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Why Removing Your Wax has Benefits Beyond a Fresh Coat for Your Feet
For some unknown reason, swapping out your old wax job for a new one is a cathartic endeavor. Removing a baseball sized sphere of hardened wax full of sand and your summer’s chest hair, leaving you with a clean canvas to work with makes life just that much better. Before you layer on that new coat of fresh wax make sure to inspect your board. You’ll wanna keep an eye out for unknown cracks or small fissures that lead to:
- soaking the foam of your board
- board delamination
How to repair minor cracks in your surfboard
Sealing any minor cracks is easy and will extend the life of your board for years to come. Leaving the cracks to grow will allow the salt water to sneak into the foam of your board, adding unneeded paddling weight, impacting the way you surf and diminishing the joy you receive from it. Ultimately, it will cause your deck to delam from the foam and render it as trash. Take the time to remove the wax, inspecting the stringer carefully as most cracks begin there, where the mass of pressure is applied from the stronger section of the board outwards to the more fragile areas.
If cracks are found, adding a thin layer of resin or epoxy (depending on the materials your board was constructed with) will usually do the job of sealing the board. If the damage is more severe, you may consider adding a light layer of cloth to increase the strength of the repair. Better yet, would be to have a professional ding repair specialist assess the damage and recommend the best next step for addressing the problem.
How often should you change your wax
Swapping out your old coat of wax for a new one is dependent on how much you use your board and in what kind of conditions. However, we do recommend completely removing your wax and inspecting for damage at least a couple times of year. For you fair weather surfers this should be done at the beginning and end of each summer. Hopefully, you will find your board in tip-top shape leaving your feet with a sticky base to score a few hundred more waves before your next cleaning.
For a complete DIY guide on how to repair your surfboard from just about any kind of damage, see our Surfcare: How to DIY Ding Repair.
