I've noticed some water seeping out of the underside of my Waterborn Evoke. There are no obvious dings. I'm wondering if blows from throwing the steel buckle on my roof straps are causing micro fractures? Anyone else had this happen?

Jawgar said..
I've noticed some water seeping out of the underside of my Waterborn Evoke. There are no obvious dings. I'm wondering if blows from throwing the steel buckle on my roof straps are causing micro fractures? Anyone else had this happen?

is it all over the board or just under were you strap it? I would say its more likely to have not been laminated properly and not enough resin has been used, then moisture slowly soaks in. They cut lots of corners in china and using paint instead of resin for hot or filler coasts is one of them and you end up with something that is not fully waterproof. Its why they normally one of the reasons they put so much on there. I see it a lot when I do repairs and from people asking for advise. Unfortunately when its salt water there is not a lot you can do if the hole surface is effected as you will never get paint to stay on it while it sweets it out.

IMO.....I agree with DJ

colas said..

charlieuk said..
They cut lots of corners in china and using paint instead of resin for hot or filler coasts is one of them and you end up with something that is not fully waterproof.

That is called "pinholes".
Note that it can also happen with expert glassers used to polyester resin, but not epoxy: epoxy do not wet as much the glass, so when the glassers "pull" on the epoxy resin to remove as much of it as possible, they end up with boards with lots of pinholes.

Until a board has a board has a hot or fill coat it is highly likely that you will have one or two holes in the laminate where resin has soaked in to the blank especially with eps unless it was a very resin rich lam. I would never consider a board sealed until it had at least one fill or hot coat.

I think the term pinholes is more generally referred to when the blank out gasses during glassing and it blows a small path way for the air to escape out through the glass or carbon. When you pull to much resin out with the squeegee like you say you remove to much resin creating a dry or resin poor which in turn does create small bubbles some of which may go all the way through or just be enough to let the water in to the dry fibers to soak up a little water.

Perhaps give the board a really good wash once or twice with fresh water to get any surface salt of and then leave it out and see if any more salt water comes out of the suspect areas.

colas said..

charlieuk said..
Perhaps give the board a really good wash once or twice with fresh water to get any surface salt of and then leave it out and see if any more salt water comes out of the suspect areas.

or apply some soapy water on it, board laying in the sun... you will see bubbles instantly on pinholes, a great way to track them.

To repair, drill a hole in them, put a paper towel in it to dry the blank (see boardlady.com/waterextraction.htm ). Then fill the hole with epoxy resin and some glass (microspheres, scissor-cut fibers, ..) or solarez.

Agree with that and would add the epoxy when the board is cooling down, more chance it will suck it in rather then more pinholes from out gassing as the blank heats up.

Don't talk to me about bloody pin holes. The photo is a 'Pro' construction of a well known top Aussie shaper's custom 14' race board that was left in a hot garage for six weeks in the middle of summer. I think why if I have not used it for six weeks and it has been in a garage that is up to 30 degrees...why is the entire bottom of the board bloody sweating!? You can send your answers on a self addressed post card to Pin Holes Australia. First correct answer gets a sponge to mop it up with! Pretty piss poor construction as I expected a quality lay up from a top Aussie built brand...just a layer of unsealed carbon over styrene - nothing Pro about that! My mate used a substance called Mould Release to seal up the pin holes so hopefully it is not such of a sponge now!?