Finishing off my first hollow wood board that I started quite a few years ago. Glassed it but forgot to put a vent in. Do I need a vent? I haven’t sanded the fill coat, so I can add a vent, But it has 3 solid stringers, only the cross braces are drilled through, so I probably need 3 vents.
Advice??
In my experince hollow boards need vents. The amount of air that bleeds in or out of my hollow boards is alot. Especially in a hot place . Mabe you could drill your center vent hole and then reach the other stringers with a long 1/8" drill bit, any size hole in your stringers will work.
Thanks Don. I was thinking that all the pics of hollows I’ve seen have vents. I may be lucky and have some air space along the stringers on the center, but I’m not sure about the 2 side stringers. I guess I have to put in at least 3 vents, or chance um and go without.
I’ll post some pics as soon as I can.
There are a bunch of stories and I will add to them…at Fiberglass Hawaii in Hawaii there is a chambered balsa Dick Brewer gun that has sat indoors it’s whole life. The board is not vented and on the bottom side it is caved in. After seeing that I was convinced to vent all chambered/hollow boards.
Dave
Fiberglass Hawaii sells a Gore-Tex membrane vent designed to be retro-fitted that goes in with 5 min epoxy. Hollow boards are more susceptible to problems than eps cores.
Just finishing my first HWS and I almost forgot to drill vent holes in the spars! Thankfully I caught it and fixed it, just cost me a whole tube of 5min epoxy!
What if you put one vent off the nose and split the stringer…that would take care of the two center chambers for sure. Then put two small brass screw type vents off the tail, one for each side. You can line them up perfectly and it’ll look like you meant to do it that way?
That is of course if I’m understanding how you built the board…