HQ Obsession Wing Tip Break

1. Drill away from you and keep your fingers out of the way.
2. Repeat this a couple of times, emptying the bits of carbon & checking to see if you can pull the spar fragment out before each drilling each time.
3. Assuming it's still stuck even after 2 or 3 small holes, change over to the 4 mm drill bit and drill (again gently and away from you!) into the ferrule.
4. Because you have already loosened the fragment this should be quite easy.

1. Check the depth with you spare carbon to make sure it's the same on both wing tips. If not it's likely you still have a little piece of carbon stuck right at the bottom of the ferrule which will need some more drilling.

Making the new spar

1. Measure the spare carbon so it's the same length as the unbroken wingtip.
2. Wrap the paper sticky tape around the spar - the middle of the tape should be where you want to cut.

1. Mark the tape with the pencil, then gently cut with the hacksaw. I find keep turning the spar whilst cutting gives a better result.
2. Once cut remove the tape and smooth the cut edge down with the sand paper.

1. Put the end cap back on and feed the spar back through the leading edge and reattach the leech line (the line that is sewn into the trailing edge) and the trick line.
2. And hopefully that is now all done & you are back in business!

Other thoughts...

1. It might be possible to glue the broken bits of spar back together with super glue, making it possible to remove the stuck fragment. I say might because I suspect it would a) not glue the 2 parts with a strong enough bond, and b) end up gluing both the stuck fragment and the other bit into the ferrule. Could be worth a try.
2. Or you could drill a small hole into the stuck fragment then glue something into it in order to pull the stuck bit out. I may try this next time, but the fear of ending up super gluing the ferrule remains in my mind.....
3. As for the replacement carbon - I have tried left over bits of C-Quad leading edge spar. This seems to work fine as the original is solid 4mm carbon, and C-Quad is solid carbon/glassfibre (but just under 4mm). The advantage was I got it much cheaper from the kite shop, and (if it works OK) I will have loads of the stuff next time I have to replace my C-Quad's leading edge. Only problems so far is that it is slight smaller than 4mm, and when cutting they seem to want to splinter more (nice carbon fibre splinter in your finger).
4. And finally if you do break the wingtip and it's a nice break (i.e. you can easily remove the small bit from the ferrule with your fingers) don't do what I did and stick the wing tip back in the ferrule to carry on flying. Firstly this alters the flying of the kite and secondly it will break again (weakened carbon) and you might not be so lucky next time. I wasn't....