I was changing my fins out today on my firewire and discovered that the bases had created indentions in the bottom of the board as well as a hole in the lam at the rear base of one of the side fins.
I have been running glass flex G-R template fins.
I had noticed it felt somewhat heavier my last 2 surfs or so.
I am going to fill in the hole with some RR I guess… maybe do some sort of cloth patch.
I’m pretty disappointed about this failure. I would encourage firewire to take a look at the issue. I’ve never encountered this situation on a ‘disposable’ pu/pe.
how deep is the hole? can you see eps? or is it just a minor crack in the glass through to the corecell? Easy way to check this; spray some soapy water over the area while the board is in a cool location, then go put it out in the sun. If you start to see bubbles/foam at the hole, you’ve got a problem. If not, you’re fine; just patch.
corecell is closed cell, so provided you haven’t let the hole comprimise the entire thickness of the layer of corecell, you should be absolutely fine to just let the area dry for a while, sand back from the crack/hole a bit to insure good adhesion, and lam away.
btw; I’ve had failures like this, on my pu/pe’s and a surftech, from being careless when installing or removing my fins.
only way to insure this doesn’t happen is extra glass in the zones around the finboxes where the fins would contact on their way in or out; FW (and other builders) may be reluctant to do this. I am…
hasn’t happened to my shwuz handcrafted RS232port-supadupalite model even with the same outrageous chandmade G10 fin
could’ve been from NS power or a NS reef embrace don’t know cause I wasn’t there.
But I got cracks around and out from the rim too…
BTW
the chandmade G10 keels I got aftermarket puts alot more torque on the boxes because of the location of the tabs and design of the fin. I’ll post a photo of it compared to the stock fin and regular futures K1 for visual comparison and understanding.
hopefully after market feedback , the change back to the original systems will make more sense …
6 patches of fabric , 5 minutes max , no problems , no comebacks , whats the real cost ??
sometimes , an exercise in efficiency ends up being counter productive and damaging …
this is not just about being careless in removing or installing fins , its about the flexing of the board , the fin could be sitting perfect , but lengthways flexing ,and the points of the fins are now in a posistion to create extra pressure in those areas …
these comments are by no means an attempt to make a negative public statement , its about responding to clear market feedback to improve the product …
its also in my best interests to make sure Firewire put in the effort to make a solid product …
or else it has the potential to devalue all composite boards …
not everyone is as reasonable as Oneula in there understanding of one brand v another …
I was changing my fins out today on my firewire and discovered that the bases had created indentions in the bottom of the board as well as a hole in the lam at the rear base of one of the side fins.
I’m pretty disappointed about this failure. I would encourage firewire to take a look at the issue. I’ve never encountered this situation on a ‘disposable’ pu/pe.
This sounds like the same thing I see a lot of in FCS mounts. I don’t know if it’s exactly the same as yours, or even close, but the ones I’ve fixed like that were because the customer was taking their fins out of the board by rotating them (forward or backward) to get them to come out. The base tips would punch holes in the glass doing that. FCS and similar types of plugs/fins have to be removed straight up. I’ve seen this on pu/pe thruster longboards, so the fins will crunch right through even thicker glass if you’re not careful. I’ve done it before.
The damage wasn’t from the grif fins. He put them on the day I picked up the board from his shop. The original fins were in when I got there, and he changed them while I was there. So it was all stock when it got damaged.
I’m pretty particular about inserting and removing fins… esp on this board. I am confident I did not do this inserting or removing them. I feel it is telling that there is an indenentation along the entire lenght of the fin base, with the exception of the plug area of course.
g-- I am glad to get your perspective on this… the punture only seems to have broken the glass and didn’t penetrate too deeply into the corecell. I’m glad to hear that I probably haven’t absorbed too much water.
bert-thanks for chiming in as well, that is an interesting suggestion re reinforcement. I think I will make some adjustments to my fcs plan for my hemp compsand based on that comment. Hopefully my exterior lam vacuum will go well, the board will rip, and I can retire the firewire (or possibly sell it to finance morecompsand shaping, hehe).
I have done exactly this with a vacuum system to remove water. Don’t even need a whole bag. Just take a piece of bag material or 6 mil plastic, and stick it in an area well surrounding the damage. Put a piece of breather in there too, or as you say a chunk of cloth/paper towel/something. Run your vacuum line in there however you usually do, or just set it on top of the breather, run it out the side of the plastic and seal up around it with bag tape.
Make a water trap out of a mason jar or similar, by drilling holes in the lid, run the line from the board to the bottom of the jar, and pull vacuum from the top of the jar. Seal the entry points with the bag tape or glue them up.
Pull 15" Hg and leave it go for a couple hours at least.
Now leave air dry for a day or two. THEN repair watertight.
Hello all. I got around to attempting to fix the board today. I sanded the damaged/dented areas behind all 3 fins with 80 grit. Then I taped off a confined repair area extending about 5/8 of an inch back from the fcs plug and about 3/16’’ wide. I mixed a batch of resin research to gloss another board (fisheyes, fisheyes) and put a small drop of resin in each repair area. I then took a small length of roving (about 1/2’') for each repair area and flattened it out in the repair area. I sanded and then removed the tape.
I now have little roving reinforced patches beneath the rear portion of my fin bases. The fins still fit well, i.e. the fit is not adversely affected by the roving reinforcement. I think it’s a solid fix.
I satisfied myself that the ‘ding’ had not yet taken water. It did not penetrate the corecell, but basically seemed to be a small puncture through the lam. There was no discoloration apparent in the area. I believe the weight thing mentioned above was in my head… I guess.
I find it to be monumentally lame that I had to do this repair, especially at this stage in the board’s lifecyle.