Good morning everyone. Yesterday I was out on a lake I've never been on before. Wind was blowing really well, so I rigged and suited up and headed out. I had to walk my gear a fair distance off shore as the first 75 to 100 yards is quite flat with some scattered rocks ranging from pebbles to softball size rocks. Mainly sand though. I got on my board, uphauled and took off. I fell the wing clip a few rocks as i got going, and I then clipped another coming in, (I should have just set down earlier and swam back in) as i was taking my stuff apart i noticed a crack or split in the leading edge of my i84. What would be the best way to fix it? I'm going to set it out in the sun today to see if there's any water in it, and hopefully dry it out. I was thinking i would either have to lightly grind the leading edge and then fill it with an epoxy or something like that.
Any thoughts?

Thanks

Can you post some pics of the injured i84.

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MagicRide said..
Can you post some pics of the injured i84.

I'll try.. thile cracks are tough to see in pictures.

never had to repair a wing before by my approach would be, do the least grinding possible. My thought would be to try and work some epoxy into the crack and then lightly clamp the leading edge. Wait for that to dry and then put a thin layer of epoxy over the crack.

Let us know what you decide

For drying leave it in the car thats exposed to the sun with the windows closed.

Contact Slingshot for repair advice too.

Good Luck.

I would go for a warranty return. Follow the instructions on the slingshot website. Personal experience is that they are good on warranties. Now if they send you a new wing, technically the cracked wing is theirs, and most likely they will ask you to dispose of it. That's part of the deal you agree to in the fine print. Now perhaps you want to play with a fix after they have your warranty wing on the way. I've set the wing up on its edge and dripped in 30 minute epoxy. I used a heat lamp to heat the wing. The epoxy will flow better with heat and the heat will not harden the epoxy early. I used Bob Smith 30 minute slow cure epoxy from a hobby shop. The four oz kit will be more than enough. It started not to flow as well in about 20 minutes. You will be surprised at how much a crack like that will absorb. I opened the crack up just a bit to make sure I could drip the epoxy into the crack. I dripped it into the crack with a wire the diameter of a paper clip. My cracked stab is now on a slow trip to the garbage can. Hope this helps!

I am fairly sure that is not a warranty problem!?!
try that with a new car. " I have crashed it in to a wall and think you should repair it under warranty " good luck with that.....
fairly easy repair I would have thought. Try to prize the crack open, get epoxy resin in there , clamp it shut lightly sand it. Job done.??

I am fairly sure that is not a warranty problem!?!
try that with a new car. " I have crashed it in to a wall and think you should repair it under warranty " good luck with that.....
fairly easy repair I would have thought. Try to prize the crack open, get epoxy resin in there , clamp it shut lightly sand it. Job done.??

When I first started out with my 76 I abused it by dragging it on a sandy gravel bottom of the local lake same thing happend did not bother with warranty. I just used a good epoxy resin to fill it in and also some C clamps with plastic end protectors to help put pressure on the worst part of the separation tape off to a very thin area of repair and wet sand the resin to finish not a big deal ,I have never had the problem again. I'll bet SS has done lots of warranties on this problem.All things considered these are pretty tough wings I have seen other brands wings suffer much worse damage from impacts.

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nimo1972 said..
I am fairly sure that is not a warranty problem!?!
try that with a new car. " I have crashed it in to a wall and think you should repair it under warranty " good luck with that.....
fairly easy repair I would have thought. Try to prize the crack open, get epoxy resin in there , clamp it shut lightly sand it. Job done.??

I could be incorrect. However I don't see a dent in the leading edge were the crack propagated from. And in addition the crack is on both sides of the wing suggesting the leading edge was sanded excessively in the manufacture of the wing. Slingshot is ultimate authority in a warranty submittal. I would give them a chance to say yes or no.

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lakeeffect said..

nimo1972 said..
I am fairly sure that is not a warranty problem!?!
try that with a new car. " I have crashed it in to a wall and think you should repair it under warranty " good luck with that.....
fairly easy repair I would have thought. Try to prize the crack open, get epoxy resin in there , clamp it shut lightly sand it. Job done.??

I could be incorrect. However I don't see a dent in the leading edge were the crack propagated from. And in addition the crack is on both sides of the wing suggesting the leading edge was sanded excessively in the manufacture of the wing. Slingshot is ultimate authority in a warranty submittal. I would give them a chance to say yes or no.

yes, good call. probably worth a go

Manufacturing defect for sure. They admitted that sometimes in the past they oversanded the leading edge. Send it for replacement.
My first i76 opened up like this.

Thanks everyone. I am going to contact my dealer and Slingshot. As mentioned, there is no point of impact on the leading edge, just a few scratches on the bottom. But the cracking goes across the front of the entire wing. Even two areas with no scratches at all. We'll see how it goes.

In another note... when I noticed the crack, I had just about wrapped up another really fun Foiling session on Lake Leelanau in Northern Michigan. Nearly ideal wind speed for my 4.8 Duotone Super Session. Air was only 34 degrees and the windchill was in the teens, but it was still awesome in my Ocean Rodeo Soul drysuit.

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sl55 said..
Manufacturing defect for sure. They admitted that sometimes in the past they oversanded the leading edge. Send it for replacement.
My first i76 opened up like this.

Excav8ter.. my sympathies.. what sl55 said.. there is no obvious impact to cause that!! - but should you need it..
If I had to I would grind out the crack to form a shallow trench and fill.. using following material .. The layup over the top - mmm... There are some g8 builders on this forum so layup tips probably best from them. You will have to secure the two halves together - - perhaps a number of differently angled drill holes filled with same suggested mix???
My fix..
I bust off one side of my I76 trailing edge tip without any knowledge until I was packing up. The trailing edge of mine at least is not that strong.. To fix I used a 2 part epoxy glue (we call it araldite) the slow cure one not the 5 minute one and I chopped and mixed in carbon fibres - quiet a lot - they wet easily enough. I had made a crude basin type mould to hold the mix till it cured. Then using the other side drew template and dremelled to shape and sanded / spray painted.. The other side is showing wear the repair is as solid as...
But hope SS come to the party..
Cheers
AP

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sl55 said..
Manufacturing defect for sure. They admitted that sometimes in the past they oversanded the leading edge. Send it for replacement.
My first i76 opened up like this.

Yes it doesn't look good! Very surprising to see that the leading front edge can even crack open like this, as one would have expected that the enforced carbon fibers should have been folder around to cover that entire front, thereby making such a material split impossible. Now I have never cracked open such foil wing yet (though my recent experiences with it, made me come close many times in pure frustration ) so do not know the cloth patterns they use for constructing it.

Now first check out if warranty will cover anything!
If not then....: In classic epoxy repairs, its very handy to use a medical needle and syringe. Get the big ones that you typically use for bone marrow sampling (needle) and anesthetics (aka a 250ml syringe). Its also a quick and clean way to mix your two components very efficiently using the syringe. Insert the needle on the syringe into the crack and inject till you see sufficient epoxy has been deployed (you wont need much). Then clamp it up and let the leading edge hang down, so surplus drips will only remain on the front edge and not go all over the place. This can then be quickly sanded off when hardened up. Method above is how I have repaired countless cracked waveboards, repaired fin boxes, fins etc. Often needed some new stringer board material and/or some fiber cloth, but here in your case its just a cracked material and not anything fully missing. So just a repair to re-glue together and close up the outer surface should do the trick.

Best of luck with it !

I had two I84's that cracked along leading edge due to fabrication errors. Third one was a charm. All returned for warranty replacements.

I had a similar crack in an i84which SS warrantied as soon as they saw the pictures I sent. New one has had no issues.

My theory based on nothing but visualization is that it isn't impact but LOAD which is cracking these wings. As long as the load is distributed over the whole wing as it is during lift there isn't much sudden bending. However, when the wing grounds out all the load is going into the tip and causing the wing to flex very suddenly, and I think that's cracking that not-very-well-designed front seam. There needn't be much of an impact - I bet if you could rest the wing on a hard surface and suddenly apply 100kg of pressure down through the mast you'd get the seam to pop open as well.

like most others here have said, that is a warranty replacement candidate. You are lucky that it didn't explode on you while foiling... when that happens the leading edge opens up and stops you in your tracks with a big crash. I had to slog in against the current with the top laminate layer opened up and stuck at 90 degrees to the water flow... made for some very slow slogging, especially against the current. Replacement wing has been run into the rocks repeatedly and still fine.

We had a guy that had the exact same wing here in Colorado, USA. It was cracked just like yours. He got a new one on warranty.

Thanks again everyone. I just returned from working out of tow for a few days. Hoping to drop if off and have the shop look it over and see what they can do.

I had two wings cracked exactly the same and both replaced under warranty.If you are going to repair I would put a wrap of lightweight glass fibre ( 4 Oz) over the leading edge preferably cut at 45 degrees so it will take the bend radius easily, glass it on and fair it into the top and bottom surfaces and you'll never have another problem with it . Pour mentholated spirits into the crack and leave it hanging up to dry as long as you can to dry it out before glassing.

What about smaller dings in the foil. I hit a rock and put a small ding on the leading edge. I mostly mostly followed this video: Except that: a) I used UV resistant epoxy with fairing filler (West Systems 407) b) Did not prime or paint it.
I just stopped at the sanding to 1200. Do I need to apply a top coat, like more epoxy or lacquer or something? If so, to the whole wing or just part of it?

Well that was too easy. I called the shop I buy my stuff from and told them the situation with the i84. I told him that I did bump off the bottom but that there are no real impact marks on the leading edge and that its it's splitting open. He said no problem. I'll set a new one outside the door and you can leave your cracked one and take the new one. So AWESOME!

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excav8ter said..
Well that was too easy. I called the shop I buy my stuff from and told them the situation with the i84. I told him that I did bump off the bottom but that there are no real impact marks on the leading edge and that its it's splitting open. He said no problem. I'll set a new one outside the door and you can leave your cracked one and take the new one. So AWESOME!