How can I fix my blade?

[Ian Main]

I have had a nightmare!

If anyone can advise me how to get out of this I would be grateful.

My blade snapped pre Xmas at the end of the shaft, leaving the majority of it in the shaft. I tried to clear out the shaft but it was difficult. I then sanded down the spare blade end to try and fit it into the shaft and never quite managed to get it to fit.

Plan B - I have now ordered and rec'd a new shaft without any debris within it. The sanded down blade now is not a tight fit into the shaft and I don't know if it is worth trying to fit it, or accept i need to order a new blade too! (doh)

I thought about building up the blade with some araldite, letting it set, and then trying again, but I'm not sure if this will provide the required strength.

Does anyone have any suggestions (other than me never using a toolbox!!!)

Thanks

Ian

[Martijn]

I (we) normally use woven glassfiber put around the end of the blade when fitting it into the shaft.. just use enough to fill up the gap with the glass+epoxy..

[clyde]

Hi Ian,
As Martin suggests any material would be better than just the epoxy glue.
I would also seriously suggest filling the inside of the spigot end as well to add a little more strength if you can.

Without knowing just how much you have take off, it's a bit hard to say, but I hate throwing anything away, so you might be lucky building up the inside and out.
Tip 1, use the normal araldite (Epoxy glue) rather than rapid as is much stronger and it's consistancy is thinner which will run into the fibre's of whatever you build the thickness up with. Then let it dry, sand it down and do it again.

Tip 2.
I recently heard from an Italian who carefuly heated up the end of the shaft (containing the broken end) and used a metal hook to extract the broken off spigot.
The photo he sent me shows this extracted - I'm very impressed !


Clyde

[Ian Main]

Thanks for your tips guys.


Paul,

the blade is a mega kinetic - do you have any materials you would sell to use to build it up or can you suggest an alternative supplier?

I don't think I would need too much.

Many thanks

Ian

[Martijn]

Hi,


Good points Clyde :thumbup:

Just a little addition to the heating..
We tried this as well a number of times.. sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.
I believe it pretty much depends of the glue used to put the paddle together.
When using normal epoxy (like the stuff the paddle itself is made of) it won't work.. when you reach the temperature where the glue breaks apart.. the paddle itself will be fallig apart as wel.

I often use rapid epoxy they sell as glue at all the hardware stores over here.
This one breaks apart at a lower temperature than the better epoxy's, and therefore it's possible to heat it and get the broken part out.. (still quite hard to do it well though)

[Dan205]

send ya paddles to a canoeing shop where u can buy canoeing kit they will remove the shaft competly and charge u like £20 or something like that and they will suply u with a whole new shaft or u could try and fix it ur self but it tricky

[Ian Main]

Cheers Dan205, but I guess I should have ended this post a while back. In the end I recognised my own (pretty limited) ability level and asked Dave Brown to fix it for me, which he did and made a sterling job of it!

Thanks anyway,

Ian

[michielv]

I use a series of flat "wood" drills (on a regular electric drill) to remove left overs from snapped blades. I start out with a small size that fits just inside the left over bit and gradually increase the diameter. Be careful not to remove too much as you'll end up removing the inside of the shaft ;)

It's easy, done in a few minutes and most people have the required equipment available anyway.

:twocents: