Put it Back Together

So next the back part of the foil tracks need to better surface to attach to. The old ones, and the tuttle mount are all embedded in some high density rigid PVC foam (branded "Divinycell"). I didn't have any fancy foam, but I did have combination of thickened epoxy, carbon fibre, and "gorilla glue" (expanding foam polyurethane adhesive which results in a foam similar to Divinycell) that I used instead. The back of the foil tracks is just cut into eps foam that the majority of the board is made from. EPS foam is kinda squishy, and not suitable for directly attaching a foil track that can be yanked on with about 2000lbs of force. So we use series of squish to non-squishy materials, so that the end result is a nice solid slot to attach the foil track inserts to.

Snow
Forest

Basically ended up with cutting away about 1/2" of the eps foam in a U-shape around where the tracks were going and replacing it with:

  • EPS foam
  • Gorilla Glue foam
  • carbon fiber
  • thickened epoxy (1/4" thick layer)
  • more carbon fiber
  • more thickened epoxy
  • foil track insert

Ordered from inside to outside...

Sketchy Box

Now I know it looks super messy, but that's ok. I just cleaned it up with the router, and it was fine.

So now that the foil tracks are mostly fitted, we get to start thinking about the layup process. First is to sand down the area around the foil tracks to the bare glass/carbon so that the new layup has a good surface to bond to. I just used an orbital sander with 100-grit pads.

pic

Around the same time I also filled up the void in the side of the original foil tracks with more expanding polyurethane glue, so it shouldn't be a problem anymore. I did not have to do the same level of reinforcement for the forward part of the tracks, since I was just reusing the block of high density foam that was already there. It's also interesting to see the carbon patch in the above picture that was the reinforcement for the original box. It looked like a pice of biaxial cloth, which is nice. But it does not extend very far from the tracks, so kinda meh.

But I got some final fitment done with the foil track inserts, and cut out some patterns for the carbon fibre patches.

pic
Layup Time!