I was sanding the hot coat and bumped the right fin on my 7,0 tri. It made that all familiar cracking sound. So, of course you know what I did. I wiggled it to see how strong it was. It wasn’t, and easily pulled right off the board, and the fin rope underneath was dry, not much saturation when I glassed the fins on. I am very frustrated and need help. How do I fix it? The other two fins are very secure, but not that one. Now it’s sitting next to the board that ( I thought) would be finished tomorrow. Dang!!! I have lots of laminating resin, catalyst, and fin rope left , but no sanding resin, and I don’t want to buy more unless I have to. What can I do???
I was sanding the hot coat and bumped the right fin on my 7,0 tri. It made > that all familiar cracking sound. So, of course you know what I did. I > wiggled it to see how strong it was. It wasn’t, and easily pulled right > off the board, and the fin rope underneath was dry, not much saturation > when I glassed the fins on. I am very frustrated and need help. How do I > fix it? The other two fins are very secure, but not that one. Now it’s > sitting next to the board that ( I thought) would be finished tomorrow. > Dang!!! I have lots of laminating resin, catalyst, and fin rope left , but > no sanding resin, and I don’t want to buy more unless I have to. What can > I do??? Buy some sanding agent to add to the resin you have left over. Sand the area and prep the area good, and reattach the fin. Buy sanding agent will save you money over buy resin with agent in it. Plus you can use up the left over resin. I hope this helps you out. Later, Stephen Berube
you said “the fin rope underneath”. what was it underneath? and you got 2 good installs, but one that came out like a loose tooth? anything different in the way you did that one? go ahead and describe how you install your fins…the materials you use, when you use 'sanding resin, when you sand…all that stuff, real detailed, and we’ll try to help ya. good luck, ramon>>> I was sanding the hot coat and bumped the right fin on my 7,0 tri. It made > that all familiar cracking sound. So, of course you know what I did. I > wiggled it to see how strong it was. It wasn’t, and easily pulled right > off the board, and the fin rope underneath was dry, not much saturation > when I glassed the fins on. I am very frustrated and need help. How do I > fix it? The other two fins are very secure, but not that one. Now it’s > sitting next to the board that ( I thought) would be finished tomorrow. > Dang!!! I have lots of laminating resin, catalyst, and fin rope left , but > no sanding resin, and I don’t want to buy more unless I have to. What can > I do???
you said “the fin rope underneath”. what was it underneath? and > you got 2 good installs, but one that came out like a loose tooth? > anything different in the way you did that one? go ahead and describe how > you install your fins…the materials you use, when you use 'sanding > resin, when you sand…all that stuff, real detailed, and we’ll try to > help ya. good luck, ramon Well, I knew doing the fins was going to be the hard part, and I rushed it. Basically, after I had the lamination done on the bottom of the board, I set up my three fins with a dab of gelled resin. Once they were in place, I mixed up a small batch of laminating resin and applied it to the strands of fin rope that I had placed there just before mixing the resin. I used a small paint brush to apply the resin to the rope and continued to apply more and more resin until I thought all the fin rope for all three fins was saturated. I was wrong, of course, because the right fin later pulled out easily (as someone said, like a loose tooth). When I pulled the fin out, there were many strands of fin rope that were in the same condition as when I bought the rope, which means the resin never permeated the inner strands of the fin rope. Therefore, it would always be weak. One strong bottom turn would have easily cracked it. So, I pulled it out. Now I need to know the best way to reattach it.
On another note. Is sanding resin necessary? Why? Can I just do the repair (fin repair) with laminating resin only? I have some suncure stuff for ding repair, will that work for a really small area of hotcoat?
You need to completly saturate your rope by placing in a bucket of resin - just like the JC vid. Then just follow the steps in the vid and you should be fine. Stephen is dead on with purchasing surfacing agent. I believe you live in SD so go see Brad at Bashams, buy the surfacing agent and get yourself a gallon of lam resin. After you check out the prices that Brad sells his stuff for I doubt that you will ever go anywhere else. Later, Magoo
I’ll be the first to admit that I have a bad attitude about this, but I will never glass again. Yuck!
I’ll be the first to admit that I have a bad attitude about this, but I > will never glass again. Yuck! Dude, you need to stop and study, fins ‘are’ the hardest part and you haven’t done your homework, but there is still time, hope you didn’t use Lam resin on your fins(not sandable), clean off that one fin and start again, sounds like you didn’t use approx. 5" circles of cloth over the rope either am i right? If you don’t have clear saturation through your rope and its not topped with 2 layers of 4oz. cloth circles and hotcoat they need to come off.
That’s it! I’m tearing the damn things off and putting in a single fin box like I originally wanted to do. Shoot, now I just have to figure out how to put in the box. Rats, this board isn’t saving me money at all. I’m still glad I had the experience, but it sure is adding up here and there.