After my own recent experience, and talking to several other kiters, delamination of boards seems to be more of an issue than I would have expected. So, curious how much of a problem, I made a survey.

It's on surveymonkey . com/r/6DLYJCB (delete the spaces to make the link work....this site won't let me post a working link)
Takes less than a minute to complete.

So, if your board has or hasn't delaminated, have a look please.

H

No

OK.

Select to expand quote

theDoctor said..

No

No your board hasn't delaminated or no you will not have a look?

Ps im a no

The survey allows you to say "No, my kiteboard hasn't delaminated"... Wouldn't be much use if it didn't. H

The survey allows you to say "No, my kiteboard hasn't delaminated"... Wouldn't be much use if it didn't. H

You are talking twinnies, no?

Select to expand quote

hughsheehy said..
The survey allows you to say "No, my kiteboard hasn't delaminated"... Wouldn't be much use if it didn't. H

It would be helpful as people don't report positive experiences.
Look at restaurant or hotel reviews.....apparently every place in Australia serves poisonous food and the rooms are terrible.


I agree that plastic rails on twinnies are dumb as they don't bond well, and mass production leads to some failures..... but really the repair on your board is a piece of cake compared to a delam on a surfboard or worse yet sandwich construction boards.

Select to expand quote

Rails said..
You are talking twinnies, no?

Yep.

Select to expand quote

Mark _australia said..

hughsheehy said..
The survey allows you to say "No, my kiteboard hasn't delaminated"... Wouldn't be much use if it didn't. H

It would be helpful as people don't report positive experiences.
Look at restaurant or hotel reviews.....apparently every place in Australia serves poisonous food and the rooms are terrible.


I agree that plastic rails on twinnies are dumb as they don't bond well, and mass production leads to some failures..... but really the repair on your board is a piece of cake compared to a delam on a surfboard or worse yet sandwich construction boards.

Odd then that a significant percentage of respondents report their board hasn't delaminated. As for repair on a delaminated twintip being easy compared to a sandwinch board or surfboard, I guess that's generally true. My main surprise was discovering that lots of people's twintips delaminate in the first place.

I spent quite a bit of time talking to Mark Shinn, about why there had been a spate of delaminated boards not just for Shinn but across a range of manufacturers.
There had been an issue where the bottom sheet had come off the large printer and then sits in a rack drying, it only needs about 60 minutes to cure.
Apparently in the Nobile factory they had been training a new worker who was putting them at the top and not the bottom of the drying rack, The next worker in the production cycle was taking the sheet from the top, when the bottom printed sheet was attached to the board this meant that the gel coat was sticking to the non cured ink and not the board. so a few rides in the water and the force of the water on the edge was lifting the sheet off.
As he explained it a classic example of a manufacturing warranty because of a small human error. All the shinn boards that were affected by this are replaced under the 2 year no quibble warranty.
The other issue that has seen a few Shinn boards replaced with cracking gel coats was and issue with a batch contaminated chemicals added to hopper containing gel coat, which meant that when flexed the boards gel coat shows crazing. Not any structural damage, purely cosmetic but again they were replaced under warranty. Again a human error as some one added out od date chemicals to the top up hopper

Toddy ASWA

Those kinds of failures would indeed expect to turn up pretty quickly. What surprised me most, talking to people, was that there seemed to be quite a few cases (like mine) where a board a few years old suddenly came apart at the seams. Now, I've a bit of a background in composites ( a little, not a lot) and a good glue job shouldn't just "come apart" after it's been wet a few times or there's a little chink in the edge where the heelside got chipped on a stone (well, unless there's lots of carbon in there....it's delicate stuff in lots of contexts).
But - it seems twintips come apart on a fairly regular basis. I'm surprised! Anyway, if you haven't, take the survey.
H