your behind, there’s no way to avoid it. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to repair scratches on a snowboard yourself.
A cure for minor scratches
You may not be able to fix a badly damaged board at home. If that’s what you’ve got, you’d better take it to an expert who can see if there’s anything that can be done for it or if it’s a total write-off. Conversely, there’s not really any need to end your day just because of a few light scratches on your base.
If they’re fairly shallow (less than half a millimetre) they shouldn’t affect your glide. You will, however, want to wax your board when you come in off the slopes so you’ll be in good shape for the next day out. Here’s what you need to fix any gouges:
- A base scraper and razor blade
- Some cleaner and a cloth
- A polyethylene candle (there are black candles and light candles)
- A lighter, iron or other source of heat
- A sheet of sandpaper
- Snowboard wax
Snowboard surgery in 5 easy steps
Before undertaking the repair, set up your board so it’s stable. Clamp it onto a work bench or set it up between two chairs (you’ll need both hands free).
- Using the razor blade, trim off any scrapings that stick out from the base. Thoroughly clean the damaged area with the cleaning product. Allow the base to dry as you’ll want the polyethylene to adhere properly.
- Light the tip of the polyethylene candle. It may take a few minutes to really ignite. Drip melted polyethylene into the gouge, starting at one end, so that it flows through the crack and fills it. Polyethylene shrinks with cooling, so you need to overfill the scratch in order to get it just right. Let dry about 15 minutes.
- Scrape away any excess polyethylene with the scraper or razor blade.
- Sand the spot until it’s smooth and flush with the rest of the base.
- Wax your board as usual.
There you go, just like new.
Back to some hard play
Now that you know how to repair scratches on a snowboard, you don’t need to be timid about doing what you’ve got to do. If any other rocks seem magically attracted to you and your board, you’ll know exactly what to do.
