Never tried goretex vent plugs before, giving it a go on a HWS flat water SUP. The instructions indicate that it would be bad to put a vent in the tail…now I can see reasons for this in a normal short board or longboard, but not seeing any real issues in a flat water SUP. Since I want to have two to adequately vent the board, my plan was to have one 1/4 length from the nose and the other in the tail. Thoughts?
Here is maybe a photo of the vent I made for my wife’s paddleboard.
It cost around $4 with shipping for the gortex fabric sample. The piece I cut out for the vent was slightly larger than a nickel. I epoxyed it to the vent fitting and then epoxyed the vent fitting to a hole I drilled in the board.
I think it is a much simpler and cheaper sloution plus no ugly plastic vent in your very nice looking wood board. I left the board out in the florida sun all day and it did not explode so either the vent is working properly or my sandwich glass job is crap and the board will disintegrate in a few weeks :).
I don’t see why you couldn’t put it on the tail of your flatwater board - maybe that cool looking virus/spider thing could use an “eye”.
Trent
I agree, I don’t really like the aesthetic of putting a plastic insert into the wood board, but since this is a board for a customer, I want to make sure that the goretex can be replaced every couple years as recommended by Gore. So I made some vents plugs that have the same thread as the gore tex inserts, but are brass and walnut:
Nice vents…Have you thought of selling them…???..
I would if someone asked for them… this was my first attempt at them, hadn’t considered the mass production of them. I usually just use custom brass screws that I machine.
Wouldn’t want to have to stock a ton of those inserts unless I could get a good wholesale price from goretex! And not sure what a reasonable price would be for them, they are a fair bit of labor.
i was thinking another cool way to protect them might be to use just the brass insert and build up a roving guard around them. I think it would be really subtle and nice.
Those are really cool wooden plugs/brass inserts. We’d be interested in those…
Nice vent plugs housings Slug- You might want to talk to PeteC and/or do some serious testing to be sure the wood ones don’t crack and leak. I’m sure PeteC will have some good feedback. The other issue is getting the Vent Element as Gore is not selling the Element separately anymore.
They are super cool looking!!!
Brad
Thanks Brad. Honestly, not too worried about cracks/leaks if they are sealed properly with a generous coat of epoxy, given that these are basically zero stress parts. I’ve made a number of wood leash plugs in a similar style, just sealed with a liberal amount of epoxy…4-5 years later, with regular surfing and no issues, even in overhead waves (and heavy boards!).
Good to know that Gore isn’t selling the element separately (though that seems odd, as this part isn’t designed for surfboards, but for venting sensitive electronics…a much bigger market. I can’t imagine why they’d want to stop selling them bare.)
Here’s some leash plugs with a similar construction–just bored out wood (walnut or mahogany) with a stainless rod penetrating the sides completely.
