www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=6238

Has anyone had experience fixing this sort of fin damage, either re-attatching the broken piece (would have to be a strong accurate join), or is it possible to get the whole fin "head" replaced. I've got to stop running into things, have 3 like this

You would still have to do some repair work, but I know you can get powerbox and tuttle "heads", sometimes used for converting fins to different boxes.
If you got the remaining head section off and did a bit of a rebuild of the remaining section I'm sure you could fit one of the new heads and it should all be fine.

Heya Easty (dood with "the" leg)

You can put a new head/box on it. The fin will be (say) 1 cm shorter because you need to stick some of the fin into the new head/box...

BTW, what were you doing in PNG (other bush bashing) to get the leg

That is well smashed!

I've fixed a couple of broken fins - none quite that badly smashed, but similar.

For the worst one, I epoxied the pieces back together, and then drilled holes around the join, carved out channels to link the holes up. Then spilt off a few long bunches of carbon strands from some unidirectional Carbon I had sitting around, and 'laced' it up really tight. Secured the carbon with some superglue on the end, and then wet it all out and filled in all remaining holes and grooves with more epoxy.

Mine is stronger now than when it was made.

If I was doing your fin, I'd glue it back together, then thin down the fin head on both sides for a ways past the break - probably right down to the fin itself, and build up a layer of grunty carbon right across the affected area. Then probably do the holes and lacing thing to make sure it has no chance of coming away. After that, you have the joyous and time consuming task of wet sanding the head back to it's original profile so that it will fit back in the finbox.

Just epoxying the break back together will work for about as long as it takes you to tighten the finbolt.. That's not the smartest design of fin head, but then you'd rather break a fin, than tear the bottom out of your board eh!

I'd prefer to fix a fin than buy a new one, but it does require epoxy, carbon and time etc.. Depends what your time is worth I guess!

Sounds like putting on a new powerbox head would be the way to go, who supplies these? Will be a nice project while I'm laid up.
Cheers

you can get these from anyone who sells select fins.....

Easty, I've got the same fin, it even had a small crack from new where yours broke, but have been nursing for years. I'm afraid I am not impressed with the strength of the Torquays. Heres a thread that may help. I considered reheading some of mine, but to be quite honest I just cant be bothered. www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=forum&forum=1&val=3452

quote:

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Originally posted by Haggar

Easty, I've got the same fin, it even had a small crack from new where yours broke, but have been nursing for years. I'm afraid I am not impressed with the strength of the Torquays. Heres a thread that may help. I considered reheading some of mine, but to be quite honest I just cant be bothered. www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=forum&forum=1&val=3452

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Haggar, I would have thought you would be "breakin your neck" to find something to do.

Pun fully intended

Um ... Yes ...... Well ...... Uh

quote:

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Easty, I've got the same fin, it even had a small crack from new where yours broke, but have been nursing for years. I'm afraid I am not impressed with the strength of the Torquays. Heres a thread that may help. I considered reheading some of mine, but to be quite honest I just cant be bothered. www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=forum&forum=1&val=3452

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Thanks Hagar. Yep, I've got 2 Torquay fins like this, snapped in exactly the same way, to the point where the jagged bits match exactly on both. And I have another with a crack, which like you I've been nursing. Obviously a weak point, but otherwise the fins seem to work ok. I smashed these fins several years ago, and have since stopped running into things (as much as possible), it was getting too expensive replacing them.

Bin it! Buy a new fin, under $200 will get you state of the art fin.

Using 555's method, I could fix it for $20.

Just posted a pic of the fin I described earlier..

It was a pretty old fin to start with, and then some _muppet_ screwed a finbolt that was too long into it, and split the top off the head..

www.seabreeze.com.au/gallery/gallery.asp?imageid=6243

The red line is where the spilt was, and the blue is the holes and grooves I cut into it to fix it.

Ahh, a picture is worth a 1000 words. Now I see what you did, but looking at my fins again I think the strongest (and easiest) solution will be to fit them to a new head.