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Who monitors the quality of production boards?

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gmb13
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Re: Who monitors the quality of production boards?

Postby gmb13 » Sun Apr 22, 2012 9:17 pm

Hi Gunnar,
You say that you know what you are doing when it comes to repairing boards?? You should NEVER EVER ever use a heat gun to soften up a box to make your fin fit in it. The box has to be heated up considerably more than the surrounding materials can handle to make the box material soften. The heat can/ will either lift the lamination cap and/or distort materials such as EPS,pvc that are in the area of the box.
The corecell inside the tuttles is 3/4" (2 cm) unless it was heated up by your heat gun technique and shrunken or distorted. If you did this originally to make your fin fit in the box, you caused the damage and the shrinking/burning of 2cm of corecell.
Since you have mentioned this technique on this forum, you have probably recommended it to others before, so I want everyone to know not to ever do this to your board if your fin does not fit.
The remedy to making your fins fit is to :
1st check the top lamination of the box (we call it the cap) covering the box. Sometimes this top cap has not been sanded or filed enough out of the way when the cap was originally routed open. You want to make sure you do not lift this lamination cap by forcing the fin in and out. File or sand this cap at an angle so your fin cannot grab it. Caps are generally less than 1 to 2 mm of glass and/or filler.
2nd Check inside the box for extra resin, paint etc that might be causing the problem and carefully sand or file it out. Do not sand thru the Carbon. If it is a plastic Chinook brand tuttle , then there is less chance of hurting the box.
3rd Check the fin itself and you can you start sanding the fin base itself carefully checking it's size in the box as you sand it.
Many fins are made with the different and sometimes wrong sizing of the bases. For instance, what we call a Cobra box (boards made at the Cobra facility) have a smaller sizing of the Tutlle specifications. You can take your Starboard fin and it fits very loosely in the real size of Tuttles and visa versa a real size Tuttle will not fit all the way inside a Cobra made board.

So please everyone, do not use a heat gun to make your fins fit into a box on any board you own, this does not refer to only race boards, any board can have problems when using heat to soften up a box.
Sincerely,
Alex
Alex,

The heat gun was set at 80 °C. There was no damage to the Corecell and the Board is fine and everything worked. I was very careful and made sure that it didn't get too hot.

Your way of solving it would have ruined the Base of my fins as I would have had to sand off about 5mm each side to make it fit. Just man up and admit that there may be a problem with the Board I have and that the Box is not reinforced like it should be.

Just let me explain the exact sequence of events.

1) I bought the board at Sylt from Bjorn. Fins fit fine

2) In Italy it took in a lot of water.

3) I let it dry out in the sun the last day and about a liter of water came out.

4) Back home I let the board dry out for a week. I am sure the Gore Tex Valve was not working properly as after the drying the walls of the boxes had been compressed together and the fins did not fit at all, not even close.

5) Slowly and carefully heated the area in the boxes and forces the fins in. This worked pretty easily. The board has been fine ever since. The rest of the KTE tour and the PKRA Germany and no problems with the boxes since. I did replace the Goretex Valve with a normal screw insert.

I do know what I am doing when I repair the boards and I am pretty damn sure that I know what I am doing when it comes to construction.

Just a question on the Board I have: It's basically just EPS One layer of very thin carbon and Glass. There is no Corecell shell or anything to protect the eps like on Sandwich boards I have been making. Was that how it was supposed to be made, or did Cobra stiff you on materials? It's a pretty fragile way of making a board and its super susceptible to pressure dents. Are your new Boards the same or proper Sandwich construction.

A note on the Boxes in the board. They are Deep tuttles and there is only about 2mm worth of Glass and Carbon that the Screw and Washer lays on. In Italy I snagged a platic bag and that thin layer under the screws broke. That is where water was getting into to board too.

And one more time before you tell me I'm an Idiot again: THE BOARD IS FINE NOW AFTER MY REPAIRS TO IT!

If it interest you which board it is: https://vimeo.com/32115045 you can also see that I have laminated 600g glass over the boxes to reinforce the top deck so the screws don't break the deck the next time I snag some thing on the water.



--
Gunnar

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Re: Who monitors the quality of production boards?

Postby alex a » Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:56 pm

gmb13 wrote:
Hi Gunnar,
You say that you know what you are doing when it comes to repairing boards?? You should NEVER EVER ever use a heat gun to soften up a box to make your fin fit in it. The box has to be heated up considerably more than the surrounding materials can handle to make the box material soften. The heat can/ will either lift the lamination cap and/or distort materials such as EPS,pvc that are in the area of the box.
The corecell inside the tuttles is 3/4" (2 cm) unless it was heated up by your heat gun technique and shrunken or distorted. If you did this originally to make your fin fit in the box, you caused the damage and the shrinking/burning of 2cm of corecell.
Since you have mentioned this technique on this forum, you have probably recommended it to others before, so I want everyone to know not to ever do this to your board if your fin does not fit.
The remedy to making your fins fit is to :
1st check the top lamination of the box (we call it the cap) covering the box. Sometimes this top cap has not been sanded or filed enough out of the way when the cap was originally routed open. You want to make sure you do not lift this lamination cap by forcing the fin in and out. File or sand this cap at an angle so your fin cannot grab it. Caps are generally less than 1 to 2 mm of glass and/or filler.
2nd Check inside the box for extra resin, paint etc that might be causing the problem and carefully sand or file it out. Do not sand thru the Carbon. If it is a plastic Chinook brand tuttle , then there is less chance of hurting the box.
3rd Check the fin itself and you can you start sanding the fin base itself carefully checking it's size in the box as you sand it.
Many fins are made with the different and sometimes wrong sizing of the bases. For instance, what we call a Cobra box (boards made at the Cobra facility) have a smaller sizing of the Tutlle specifications. You can take your Starboard fin and it fits very loosely in the real size of Tuttles and visa versa a real size Tuttle will not fit all the way inside a Cobra made board.

So please everyone, do not use a heat gun to make your fins fit into a box on any board you own, this does not refer to only race boards, any board can have problems when using heat to soften up a box.
Sincerely,
Alex
Alex,

The heat gun was set at 80 °C. There was no damage to the Corecell and the Board is fine and everything worked. I was very careful and made sure that it didn't get too hot.

Your way of solving it would have ruined the Base of my fins as I would have had to sand off about 5mm each side to make it fit. Just man up and admit that there may be a problem with the Board I have and that the Box is not reinforced like it should be.

Just let me explain the exact sequence of events.

1) I bought the board at Sylt from Bjorn. Fins fit fine

2) In Italy it took in a lot of water.

3) I let it dry out in the sun the last day and about a liter of water came out.

4) Back home I let the board dry out for a week. I am sure the Gore Tex Valve was not working properly as after the drying the walls of the boxes had been compressed together and the fins did not fit at all, not even close.

5) Slowly and carefully heated the area in the boxes and forces the fins in. This worked pretty easily. The board has been fine ever since. The rest of the KTE tour and the PKRA Germany and no problems with the boxes since. I did replace the Goretex Valve with a normal screw insert.

I do know what I am doing when I repair the boards and I am pretty damn sure that I know what I am doing when it comes to construction.

Just a question on the Board I have: It's basically just EPS One layer of very thin carbon and Glass. There is no Corecell shell or anything to protect the eps like on Sandwich boards I have been making. Was that how it was supposed to be made, or did Cobra stiff you on materials? It's a pretty fragile way of making a board and its super susceptible to pressure dents. Are your new Boards the same or proper Sandwich construction.

A note on the Boxes in the board. They are Deep tuttles and there is only about 2mm worth of Glass and Carbon that the Screw and Washer lays on. In Italy I snagged a platic bag and that thin layer under the screws broke. That is where water was getting into to board too.

And one more time before you tell me I'm an Idiot again: THE BOARD IS FINE NOW AFTER MY REPAIRS TO IT!

If it interest you which board it is: https://vimeo.com/32115045 you can also see that I have laminated 600g glass over the boxes to reinforce the top deck so the screws don't break the deck the next time I snag some thing on the water.



--
Gunnar
Hi Gunnar,
I never called you an idiot, I said your technique should never be used with heat gun to make a fin fit in a box. There is science and reasoning to this statement. Even when using a temperature of only 80 degree celsius (176 degree farenheit) you can melt EPS and soften up most resins (used in board building) to where they can delaminate. EPS can start to melt at 60 celsius or 140 farenheit. You can heat the tuttle box up and everything seems fine after you got your fin in the board but you might have unseen problems like delaminating the cap (attaching layers over the box) which leads to water getting in the board, delaminating the carbon and glass layers inside the tuttle, or melting the foam inside the board around the area.
Bjoerns board was probably the one he won the Masters World Championships on last year (yellow daimond tail)? Or it could have been an earlier, lighter built model as well? Most of these older model boards, were CNC high density EPS boards without sandwich materials (the newer,molded boards are all sandwiched) so it is even more of a board you should not place a heat gun on because there is no sandwich between the heat gun and the EPS to help protect against the heat. Yes, you are right that those older boards dented very easy because there was no sandwich.
There are several hundred of these tuttle boxes out there by the way and they seem to be doing fine.

Aloha,
Alex

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Re: Who monitors the quality of production boards?

Postby gmb13 » Mon Apr 23, 2012 6:12 pm

Thanks for the info Alex.

Like I said. The Board has been fine since the repair. There is holding a heat gun to the box and there is holding a heat gun to the box. If you are careful that the box does not get too hot then nothing can go wrong.

The Melting temp of corecell is about 95° Celsius. If it would melt below 80 there would be major problems leaving the board in a car in the summer as that temp can reach that if you are not careful.

Yes it's the board that Bjorn won the Masters on. It's a real shame that its so fragile and is not IKA registered anymore.

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Re: Who monitors the quality of production boards?

Postby alex a » Mon Apr 23, 2012 6:29 pm

gmb13 wrote:Thanks for the info Alex.

Like I said. The Board has been fine since the repair. There is holding a heat gun to the box and there is holding a heat gun to the box. If you are careful that the box does not get too hot then nothing can go wrong.

The Melting temp of corecell is about 95° Celsius. If it would melt below 80 there would be major problems leaving the board in a car in the summer as that temp can reach that if you are not careful.

Yes it's the board that Bjorn won the Masters on. It's a real shame that its so fragile and is not IKA registered anymore.

--
Gunnar
Hey nice video on the roll tacks, looks like pretty glassy water and you are still moving quite well!

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Re: Who monitors the quality of production boards?

Postby gmb13 » Mon Apr 23, 2012 6:37 pm

alex a wrote:
gmb13 wrote:Thanks for the info Alex.

Like I said. The Board has been fine since the repair. There is holding a heat gun to the box and there is holding a heat gun to the box. If you are careful that the box does not get too hot then nothing can go wrong.

The Melting temp of corecell is about 95° Celsius. If it would melt below 80 there would be major problems leaving the board in a car in the summer as that temp can reach that if you are not careful.

Yes it's the board that Bjorn won the Masters on. It's a real shame that its so fragile and is not IKA registered anymore.

--
Gunnar
Hey nice video on the roll tacks, looks like pretty glassy water and you are still moving quite well!
Thanks. It's a tipical light wind (6-8 knot) day at Flag Beach. It's wonderful blasting around on a huge kites in those conditions as the water is nice and smooth and you are alone there. The colors are just beautiful on days like these :-)

--
Gunnar

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Re: Who monitors the quality of production boards?

Postby alex a » Wed Apr 25, 2012 5:05 pm

gmb13 wrote:Thanks for the info Alex.

Like I said. The Board has been fine since the repair. There is holding a heat gun to the box and there is holding a heat gun to the box. If you are careful that the box does not get too hot then nothing can go wrong.

The Melting temp of corecell is about 95° Celsius. If it would melt below 80 there would be major problems leaving the board in a car in the summer as that temp can reach that if you are not careful.

Yes it's the board that Bjorn won the Masters on. It's a real shame that its so fragile and is not IKA registered anymore.

--
Gunnar
For the record, I Do not agree with your heat gun technique being used at all for making a fin fit into a board. Yes something can go wrong. I am not sure if you get what I said, The Fiberglass or carbon inside or outside any composite tuttle can delaminate before you soften up the corecell/divenicell which can stand more heat. 95 celsius as opposed to when West Systems slow 5 to1 Resins starts to deflect (start to soften) at 123 degrees farenheit or 50 celsius
Your car gets to 80 degree celsius??? Might want to check that with a thermometer. If it does, you have one hot vehicle! You probably will continue to have some board related problems if this is correct.
The new 2012 LE CR 69 boards are much faster than that board with Bjoern Runne Jensen winning Asia Championships and Damien LeRoy beating Johnny Heineken in Santander, especially in the light 18m weather.
You implied that this board is fragile, I rode it hard in Maui and sent it to Bjoern, he is a very big guy and he had no problems with it, so remember All boards are Fragile when there is user error....

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Re: Who monitors the quality of production boards?

Postby ktouhey » Wed Apr 25, 2012 5:20 pm

...fragile compared to a twintip maybe.
But I can attest that compared to other race boards out there, Alex's boards are far from fragile and are very well built.

No way I'd be taking a heat gun to my fin boxes.

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Re: Who monitors the quality of production boards?

Postby gmb13 » Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:06 pm

alex a wrote:
gmb13 wrote:Thanks for the info Alex.

Like I said. The Board has been fine since the repair. There is holding a heat gun to the box and there is holding a heat gun to the box. If you are careful that the box does not get too hot then nothing can go wrong.

The Melting temp of corecell is about 95° Celsius. If it would melt below 80 there would be major problems leaving the board in a car in the summer as that temp can reach that if you are not careful.

Yes it's the board that Bjorn won the Masters on. It's a real shame that its so fragile and is not IKA registered anymore.

--
Gunnar
For the record, I Do not agree with your heat gun technique being used at all for making a fin fit into a board. Yes something can go wrong. I am not sure if you get what I said, The Fiberglass or carbon inside or outside any composite tuttle can delaminate before you soften up the corecell/divenicell which can stand more heat. 95 celsius as opposed to when West Systems slow 5 to1 Resins starts to deflect (start to soften) at 123 degrees farenheit or 50 celsius
Your car gets to 80 degree celsius??? Might want to check that with a thermometer. If it does, you have one hot vehicle! You probably will continue to have some board related problems if this is correct.
The new 2012 LE CR 69 boards are much faster than that board with Bjoern Runne Jensen winning Asia Championships and Damien LeRoy beating Johnny Heineken in Santander, especially in the light 18m weather.
You implied that this board is fragile, I rode it hard in Maui and sent it to Bjoern, he is a very big guy and he had no problems with it, so remember All boards are Fragile when there is user error....
Look Alex,

We are never going to agree on this as you are taking it the wrong way. In your last sentence you are basically saying the damage that happened to the board during a race is my fault. So basically racing your board in Sylt and Italy was user error and that is why it broke. Great to know that using a Race board for racing is user error.

Funny that after I repaired the Board everything is fine with it.

So once again for all the slow people. After getting the board it started to fall apart. Then I fixed it and it has held up without taking in a single Drop of water since July 2011.

And you still tell me that it is my Fault that the Board was taking in Water? Are you serious?

Please tell me what your solution would have been to solve your warped boxes without destroying the bases of my fins? My way seems to have totally messed up the board as now it:

A ) does not leak.
B) Standard Tuttle Box Fins from different Manufactures fit perfectly fine.
C) The Board has not sprung a leak since my big repair job to it in July 2011.

I think you boards are great designs and I would have raced on one this year if it wasn't way out of my budget to get one.

And it seems like you have addressed the issues you had with the generation of boards that mine came from. But I am bit disappointed in your attitude towards me here on this thread. Sure you are being defensive about your boards, but I am not commenting about your current product. So just accept that my repair did not mess up the board and stop trying to put the blame on me. It's not really making me want to save up and buy another Raceboard from you for next season. :(

P.s. Canary Islands get damn hot in the Summer.

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Re: Who monitors the quality of production boards?

Postby Al-Kite-A » Wed Apr 25, 2012 11:44 pm

alex a wrote: The new 2012 LE CR 69 boards are much faster than that board with Bjoern Runne Jensen winning Asia Championships and Damien LeRoy beating Johnny Heineken in Santander, especially in the light 18m weather.
Single race wins during a demo event count for a big win ?? :cheer:
I guess if Johnny is there that is what you have to take :)

Congrads to Bryan Lake for beat Johnny last week for a few races!
I can't wait to see if he can do it again tomorrow night in the Bay.

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Re: Who monitors the quality of production boards?

Postby ronnie » Thu Apr 26, 2012 12:33 pm

I have a 5 box Aguera 59 with powerbox. I'm not going to race it, just use it for lightwind. Its sandwich construction, which is one of the reasons I chose it. I dont expect any problems using it as intended.

Alex - I'm guessing that the vast majority of Aguera boards have been sandwich construction and that there were a few customs which were single skin construction intended for use by serious racers, which were lighter for more performance but therefore more fragile? I seem to remember reading that on your website when I was ordering mine.


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