Fin repair help needed *PIC*

I took my BRAND NEW fin out today and had an unfortunate low tide encounter with the rocks. As you can see in the photo, the front edge was hit and the glass shattered a bit. Can someone please tell me if there’s any way to repair this damage. I’d love to restore it to like new condition. What can I do? Please help!!!

Smooth move. You have a couple of options: forming it and pouring it with clear resin ( you could try a little tint but clear is sure to work ) followed by lots of sanding and wet sanding and polishing. Option 2- just sand and polish until it’s gone, like taking a nick out of a knife blade. 'Course, that means you wind up reshaping the fin somewhat. Option 3 - fins really are not all that expensive- replace it. Your choice. Oh, and stay outta the rocks. doc…

Looks like it’ll still work. Just sand it smooth so it doesn’t hurt anybody. Rob Olliges

Ton, Get after the chewed up areas with some real course sandpaper until their clean. Tape off the area you going to work and then take some small pieces of 4 oz cloth and UV cure sanding resin and build up the area bigger than it needs to be. Use a real small course brush to put the resin down with and be careful to push the bubbles out. Put it in the sun for an hour and a half and it’ll be ready to reshape. Take a half round bastard file and fair it back to the original foil and do the rest with wet dry sand paper. If you take it down to a fine grit it’ll look excellent. Hurry up man, Mavs is goin’ off, Rich

Halcyon, Thank you for the advice. When using the small pieces of 4 oz cloth, would you wrap them around the leading edge of the fin? Or lay them up on the sides? I have never done any glass work myself, so it will be a learning experience working with the resin. Thanks all for the help.

Ton, Rough up the damaged area real well with 80 grit, then tape off the area you want to apply the fiberglass lamination to so that any resin that runs down off the glass lamination comes off when you pull the tape. Put the fin upright by clamping it between two blocks of wood or a vice. Then just paint the resin on either side of the fin , stick the cloth on it and apply more resin on by dabbing it with an acid brush. Three layers of cloth or so ought to do it by the look of things in the photo. Be sure you have enough build up on either side to reform the original foil. Don’t worry about how pretty it looks just get all the bubbles out and saturate the fiberglass thoroughly. Don’t put it in the sun 'till your ready for it to kick cause that’ll happen instantanously in full sun. After it goes off just work it down to size and finish it with fine abrasive. The weave will disappear pretty well as you get to 1000 grit wet dry so you have a nice looking finished product with very little work.