Ok, Brian…I think there’s some beans that need spilling here.
Who is still venting EPS surfboards any more?
I have over 100,000 examples of why it is not necessary.
Surftech. Still rockin unvented for almost 2 decades.
OK OK,
I’m cutting a mold for them now to be available in February.
I view the vented leash plugs as a very affordable “insurance policy” for EPS boards. Who wants to worry about the possibility of delams from leaving their board in the sun or a hot car while having a few beers after a session?
Full time Gortex venting. No screw / unscrew business and you don’t even know the vent is there…
Been testing since May and confident they are ready for the masses.
There are a few other test pilots who’ve had my vented leash plugs for a while and feedback is good - no delams in adverse conditions.
[Oneula, I’m still waiting to hear your feedback 
]
I’ll post a thread on the “scientific testing” I performed in 127 degree temp (inside a car) with a gallon of water sealed into a 1# EPS board.
Pretty cool results.
~Brian
hey otay
i left a 1 pound eps board in a dark green car with windows up in 30 degrees celsicus for 3 or 4 hours
the wax was fully melted of
no horror balloon , just a little bubble on the deck where there was pressure damage
Quote:
Who is still venting EPS surfboards any more?
I have over 100,000 examples of why it is not necessary.
Surftech. Still rockin unvented for almost 2 decades.
Homeshapers without the big hi-teck factory and underpaid workforce can benefit from venting their EPS boards. That’s who.
Different construction methods require different provisions.
~Brian
All in all, it sounds like a great idea, well camoflaged. Hope you have success with it.
Heck, I’ll buy 'em for venting even my poly boards. I’ve had poly boards that were damaged and wished I would have had a vent like this to avoid the bubbles and delams.
Just out of curiosity do you hold the patent on this device? In 2006 these were tested at the place I worked and my understanding the patent was already awarded to the inventor.
what has got the gipper smirking like that?
…suckerfish…
Not wanting to rain on anybody’s parade, but wouldn’t the escaping gas need to
travel the length of the board, damaging all the way, before it finds a little hole in the tail.
And just wait the some guy trying to feed the string through with a nail to puncture the goretex.
Has anybody tested goretex over two years under constant emersion in salt water.
Salt clogging the pours might render it ineffective.
I think the risk of a leak might outweigh the benefits.
It always kind of bothers me when research and development is paid for by the
consumer post purchase, rather than by the developer before.
I was involved in 30 day submersion tests at 2 depths with multiple chemical compositions of water. Double layer, single layer and a few different types of fabric. It works well and extremely well in the proper combinations. Two major concerns with the leash plug vent that will be discovered soon when the back yarders get their try at them.
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Not wanting to rain on anybody’s parade, but wouldn’t the escaping gas need to
travel the length of the board, damaging all the way, before it finds a little hole in the tail.
The pressure can travel through the foam easily (nose to tail, rail to rail). The pressure required to transfer through the cells is far lower then the delamination threshold for most types of builds.
And just wait the some guy trying to feed the string through with a nail to puncture the goretex.
Most of the time the membrane is protected by by a plastic cap or some other barrier. An instruction decal can be used like with vents on sailboards. Also, this is user error. Should they not make cars because ‘wait some guy trying’ to drive in reverse on the freeway ends up crashing?
Has anybody tested goretex over two years under constant emersion in salt water.
Yes, the earliest recreational adopters of Gore-tex were boat sailors. The stuff has been used in foul weather gear in brutal conditions for far longer then two years. Plenty of research has been done to support this, private and government.
I windsurf 200 days a year and my vents are 1.5 years old.
Salt clogging the pours might render it ineffective.
Good point, but doubtful. The membrane can get clogged by dirt, sweat, etc. However, the backside of the membrane (inside the board), which is more critical should stay clean enough.
I think the risk of a leak might outweigh the benefits.
For some maybe. I have Gore-tex vents in 4 boards. I installed two myself for my own builds and I had my board builder install them in my last two windsurf boards. My builder was a bit skeptical about the vents so he pressure tested them by filling the plugs with water and pressurized through another vent. They worked perfectly, you can see the air escaping through the water. He checked them again a year later and had the same observation. The boards have measured within 10grams of their original weight, after some dings.
For my situation it isn’t even worth thinking about. I would never own another sandwich board that didn’t have a Gore-tex vent.
It always kind of bothers me when research and development is paid for by the
consumer post purchase, rather than by the developer before.
What is the basis for this? Did anyone say these things were made and out there before being tested? What about the boards that have delaminated? The victims of delams have paid big time, especially on fatal ones.
By the way, I got my vents from the Swaylocks Surfshop. I’m sure there are plenty of other guys using them.
It doesn’t matter to me one way or another if you have vent plugs in your EPS boards, I’ve got nothing invested here,
but this does seem like an invention looking for a need (and a dollar to be made) rather than the other way around.
I would rather not see the consumer talked into something that he doesn’t need to solve a problem he never knew
he had, to put a dollar into some other guys pocket for the effort.
By the way, I know goretex works for foul weather gear, but we are talking about underwater submersion for hours
at a time.
Please show me your research. Pretty simple - put a goretex plug in a plastic semi rigid bottle, submerge the bottle
30 feet deep (to simulate the pressure of a heavy wipe-out) and come back and check it in a month or two.
When you pull the bottle up, make sure it has allowed no water to pass into the bottle. Then give the bottle a
squeeze to see if gas can still exit. Do it another cycle to make sure it can hold up.
After that go ahead and sell them, but first tell me why I need them.
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All in all, it sounds like a great idea, well camoflaged. Hope you have success with it.
Thanks for the support Bill
~Brian
I will agree with surftecks not expanding
but
a hand laminated eps board will if neglected and left in the sun or heat
dark colored boards are more proned to the delam
once it happens to one of your boards, you will accept the vent as a precaution
I put them in just for safe measure
Boardmill,
Thanks for the good expalinations. You’ve covered it all.
~Brian
You seem more antagonistic than usual…
Do you need to vent all densities in all applications…clearly no, but then again no one
is claiming you must.
I have (partially) hollow stitch and glue as well as 1lb density EPS paddleboards, both
vented…they both exhale very LOUDLY after a paddle on the lake when I open the
manual vents…the stitch and glue literally balloons under the pressure (dark wood).
I would ALWAYS vent for that type of application.
Having this feature available in a dual purpose form factor that can be used for tie
downs or a leash is a huge plus.
There’s plenty of historical discussion available here to parse through…DanB’s vents,
available in the market place have been available for some time and have been widely
adopted by the Compsand crew…they’d have some good field data.
Everysurfer,
Once again, the vents are not necessary. They are an “insurance policy” for hand lammed EPS boards.
And as I stated, very affordable. Less than 1/2 the price of the other vents already available and will come with a simple install kit.
For those in the know, Gortex is mucho expensive. Yeah, there’s a dollar to be made, maybe even $1.50… from those who WANT to equalize the pressure in their homeshape.
Don’t use vents in your board. It’s your choice. No worries here
Thanks for the input though. I’ll run a test as you suggest if I ever feel the need to.
~Brian