A SWOARD... reborn

[benttech]

This is a story of how an old ugly SWOARD turned into a young prince... or princess. Hmmm.. depends if you think your board is a boy or a girl. I guess I consider my snowboards to be guys. Anyway...

I have a 1st generation Swoard 175m #00057. Supposedly the best of the best material-wise. Great board. Still has lots of edge life. Base is perfect. Still has good camber, and most important, no major damage.

Except... the board looked like... well, you can think of anything that comes out of our bodies, it looked bad. It was scratched, I mean really scratched. There were dings. Everywhere. The nose took a big hit. Paint chips. The color started to fade. I took some sandpaper to the topsheet in hope of sanding away some scratches and all it did was make it look much worse, a lot worse.

Excuse the quality, but here is how the board looked "PRE":







Pretty bad, isnt it?

I started to not like riding the board because it looked so bad. I asked nils back in 2009 what can I do. He said, "polyurethane varnish and a furniture maker". Well, I didnt know any furniture makers, nor where to buy PU varnish, or even how the process would look like. So I basically did nothing for many many years. And the story would have ended there, except..

[benttech]

It was late 2011. I was posting on our polish snowboard forum. Suddenly there was shining light. A beacon of hope. One of the members said "I am a furniture maker and I have a Swoard". I immediately emailed him and asked if he could fix my Swoard. He said no problem. Not only that, he was refinishing his own Swoard as well! Who this member is will be a secret for now, but I owe him many thanks. His knowledge, skill and attention to detail was incredible.

And the magic happened. Step by step. Sanding. Filling in the dings and holes. Sanding again. Smoothing things out. Test colors. Mixing paint. It was very difficult to find a 100% color match, but it came out almost perfect. Here are just a few pictures of the process:

[benttech]

[benttech]

[benttech]

The secret furniture maker demanded PERFECTION. It required some repainting. Polishing. Repainting. Polishing again. And finally, we had the finished product. Besides completely smoothing out the topsheet, there are probably 10 layers of gloss. We decided on a custom stripe on top of the board, of course we wanted the board to look original, but wanted to add something to make it look "different".

So here it is, the NEW SWOARD. Looking better than some truly new new boards!







Mirror finish. I mean a real mirror finish. That picture was taken on a cloudy day. I have some new ones taken today in sun but cant upload them for now.

So I'll finish here, the magic is done. A SWOARD has been reborn. Just remember, old boards are still good boards. Just because they dont look too great anymore doesn't mean much, if the board is in good "technical" shape, than don't worry about the topsheet, as you can see, it can easily be repaired. I hope that some of you will take a new look at some of your old boards, probably old favorites but boards that you stopped using because they just started to get too "old". Well now, you can see that restoring a board back to it's original look or giving it a completely new custom look with custom graphics isn't really that difficult. Just find "polyurethane varnish and a furniture maker" and you'll be good to go. Take care!

[redhead]

Well now, you can see that restoring a board back to it's original look or giving it a completely new custom look with custom graphics isn't really that difficult. Just find "polyurethane varnish and a furniture maker" and you'll be good to go. Take care!

Great post benttech. I can only imagine my board in some time, since i'm riding every day. This was also mentioned on polish PCS3. Good to know those things. Right know i don't have to find anybody, i will just send board to You

[Arnaud]

Fantastic Benttech
I should also send my old 168H Gen1 to the same guy ... I know him Great work

[tali]

Amazing! Has anyone got any 161S of the Gen1?

[vizsyn]

Hi Benttech!

I have to saw... WOW!!! Very impressive!!!

Seeing this makes me want to go out and find me some polyurethane varnish and see about practicing restoration on one of my older Burton freeride boards

At least there is hope, it will be possible to one day restore my own pretty SWOARD G4 when she inevitably gets older and uglier Yes I consider mine a girl

[mirekd]

Great Work Mike!
I'll do the same thing in my old board Nidecker SL.

[benttech]

Thank you everyone for the comments, I really appreciate them, however your admiration and awe should go to the wood/snowboard/ninja/paint master who's identity is still a secret, I think only Arnaud and some of the people who were at our PCS know who he is. When he is ready to reveal his identity, or if ever....

One nice thing about the new clear coat is that it is very resistant to scratches, and since it's the same that's used in cars, you can easily polish or wax it Since I was so blown away with the results in the near future I'm planning on repainting my Donek, but this time it'll be with completely new graphics, a full custom job.

[starikashka]

impressive, how many manhours were spent on that?

[benttech]

impressive, how many manhours were spent on that?

"Officially", about three hours. With drying time factored in, more like 50 hours. However, I dont know if this figure includes prep work.

[starikashka]

impressive, how many manhours were spent on that?

"Officially", about three hours. With drying time factored in, more like 50 hours. However, I dont know if this figure includes prep work.

Thanks, is there any chance to find if preparation is included?

[benttech]

Hey starikashka, turns out three hours total. Including packaging