Hello,
recently I touched the ground with the center fin of my shortboard (standard pu/poly build). When I come out of the water I saw that the center fin is not any longer perpenticular to the bottom of the board, it has a few degrees of “cant” now in it. At the base of the fin there are some cracks visible in the glass, but nothing serious. But I want to fix the center fin now, is there a chance to fix the fin without ripping it of the board an re-glassing it on?
cheers florian
Hey Florian, it has been my experience that nothing short of a re-do will hold up. The layers holding it vertical, have been compromised and will continue to fail. This may be an opportunity to test a theory of roving vs. multiple layers. Good Luck.
ps. you can always put in a box if you don’t want to laminate.
Hi Florian -
I'm taking sides with tblank on this one. I've repaired plenty of single fin damage and like he says, it's likely more compromised than is readily apparent.
The method I use is to simply start grinding at the obvious cracked area. Assess the damage as you go.
Sometimes the bottom layer of glass has delaminated from the foam so anything you build up on top of that is still compromised. That sort of thing will require additional attention to gain a solid footing for your fin.
I've also seen boards that appeared to be OK on the bottom glass but there was still troubling movement at the surface... In at least one case the foam had sheared away from itself deep within the blank. That one was a bitch to fix.
In any case, try to remove all of the damaged glass and check to make sure everything below is solid. If your fin is still attached after all that, go ahead and rebuild the fillet.
In my opinion it's better to overbuild than underbuild when it comes to attaching single fins. As you found out, it's a vulnerable appendage on your board that often takes direct hits on rocks, sand and/or other boards.
Hello Mr. Mellor, Have you experimented with the roving vs. glass layer issue? I’ve always gone the roving route because it was how I was taught. The comments made by Mr. Thrailkill started me thinking there’s a better way. If I remember correctly, he’s a proponent of the multiple glass layer method. I like the roving because it gives a good bead of resin to work with in foiling fore and aft.
Hi T -
Yes I have.
I've used plain glass scraps (and plenty of them) with good results. When roving is available I use some of it too but I have bags and bags of glass scraps so....
When glass patches are cut on the bias, there is an argument that every single strand supports the layup both vertically and horizontally but a decent layup of either type works fine.
The problems I've seen were generally related to inadequate layup thickness. I recently fixed up a board I made nearly 30 years ago and the original glass-on fin was intact. The fin tip was damaged so I removed it to install a box. It was quite a job - overkill?