How do I reglass my surfboard fin?

Question

I have the fin rope and the sun cure but, what am I supposed to do, the fin itself is fine but the base with resin is cracked and the fin moves from side to side about 3 or 4 degrees to each side, a list would be great if anyone could make one for me, thanks also.

Answer 1

Ah ha! More info yet. If you have that 3/4 degree wobble, your really have to sand out around the base of that fin, and lay in the fin rope. Forget about just wire brushing out the cracked stuff, I would work on really sanding out the old resin & old fin rope. Looks like you are going to reset this fin YOURSELF! If you do it right, you'll never want to part with that board. Fixin' 'em yourself make 'em more magic. Do the math, that means you have up to 8 degrees of flex in a fin that should have zero.

Check out the links. I couldn't find any with better graphics, but the video on your tube is pretty good. The last link is from HB Snake's website. He knows his s$%t, and it's a more articulate description than I can provide. Surfer Steve has best graphics of how to secure your fin while glassing it in.

http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/1597/s...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh8yBdjfY...

http://www.livetosurf.com/frames/updates...

http://www.surfersteve.com/fins.htm

Answer 2

I can't speak to actually glassing on a fixed fin, just general glass layup.

Here's what I would suggest.  You may have to remove some of the old/cracking resin to make it clean.  Do that with regular old sand paper. Sand the area around the fin even if you don't want to remove the cracking resin.  This will help the glass make a physical bond with the board/fin as well as the chemical bond the epoxy/sun cure makes.  If the rope is what I think it is, lay it around the fin at the base and then lay a couple layers of glass cloth over the fin, overlapping layers as you work around the fin.  Use the sun cure/epoxy (whichever is appropriate) to wet out the glass and let it all cure.

After everything is cured completely, take it out and give it a test ride.