Center board split in half, repair options?

That cavity probably doesn't have room for any filler unless you clean it out. You don't want to add too much thickened epoxy as you can make the board too wide for the slot pretty easily (says someone that's never seen a mystere..)

I have a mystere rudder that has done the same thing. the "glue" (and craftsmanship) used during production in the 90's was less than optimal.

I have also seen several demo/concept/home-produced rudders fail in this same way (we have had at least 3 attempts at creating plugs & molds recently that all failed this way)

I am not certain of the correct answer to this (i imagine it's some west system epoxy or similar).. but i would think there needs to be some type of biscuit or peg that marries the 2 sides in a bond with some "re-barb" in it (for lack of better term)

ou can make the board too wide for the slot pretty easily (says someone that's never seen a mystere..)

There is tons of room in the board-wells on mystere 5.5 & 6.0s.

(IMHO) the real issue with modifying the centerboards width, lenght, thickness, edges, etc ... is it will no longer be correctly fared (hydrodynamic), will have different handling (compared to both before modification, and to the other board in the water), and it will not be as fast

MN3 wrote:
I am not certain of the correct answer to this (i imagine it's some west system epoxy or similar).. but i would think there needs to be some type of biscuit or peg that marries the 2 sides in a bond with some "re-barb" in it (for lack of better term)

Ouch. Could you explain in greater detail what is a biscuit or pleg. And what is re-barb?? Haha

You have 2 things going for you.
1) You live in Ottawa, as in not far from la belle Province.
1) You franc parle.

There is a catamaran school in Montreal, L'École de voile Sansoucy, (excuse moi, je ne pas parle Francaise very well, I'm from south of Cowtown originally, you now those damned Redneck Albertans...does San soucy mean without worries?).
http://www.ecoledevoilesansoucy.com/

These people built & maintain parts for the Mystere Cats, they should be able to help you out, without the language barrier8-).

deleted double post

Edited by Edchris177 on Sep 26, 2012 - 08:40 PM.

Edchris177 wrote: [quote=Edchris177]You have 2 things going for you.
1) You live in Ottawa, as in not far from la belle Province.
1) You franc parle.

There is a catamaran school in Montreal, L'École de voile Sansoucy, (excuse moi, je ne pas parle Francaise very well, I'm from south of Cowtown originally, you know those damned Redneck Albertans...does San soucy mean without worries?).
http://www.ecoledevoilesansoucy.com/

These people built & maintain parts for the Mystere Cats, they should be able to help you out, without the language barrier8-).

Edchris177 wrote: [quote=Edchris177]You have 2 things going for you.
1) You live in Ottawa, as in not far from la belle Province.
1) You franc parle.

There is a catamaran school in Montreal, L'École de voile Sansoucy, (excuse moi, je ne pas parle Francaise very well, I'm from south of Cowtown originally, you know those damned Redneck Albertans...does San soucy mean without worries?).
http://www.ecoledevoilesansoucy.com/

These people built & maintain parts for the Mystere Cats, they should be able to help you out, without the language barrier8-).

Yea! It is actually where I went to do my catamaran classes! And yes i've considered going to them for repairs... But im a student and school is more expensive on the ontario side then on the quebec side. I'm just trying to save a couple of bucks. But anyways, Catamaran season is almost over here. So I guess i'll just wait untill spring and see what my budget is.

pics would help

but from the sounds of it you could get by with rebonding it with epoxy

if you can pull the 2 haves apart by hand without damaging either you probably should as the bond is too weak

pegs would mean drilling holes in both halves and then setting some pegs in 1 side so they went together like a plastic model. you would want to do some dry runs to make sure everything was in alignment before using the epoxy

thickening the epoxy depends on how rough the surfaces are

you mention a cavity, how big? are the boards hollow? what's the bonding surface area? 5,10,20,30% of the the board?

Ouch. Could you explain in greater detail what is a biscuit or pleg. And what is re-barb?? Haha

Eric's explanation of a biscuit or peg is good except i wouldn't drill 100% through but try to drill 80% (from the inside out)

re-barb = rebar
A rebar (short for reinforcing bar), also known as reinforcing steel, reinforcement steel, rerod, a deformed bar, reo, or reo bar, is a common steel bar, and is commonly used as a tensioning device in reinforced concrete and reinforced masonry structures

Edited by MN3 on Sep 27, 2012 - 07:44 AM.

Okay, thanks for the response guys! 🙂 I will try posting pictures shortly. Exams are starting though so I might not have the time to repair it in the next few weeks.

Can you get the board to Kingston by Thanksgiving? My daughter is at Queens, & could bring it home with her. I can try to fix it. It will need to be totally dried out before reassembly.

Edchris177 wrote: Can you get the board to Kingston by Thanksgiving? My daughter is at Queens, & could bring it home with her. I can try to fix it. It will need to be totally dried out before reassembly.

That is very nice of you but I'll try repairing it myself first!

Here are the pictures of the centerboard. You will see that the edge on one side is broke and that there is fiberglass tape that I put at another end because the centerboard was already broke... I did those "repairs" when I first bought th boat. If I knew the centerboard could split in half like that I would try'ed doing a better job... Anyways, we learn from our mistakes! Here it is :

On this one you can see that some part of the "core" is missing. I don't know if that is some sort of stirophome in the middle but anyway, some of it is missing!

This one is just to show how it is split in half:

The missing edge of one side of the board. It simply broke off. Partly because of my repairs that I had done a bit too quickly.

A full view of the board. I sanded the sides of the board to remove the protective grey coating that the previous owner put there... That's why the board is grey and white and ugly as hell!

looks like soft expandable foam in the core

if it is, you can't use it for bonding as it is too weak, it also won't do much to hold any alignment pegs...

guess i would try to pull the 2 parts apart

clean off all the failed repair gunk

spend some time dressing the hard edge bonding area so they are smooth and match closely

then rough them up with something like #80 grit paper so they have some good tooth

then bond them together with thickened epoxy. how much to thicken depends on how closely the 2 halves want to fit. ie if they were to want to fit almost perfectly with only a 1mm gap, you should probably use unthickened resin. but the gap is likely to be closer to 4?mm meaning you will need some thickeneing to stop surface tension? pulling the resin back to the 2 faces and leaving a gap...

if you can pull them apart more pics of the edges would be good...

That is a beater! IT can be fixed if you are on a tight budget, but you will spend appx $70 in materials.
Here is most of what you need to know, go through the site, read about the various fillers,(you want one, probably two mixed, in the adhesive group).
http://www.westsystem.com/ss/the-105-system/

Mix it up to a catsup consistency, & fill the interior. Clamp the side together til cured, then grind off the excess that squeezes out.
You will need to borrow an angle grinder, & burn down the white edges, fairing them from micro thin at the edges inwards towards the center.
By removing this material, you will have room to build it up again with layers of cloth/resin, without making it to big to fit the trunk.
Biaxial tape around the edges would be easiest, but you will have to cut "darts" as it wraps around in order to get a good fit. You probably want to go 3" in from the edge for strength.
Good luck

Edited by Edchris177 on Sep 28, 2012 - 05:56 PM.

Ah! I did not know that West system offered free repair manuals! I'll look it up and maybe order their product.

Thx for the info 😀

I should have also told you to not try to "wrap" cloth all the way around the trailing edge. It will be very frustrating to try this, without wrinkles developing.
Trace the outline on cardboard, so you have a template for the final size.
The leading edge can be wrapped, side to side, aim for at least 3" on each side. The tip & trailing edge, gets lots of cloth, with very little resin, just enough to wet it. Don't worry about the final shape, you will end up with the layers from each side coming together, & trailing back. Once all the layers are done, use a jigsaw to cut to close to final size. Then sand to fair things out, & reach final size.
For the adhesive mix to glue the two halves back together, & fill any voids, I would mix colloidal silica & micro fibres into the resin. Play around with a couple of small,(1 oz or less ) batches to get used to the product before you commit to your board. Obtain a mixture close to peanut butter, & make sure you have it figured out how to get the entire inside gooped up before you try it for real.
That is the critical step, afterwards, if you screw up laying cloth, it can be ground off & reapplied.

Wow... that looks terrible.

Save up and purchase new ones...

there is a mystere forum on yahoo (mostly dead) but if i were you, i would join it and send out a message looking for used boards. my friend (screen name headhunter) sent out a message to find a mystere and within a few days he had one being driven down to him

also i would ask Mystere if they have any used ones for sale

Yea, I contacted Sansoucy and showed him the pictures. Told me the same thing, to get new ones. Unfortunatly he does not know anybody who is selling used ones. Might just have to post a kijiji ad or something.

Edited by mysteres on Oct 01, 2012 - 12:00 PM.