Maintenance/care

To keep your stick in good shape the important things here are waxing and repairing. The former should be frequent… the later rarer. But it’s here if you need!

Firstly wax. If you don’t wax you won’t get much surfing done. You’ll just slip straight off the whole time.

In contrast to snowboarding and skateboarding waxing your stick is absolutely critical to the ride. Any crossover riders take care here - you’re gonna to be waxing the deck (or topside) of your board to provide grip and stop you from sliding off. Nothing needed underneath!

Key points:

• You’ll need a base coat and then a top-layer (which’ll wear away as you ride).

• Consider the temperature of the water you’ll be ripping in when you buy your wax.

• It’s best not to apply wax out in the full blown sun. Won’t be a prob if you hail from lands with endless days of cloud. Cough-cough-UK-cough-cough… but…

• When you wanna start over and re-apply, using the sun to melt the wax and remove old layers is a great idea. Resort to wax remover if you have no sun!

• Wax before each session to ensure good grip. You can get away with just re-applying the top coat but eventually it’ll start to flake and you’ll need to start over.

Watch this to see waxing in action:

Or read the Surf Science waxing page, which is brilliant. They’ve got a handy diagram at the bottom showing where to wax for the different board types too. www.surfscience.com/topics/learn-to-surf/surfing-101/how-to-wax-a-surfboard

Onto repairing. Hate to tell it to you, but you’ll definitely need to do this at some point. When you get that ding you’ll want to get it sorted to keep the boards performance level up. Good news is you’ll feel epic once you’ve repaired it yourself.

Surfboards can get little cracks and nicks pretty easily, so if you drop it or get a busted by another surfer, then it probably won’t escape unharmed. Hence there are several good ding repair makers such as Big ding or Solarez, and you can buy a little kit with various elements to get you sorted the first time. Read more here to help you make your choice. www.surfertoday.com/surfing/7701-the-best-surfboard-ding-repair-kits

So, here’s fixing a little ding explained!

If it’s bigger, watch this great tutorial:

Or back to trusty Surf Science for their step-by-step guide.

www.surfscience.com/topics/surfing-lifestyle/life-as-a-surfer/how-to-fix-a-surfboard-ding