Hi there!

I just came back from a session with madly gusty and strong winds. Those sort of winds which take you into the third storey during a gust and let you come down VERY quickly if the wind dies off during the jump....

1. How do you reinforce a board to withstand this conditions? I found they always break between the footstrap plugs or in the middle. Boards always have a compression dent on the deck. The bottom seems to be fine. How do you combat compression breakage on the deck? Will carbon or glass pads be better? Will pure strenght (carbon) or flex (glass) work ?

2. Is it better to put the reinforcements in first (i.e. closest to the foam and than start with the normal carbon-lay-up) or to put on the other layers (glass and UD carbon) closest to the foam and the pads on top?

3. Breakage was so far always in a straight line perpendicular to the length of the board. Will it make sense to use uni-directional fibre in the longitudinal axis or in an angle (45 degrees to the length-axis of the board) to spread the load?

Tell me about your experiences!
axel

Axel
Although this is a great forum for general kiting info, your board construction questions will be better answered at ;http://groups.yahoo.com/group/boardbuilding/
I put carbon-kevlar, then carbon right next to the foam in that order.. Then I add fiberglass layers.
My standard layup is : one full layer of 5.7oz. K-C , one full 5.7 oz. carbon or S-glass One more full 6oz, S-glass. On top of these three full length layers I install a large patch of 4oz. S-glass which covers the entire binding area and between the feet ... On top of this I install 1 or 2 small footstrap area patches depending on what type of board it is (light wind planer or high wind basher)...
Add the patches after the full layers are applied. You can feather sand the outside edges of the patches this way, making them blend in and disappear.
You don't need to use expensive materials like I do with the lay-up described above. Standard E-glass is good enough . Just make sure there's 5 to 6 layers directly under your heels and you won't have as many , or anybreakages again.... You might want to try plate bindings that have the aluminum or fiberglass plate covering the heel area. They are a bit heavier but they pretty much eliminate the heel dents that are the first stage of total deck failure............
I prefer to use S-glass for patches instead of carbon so the board's not too stiff.

E.J.