Hi Everyone, here’s my thinking and I was hoping you’d let me know if it would work or if I’m totally off my rocker.
I surf in the mornings before work and anytime after which means my boards tend to live in my car. There’s no shaded parking and protecting my boards from extreme heat is difficult if not impossible. I have a stable of used boards that I burn through or patch when I can. But I’ve noticed the Firewire and SUP air vents and was wondering if I installed one on a PU board would it help them weather the high temperatures in my car? So here are my questions.
1.) Am I nuts or would this work?
2.) If it would what do you recommend would be the best kind of vent to use?
3.) Imagining a 6’3 and a 9’ boards, where would be the best spot to place the vent?
4.) Anything I’m not thinking of (beside laying down the money for a new Firewire, which I wouldn’t want to leave in the car anyway…) please let me know!
A vent will not work on poly foam as it is open-cell. Eps is closed-cell beads with air spaces between them. As eps beads expand when heated, a vent allows the air to decrease in volume to compensate for the larger beads. Heat delaminations on poly boards are a result of the glass losing bond with the foam, not the foam expanding. A space develops between the glass and foam and the air inside will expand when heated peeling more glass from the foam when it rises. A hot car or leaving in the sun will aggravate minor delams or a poorly laminated board that otherwise wouldn’t have any problems. This is commonly seen on poly boards where there is trapped air under a paper logo, or a bad lamination due to some kind of incompatible paint used on the blank. Sometimes also lack of bonding at the stringer.