What is it about a fresh coat of wax that seems to make your surfboard….. better? Happy? More appealing? Or like, lets get this baby in the water!
I’ve had my Dream Cicle in my surf shed for a week or so collecting dust…. Making surfboards is a dusty business. The dust complemented it's dirty wax but, not in a good way. So today while I had a little time before an appointment I decided to clean the dust and dirty wax off the board.
This board has a nice story. It’s one of the first two Dream Cicle boards I made to introduce the model. This one went under my feet. The other went to Wave Front Surf Shop for sale. They were made the first week of November 2k15. So I’ve had the board for 5 years now and have surfed it more than any of my boards. Or put another way, I’ve surfed it a lot.
Dirty wax can hide stuff you may not want to see, revealing foot wells, or heavy dents from a fall you took spazing out like a kook and putting your elbow into the deck. This could be a good reason not to clean your board up. Out of sight out of mind. You just don’t want to know what lies beneath.
Well… I went after it anyway. Thinking as I got started “ wonder what the deck is going to look like after all the times this board has been in the water”.
Clean boards look so much better than dirty ones. After cleaning the Drean Cicle was a happy surfboard again. And I was happy that the deck was in such good shape as well. There were some dents but nothing liked I thought it might be.
I lost the board one day at the point when the tide was up on the rocks. By the time I got to it the board had done some battle with those rocks and suffered a half dozen shatters along one rail. There is one repair spot that has discolored up by the nose. That’s the only unattractive element really. I could fix that… but will I??? Time will tell.
What I can say is most likely the board will not get a new coat of wax for awhile. The board will stand in my board locker with the others. I will forget about the needed new wax job. Then get excited about a new swell that shows up with good conditions and warm weather. Grab the board for a surf and go… “Oh Man, There's no wax on the darn thing”. Grumbling about the time it will take and the sets missed in the mean time. Or thinking heck with it...just take The TipTool.
I can see it now…. I’ll pull the board out, get a bar of wax and gently start rubbing it down. All the while saying to myself “what the heck did I take the wax off in the first place”
D.R.
