Redesign Your Snowboard With Self-adhesive Foil

I recently swapped snowboards with my boyfriend and I was not totally satisfied with the design.. it was a bit out of date... so I thought I could probably change it a bit. I was not convinced by coloring the surface, as the color goes off and the whole procedure takes quite long - and in this case I didn't have the time for that. The only possibility that came to my mind was using self-adhesive foil, which also has the advantage that my boyfriend can remove it again, if we ever swap back :)

If you also want to give your board a new style, this is what you need:

1) a snowboard of your choice
2) self-adhesive foil - I bought mine in the paper shop for about 5€. I would suggest a rather thick (=strong) one, if you have the choice, but not with a structure like the one that imitates ridged metal.
3) cloth to clean the surface
4) cleaning liquid - my DIY-shop couldn't offer me anything that convinced me. The guy wasn't sure if it would destroy the plastic surface and I would have had to buy 1 liter.. for that it was too expensive. I used nail polish remover (Acetone) instead - 99 cents
5) a cutter
6) transparent nail polish (99 cents) - or any other varnish to seal the edges

later. Withall I removed the bindings. Then I cleaned the surface, first with water and then with acetone to remove grease and oily substances. If you have a step pad that you don't want to keep, remove it also.. I kept mine, which made it a bit more difficult to apply the foil later.

With the cutter I worked a bit on the uneven areas where other edges destroyed the plastic. Sandpaper could also help here.

Precut the foil. It should be some centimeters wider than the board, but not too wide. If it is too wide it gets harder to work with the foil, because you don't see where the board ends.
Then start sticking the foil to the board. I started on one end and cut it in the middle, because it was hard to cut it more or less precisely around the step pad. Make sure that you have the foil straight on the board. The best way in my opinion is to stick the first few centimeters to the board and then unroll the foil (still with the paper) to see if everything is covered also on the other end ;)
Take care that you don't get air bubbles!

If the foil of your choice covers your board, make use of your cutter. To be honest, this step took a bit more time than I expected. The most effective way is to cut along the edges holding the cutter on a +-45 degrees angle. Just slide the blade over the egde - in this way you obtain a quite clean cut. On some places I had to cut of more, because the edges were damaged and the foil doesn't stick well on these places.  Basically you have to cut so much away that the foil doesn't lift anymore if you wipe your finger over the egde.

Don't forget the holes for the bindings.

When the foil doesn't lift anymore you can seal it with the transparent varnish. Apply it as thick as you can with a small brush and take care that you don't get any drops where they shouldn't be (for example inside the holes for the bindings).

After the varnish is dry the bindings can be mounted again. I decided to stick some stickers on the "wooden" surface (obviously I couldn't get a lot of them in this moment). I think it would also be interesting to make a decoration on this background with a cutplott. That's what I will do on my next restyle try :)

The first an last step now is to ride it and see if you've done a good job!

I wasn't sure if the foil will stay on the board, but after 6 days of riding it I can say that I'm very satisfied. I was scared that everything will go off because of hard slopes, melted snow or the cold. After the first day, some millimeters of the foil lifted, but I just cut that piece off and resealed it when it was dry and now it's perfect. Of course a bit of the original color is visible, but you don't see that from further away. A bit of foil also scratched away on the part where the binding touches the surface.

All in all I am very satisfied. For the 7 euros I invested I got a surface that doesn't brake my designers heart and many compliments for my "new" snowboard :)

If you try this technique as well, let me know about your experiences and improvements!