Forums > Wing Foiling General

Internal foil box failure / overtightening of screws?

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Created by WindyBear > 9 months ago, 15 Mar 2023
WindyBear
17 posts
15 Mar 2023 6:44PM
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Hello!

Has anyone else experienced this issue? I have noticed small fractures in the plastic of the foil box around where the nuts have been tightened. Taking a screwdriver tip to it resulted in small pieces falling off. This is a Futures box on a Reedin Featherwing board.

Something I just noticed now once I removed the quick release plate I had sitting permanently over the box. Causes? I am thinking most likely culprit is #1 / over tightening of the screws, or #2 - localised damage on impact from jumping.

Would be interested to hear if others are having the same issues and how to prevent such damage in the future / eg. torque screw settings? some sort of early warning that screws are sufficiently tight?

thanks!







MProject04
443 posts
16 Mar 2023 9:31PM
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I found a minute long strip of plastic that came off from inside one of the boxes. Nothing serious it seems. But it's such a critical part of the entire foiling exercise.

As for overtightening.. I wish more foil producers would supply their foils with a 1 mm (or half mm) rubber plate pad. As this grips the board the foil isn't moving anymore and you never have to overtighten.. sure some small % of energy will be lost in the connection but better than overtightening.





Fishdude
283 posts
16 Mar 2023 10:09PM
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I can't make heads or tails out of your photos, so this might not be relevant.

But for the load, I've always thought the standard brass surf-fin T nuts do not have enough surface area. These smaller brass T nuts concentrates the stress in the track more than necessary.

I like the way these Stainless steal type look because they have a bigger base to distribute the load over more area inside the track.

Hard to tell from the add, but to my eye they seem to have maybe 30% more base surface area. I'm surprised nobody yet has made a T nut with a even bigger base.

foilmount.com/products/m6-replacement-t-nuts-each

MProject04
443 posts
16 Mar 2023 11:37PM
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Interesting observations there FishDude. Also sharing this interesting video from the same website you posted:


patronus
336 posts
17 Mar 2023 12:01AM
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Select to expand quote
MProject04 said..
I found a minute long strip of plastic that came off from inside one of the boxes. Nothing serious it seems. But it's such a critical part of the entire foiling exercise.

As for overtightening.. I wish more foil producers would supply their foils with a 1 mm (or half mm) rubber plate pad. As this grips the board the foil isn't moving anymore and you never have to overtighten.. sure some small % of energy will be lost in the connection but better than overtightening.






I added some duct tape to bottom of Naish mast as a bit of padding

DWF
565 posts
17 Mar 2023 1:10AM
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So many tracks are just plain junk plastic. They sand flush (when board building) like butter.

There is only one brand of track that is a mother F'er to sand flush, because they put a very high glass fill content in the plastic when injection molding it. Chinook USA. All other boxes are junk by comparison.

But few brands use them. They are expensive.

WindyBear
17 posts
17 Mar 2023 6:32PM
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@Fishdude - makes a lot of sense to get wider nuts for the inserts. I?ll look out for that when I get my new foil set up shortly!

@DWF: pity that most brands don't use them!

Velocicraptor
528 posts
23 Mar 2023 2:46AM
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Select to expand quote
MProject04 said..
I found a minute long strip of plastic that came off from inside one of the boxes. Nothing serious it seems. But it's such a critical part of the entire foiling exercise.

As for overtightening.. I wish more foil producers would supply their foils with a 1 mm (or half mm) rubber plate pad. As this grips the board the foil isn't moving anymore and you never have to overtighten.. sure some small % of energy will be lost in the connection but better than overtightening.






I saw a new Lift mast that had a very thin cork sheet at the base. I'm pretty sure thats how they are sending them now, but there is a chance that the owner had put it there.

GWatto
QLD, 387 posts
23 Mar 2023 9:21AM
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Are people having their foils come loose & move while out foiling to be tightening them to the point the boxes are getting damaged?
I appreciate some of the boxes may have flaws in the moulding which can cause failure
When tightening remember you are putting the pressure ultimately on a relatively thin piece of plastic held in by a glued, carbon/fiberglass material joint
Agree if your foil & board are not flat then a small gasket will help to distribute the pressure to prevent them coming loose but ultimately it shouldn't take too much pressure to make it secure.

winddoc
NSW, 59 posts
23 Mar 2023 11:20AM
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I think how you tighten up the nuts matters as well. I alway gently tighten them up rotating in a clockwise
sequence. This helps to centralise the contact points on the track base and make sure the pressures are equal. I then hand tighten them up again in a rotating clockwise sequence.
If you tighten them to max each nuts individually, there's a good chance that you will pressure load the mast track unevenly causing failure.

boardsurfr
WA, 2202 posts
23 Mar 2023 9:03PM
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I had a board a couple of years ago where using the track nuts the normal way caused damage to the tracks. IIRC, the tracks were a bit too wide, so the nuts could rotate and "bite" at the edges. The manufacturer seemed to be aware of the issue, and suggested to put the nuts in the wrong way round (the flat side up). I did not keep the board long enough to see if this would cause problems, and don't know if the manufacturer changed tracks since then. They seemed to have a bit of a QC problem - the store was selling a board that was labelled as a SUP foil board, but was completely unusable for foiling since it had only a single center fin track.

ethernalkid
2 posts
24 Mar 2023 1:27AM
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You can break the tracks if you land your maneuver a little off-axis. This can happen if you have a big foil... I'm just wondering what is the maximum foil size for jumping?

On my side I break my foil box on a 360 landing a little bit off-axis :(

Mark _australia
WA, 22089 posts
25 Mar 2023 1:40PM
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Tightening is not really relevant as when you use the board, pumping tries to rip the rear t-nuts out of the box more than your tightening ever will.

DWF is onto it - so many **** tracks out there. Many are using 2 piece longboard tracks that are barely sufficient for a surfboard and they just break. I repair a lot and its clear when the plastic is brittle rubbish.

I use the Chinook long tracks in boards I build and they are brilliant. Some little install tricks can make it essentially unbreakable

kdrak
1 posts
5 Aug 2023 10:46PM
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hello,

I had the same issue on a RRD board and after dealer 's suggestion I have installed the track nuts the other way around (flat end upwards) and solved my problem.

Have you had any progress solving your issue?



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"Internal foil box failure / overtightening of screws?" started by WindyBear