I had the pleasure of ripping a fin out of my board the other day.

What resin or epoxy should I use to fix up the hole? I want the most simple solution without having to buy large quantities. Board is a Delta TT which seems to be a layered sandwich type construction.

Hi,
Just had the same problem a couple of months ago with my Cabrinha icon.
I used Diggers fiberglass resin bought at Bunnings and never had problem since then (sure they're not the cheapest for this kind of product but at least you'll find it in small quantity).

To get a clean and solid repair this is how I've done: dry the board, prepare two pieces of 150x100 6mm thick plywood covered with tape and with 2 holes spaced according to the fins' fixation holes, 2x nuts 4xlarge washers and 2x30mm bolts that fit in the fins' fixation holes.
Fill the damage part as much as you can with the resin (don't hesitate to use a flat screw driver to open the gaps), place the two plywood pieces bolts washers and nuts as you guessed they should be , tighten the whole, and wait until the resin's totally dry.

I had to fight a little bit to take the pieces apart, mainly for the bolts, the resin doesn't stick to the tape. Once it's done, I used a brand new cutter blade to remove the resin excess.

An other tip: go to your local pharmacy and get yourself two syringes. Enjoy the chemist who stares at you thinking: "I'd never thought he was a junky", tell him you're fine, you're just addicted to kitesurfing and that there's nothing like syringe for an accurate hardener/resin mix. (as it's more or less 3:100 for fiberglass resin)

Happy repair

Dont use standard surfboard resin on an epoxy board, you will melt the styrene foam core, you need to use an epoxy resin.

Qcells are basically foam dust and makes the resin more like a paste and also reduces the weight, if its only a small job just use resin.

If its only a small job you can get some arildite from the Selleys bar in Bunnings, or you can try a ship chandler or a surfboard shop, but make sure you get epoxy.

quote:

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Originally posted by georges

Hi,
Just had the same problem a couple of months ago with my Cabrinha icon.
I used Diggers fiberglass resin bought at Bunnings and never had problem since then (sure they're not the cheapest for this kind of product but at least you'll find it in small quantity).

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Diggers fibreglass resin is polyester, which will eat up any polystyrene it can find in no time.

Polyester: 1:50 or higher ratio, eats up polystyrene.
Epoxy: 1:1 or 1:2 ratio, very inert.

Cool, thanks guys, will get some epoxy resin for the repair - is there any better brand or is araldite OK?

erm kiteboards arent made from polystyrene (apart from some surfboards). They usually have some kind of pvc core.

polyester is not as flexible and doesn't bond as well as epoxy .