My IQ foil has picked up a few nasty, if mostly cosmetic, scratches over the past year. Is there a good way to tidy them up?

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dohertpk said..
My IQ foil has picked up a few nasty, if mostly cosmetic, scratches over the past year. Is there a good way to tidy them up?

Crazy glue/super glue and carbon fiber dust that you can get from any part made from carbon. The more carbon content, the grayer the dust will be. You can use a file or coarse sandpaper. Although you will be getting very little dust, be sure not to breath that.
two drops of the gel glue type, mixed with dust to a paste will give you a decent amount to fix a lot of dinged and scratches. Spread with a toothpick, let it dry, and then wet sand.

I use spray putty from Super Cheap Auto. Spray over the scratches and clean up the excess with 800 wet and dry sand paper.

I avoid getting scratches cause they are a pain to fix, but usually use a two part Devcon epoxy, or similar costs 5 dollars, only add carbon (ground charcoal) if it is on an edge and shows. Let epoxy thicken up a little and use a needle to apply to scratches, keeping foil part level so epoxy does not run while hardening, sand smooth. On the AFS foil the carbon fiber/epoxy is much harder than the cured Devcon epoxy so removing good epoxy while sanding is not an issue if you use finger pressure, for flat areas use a block of wood with sandpaper.

I have used the method below. It works well, but you end up with orange lines where the scratches used to be.

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segler said..
I have used the method below. It works well, but you end up with orange lines where the scratches used to be.

There is black body putty available if you have the time to wait for it to come from the Far East.

There is also black polyester body putty as shown in Gwen's nice video but it's expensive in the US ($50) but much cheaper versions in Europe and Aus/NZ. I tried tinting some non-black and it was a disaster.

Both are preferable to using epoxy because they sand so much easier.

Another alternative which is good for small scratches is clear laquer/enamel. For wings with a non-gloss finish, you can use satin which fills a bit better and sands easily. Just a bit of work with 320/600/1000 and you can get a nice finish. You can do a couple of coats to fill deeper scratches. Polyurethane clear coat takes too long to dry for me while the enamel clear coat dries in about half an hour.

Pro tip for segler's putty: wear gloves. The stuff sands into a red paste and gets everywhere.

Another option for black wings (like SS) where you don't see carbon weave is black auto sanding primer. Dries quickly and sands easily.