Mast repair

[Richard81]

Hi,

Got a little ding in the back of my Moses mast.
Any advice on the best way to fix it?

Cheers,

Rich

[Foil]

Repeat post

[Foil]

Easy repair, but you do need to get the stuff which makes this even easier to repair, but first clean up the damage removing any loose carbon shards or bits bent back above the original surface line, use a needle file and rough dry grit cloth of around 200 grit, then buy this!
[]
next day delivery off eBay, get the dark grey colour epoxy, which is really close to the black of the mast, this stuff is great for the Moses wing damage you may get as well, the good thing about this product is you can mix and introduce a good layer of the epoxy mix pushing the stuff into any cracks or air holes or solid rough but clean surfaces, then wait,
after a minute dap the excess mix of resin to see how near it is to setting, when it gets near putty texture add a bit more of this to the repair area and then wet your fingers, and work the resin gently to get good and near the profile shape, but with a little excess that can be removed very easily quite soon after with 400 or 600 grit wet paper, go gently with the wet paper wrapped tightly around a small wood block,
if the resin is too soft it will wrinkle a little, stop and quickly use a small hairdryer to soften the surface even more and use wet fingers to smooth away the wrinkles, very quickly the resin will go very hard, use finer 800 grit wet paper and gently go back and forth along the repair to level it down to the original good mast edge parts, don't worry about the small scratches you will leave on the shiny part of the mast, but don't go too hard into the surface, keep things light, then leave the repair for a cup of coffee, after the coffee break go back to the repair with 1200 wet paper and then 2000 wet paper, this will remove all scratches,
for the final blend in and polish use a 3000 grit round foam pad, not to be wetted! Keep this very dry and rub all scratches or dull areas untill they shine back, I do use 4000 grit round foam backed pad for this final finish, but I use these pads to maintain the leading edges on my mast and wings, every foiler should have all this kit I have mentioned, along with the acrylic Matt spray paint shown, this spray paint fills any tiny air holes and tiny scratches, apply 3 light coats for a even smooth finish, leaving only 30 seconds between coats, dry with a hair dryer and leave for one hour, after which you can finish the surface just as above but starting with 1200 grit wet paper, no negative paint reaction with Moses paints or laquer, and primer is not required on moses carbon wings or masts.
the foam backed round pads are available off eBay along with the dark grey (black in my view) 4 minute resin,
The pads and acrylic paint are all available from any car paint shop, of which there are around two in most town areas, and are open to the public not just repair garages, and are super cheap compared to eBay and halfords,
URL=https://www.directupload.net][/URL

Pads link here--
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264500943479

[OzBungy]

Lots of chat about wing repair here. The damage is the similar to your mast.

viewtopic.php?f=196&t=2407240

[Richard81]

Thank you guys.
I have a little flap, is it best to cut it off and build up again or try to incorporate the flap back into the mast using Epoxy?

Note to self- do not tow other people on hydrofoils when using a nice mast, they tend to hit your board if you fall.

[cglazier]

Try to save any flap so it will provide attachment between your repair and the mast.
All good advice above, but I prefer a normal epoxy rather than any quick 5 minute one. The normal epoxy results in a stronger repair and is easier to work with.. but of course it has to set overnight.
Here is a commonly available (in North America anyway) one which I have used with good results.
(And I never bother with wet/dry sanding finer than about 600 grit because it is really quite smooth at that point.)

CG

jbweld.JPG (60.21 KiB) Viewed 1166 times

[OzBungy]

A couple of things to be aware of while you're repairing.

Epoxy has a habit of flowing out of things and leaving gaps. You want to use epoxy paste, or even better, use a good quality epoxy resin and microfibre fillers to thicken the resin.

Epoxy doesn't bond very well to cured epoxy. It needs a rough surface to form a mechanical bond. It's probably rough enough inside the torn section to form a bond. The outer surface will be too smooth. You need to roughen the outer surface with 50 grit paper for the epoxy to bond. 80 grit works ok if you don't want big scratches in the surface.

If you do subsequent coats of epoxy then let the first coat cure to touch dry, or tacky but not wet, then put on an additional coat. That allows a chemical bond to form and that is strongest.

If it was me doing the repair I would:
- probe the repair and remove any loose or damaged bits of carbon. See how deep the damage goes. Hopefully it's just surface carbon tearing.
- do a bit of practice with clamping the damaged bit into place. You can use pegs, spring paper clips, clamps, tap, whatever you've got. Make sure the torn flap sits nicely into place. Look at using some cling wrap to stop the clamps sticking and to smooth the epoxy. Some padding under the clamps helps the under part to conform to the shape. I quite like using peel ply (polyester fabric) to absorb excess resin and it peels off nicely.
- mix some epoxy and microfibres and fill the damaged bit and clamp it down.
- let it cure fully then inspect it.
- sand off any excess and decide how you want to finish it off. You can just sand it and call it done. You can sand it then paint it with a *thin* coat of epoxy to get a gloss finish.

I quite like to heat the resin before mixing and to heat the surface I am working on. It lets the resin flow into gaps and helps bubbles to come out. You can get a nice thin glossy coat. Be careful not to blow drops of resin off onto other stuff. I heat the resin by putting near a heating duct, or putting the bottle in a container of warm water. I heat the thing to be repaired with a hair dryer.

[grandeand]

for the final blend in and polish use a 3000 grit round foam pad, not to be wetted! Keep this very dry and rub all scratches or dull areas untill they shine back, I do use 4000 grit round foam backed pad for this final finish, but I use these pads to maintain the leading edges on my mast and wings, every foiler should have all this kit I have mentioned, along with the acrylic Matt spray paint shown, this spray paint fills any tiny air holes and tiny scratches, apply 3 light coats for a even smooth finish, leaving only 30 seconds between coats, dry with a hair dryer and leave for one hour,

Pads link here--
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264500943479

can you take a picture of this product? polish use a 3000-4000 grit.

in the lower part of the front wing some small micro-holes have formed in the paint that I have opacified. Do I leave it like this or do I fix it?