hey hi so i just finished my 1st HWS and i was wondering how important putting some kind of breather vent in the board is? does everyone put them in?
i read that you can have problems if you do not put then in but i am not that keen on any holes in the skin ( increased risk of leaks) what you guys thoughts.
any advice would be real helpful
cheers antony
hi, i have/nt made any hollow wooden boards but have made a load of wood skinned ,1 lb eps boards , the principle is the same ,the board contains air ,
i have vented all of them ,if you do vent you can relax when the air temps rise or the atmospheric pressure changes, if you leave the board in the car on a hot day i would bet the board will swell ,
for the sake of fitting a simple vent the board can sit in the sun all day long ,lay in the car on the hottest day of the year all without any drama,
if you don/t fit one you will be caught out in time , pete
check out Greenlight’s Goretex vents…or PeteC’s vents for sale in the surfshop here on this site.
alternatively, they make brass fittings that you can screw in to the deck of the HWS that has a male screw+grommet that you can use to open/close the vent as needed to release pressure.
use vents!
I'm curious. Why don't people add vents to chambered boards. Is it because the solid nature of the construction allows for more resistance to outward pressure than a typical HWS? Is there a trade-off between board weight, and the need to vent?
It would be interesting if someone with too much time and money did a pressure test on their vented boards. Pump air through the vent and measure the PSI at the failure point. I wonder which construction methods are able to withstand the most pressure.
See this thread recently -
http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/glueing-up-balsa-blank
An example that even chambered boards are not immune! It was a lovely board too.
I’ve toyed with the idea of testing boards for heat and altitude pressure, with the thought of doing away with vents, but I just keep coming back to the peace of mind aspect, that Pete mentions.
A goretex vent and suddenly you don’t have to think about it again. A wood board is basically impervious to heat in that case. A hot car is the worst case, and it will weather it no probs with a vent.
I have a regular vent plug on my first wooden board and on the one I am building now I am going to put one of the Gore-Tex plugs that double as the leash plug. First off – it is super easy to install one – second – if it gets too hot on a high pressure day -> POP!!!
I have used Gore-Tex plugs on two boards, one has leaked (mybe this popped as stated earlier. I have ended up checking them on a regular basis to ensure they are still working and not leaking water. Has anyone got any tips for drying out the inside of a HW board without ripping holes in it.
Seems to me someone (maybe Swaylocks member Tuck?) said he hooked up an aquarium pump to his vent hole, and drilled another exit hole for the air to escape, and let it run a few days, IIRC. Then patched the exit hole.
Thanks, sounds better than making a tent with sheets and trying to use the de humidifier to dry it out through a small hole
About 12 years ago, I was doing some ding repair in the back yard on a cloudy day. I had a HWS one friend had made nearby, and another ‘friend’ came by and was asking about the air vent, which was open. I explained that the vent was only to be screwed tight when in the water and opened as soon as one exits the water as significant pressures can build within as air expands and contracts with temperature.
So he screws the vent shut, the sun comes out, and a few minutes later I hear a loud crack, like a 2x4 was dropped and landed flat on some concrete from 6 feet above. I look over and the HWS is moving, and the hull which was flat, now has about 1.5 inches of belly. The stringers blew apart. Split apart along the grain for 4 feet.
And a curse fest ensued…
I have a thumbscrew vent on the nose of all my HWS’s so I can reach them when surfing. I install them before I add the deck to the structure below. I’ll open the vent after about 10 minutes in the water and the board will suck in a significant amount of Air. I remove the vent entirely in the presence of people who have no understanding pf physics, as even after it is explained as to why the vent should only ever be closed when the board is about to get wet, they will compulsively close the vent.
One time I was driving cross country with my boards inside my Van. One of the L boards had a good sized delam where my knee smashes the board on takeoff. I had added another layer pf 6 oz in this general area. I was at the continental divide in Arizona or New Mexico when I pull over to a viewpoint/ look out, shut off the engine. Probably around 6 or 7 thousand feet in elevation. It is quiet, but I hear this horrible noise, the sound of fiberglass being pulled off foam. I look at the Delam and it is a large bubble and is expanding before my eyes. Noooooooooo!!!. I had an awl like tool nearby and punched a hole through the bubble and a significant amount of air escaped. I was fixing that delam when my friend came by and screwed the vent on the HWS tight.
Definitely vent your boards…particularly if you use dark woods. I’ve only had one failure (knock on wood), and it was a black railed board and a long hot walk back to the car after surfing. Popped the bottom deck off the nose concave of the frame, took a lot of time to fix and make it look right.
I typically use the thumbscrew type, though I’ve installed the removable goretex plugs as well. I’m told that the goretex fabric has a limited lifetime (couple years), so I wouldn’t want to install in such a way that it would be difficult to replace (i.e., the fin cup or handle type), as I expect a HWS to have a much longer lifetime than a typical foam board. Plus, I’m not a big fan of unnecessary plastic inserts on a wood board.