Uh-oh, this week I noticed that I had rubbed through a few ribs of one of my Zinc King 703s! Not surprising if you use them like I do but unfortunate nevertheless… Still this isn’t the first time, and probably not the last, so to prevent it from getting worse I took it apart and repaired it – easy:

• Pull out all 4 nails
• Remove the zinc rubbing surface and wash off whatever limestone sediment and gunk there is with fine steel wool and soap and water
• Rinse and dry
• Apply two composite epoxy glue for metal on the areas that have been rubbed through on the back side of the rubbing surface
• With the flat edge of a piece of cardboard rub the glue down just enough so that it doesn’t create a bump (otherwise it will push against the wood boards that are behind it when it’s all assembled)
• Let the glue dry overnight
• Reassemble the washboard, tighten it up with a big enough F clamp if you can
• Nail it back together (you can replace the nails that are too rusty)

This does change the sound of it a bit, I would describe it as thickening it up a touch. Personally I prefer that then letting it rub to pieces – in fact there are days when I like the board I repaired last year this way better.

PS: If you don’t want to put epoxy glue or something on the rubbing surface, you can just take the washboard apart and reassemble it with the backside forward, so that the rubbed through “top of the ribs” holes will become “inside of the rib holes”, if you get my meaning, the only issue is that if you use brushes they tend to get caught in the holes …