Hi Guys,
Has anyone tried carbon fiber foil boxes? Armstrong says they have a proprietary carbon foil box and rails.
Looks like a more stiff foil box will make all set up stiffer
hard to beat these - light and long. they also have shorter ones.
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I think Takoon is also using proprietary carbon tracks.
For DIY projects i have bought a couple carbon track sets from these guys:
Still have not mounted them but they feel very good and well made.
They weigh 280grams, 14 inches long.
For comparison to FRP tracks:
Futures 10in weigh 256grams
Chinook 15in are 370grams
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I think weight won’t be a big issue. My concern is how much we gain with a stiff foil box
IMHO a carbon foil box by itself is not going to be significantly stiffer than a good quality FRP box.
Stiffness is going to depend way more on how those tracks are attached to the board’s composite structure (lam and foam).
Boxes connected to deck by carbon fiber and bottom hull skin reinforced in a way that takes compression loads (specially in front of boxes) well is what will give you a stiff ,direct feel and make it durable.
You can do that with FRP or carbon.
Carbon tracks mostly give a weight advantage and a better adhesion to the lam than plastic, less chance of delam and water ingress.
Cons of carbon might be impact brittleness and low abrasion resistance to the foil box slider nuts, we will see how they work out with time.
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Hi Dontsink, thanks for reply
Agree we need a good foil box anchoring like a divinycell plank or stringers under the boxes.
Low abrasion should be an issue
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The box is just a thing that holds the nuts. The structure comes from the carbon that is sandwiched between the box and the plate and the structure connecting the track to the deck. I use the chinook boxes, mount them in a block of d cell foam, wrap that whole assembly in carbon before I put it in the rest of the board so I have good foam and carbon connecting those boxes to everting else. Even with the crappy futures boxes or other off brand Chinesium boxes I’ve almost never seen a box fail. It’s always the surrounding foam/glass/carbon
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Makes sense. I use the same way. If we have carbon over the boxes and under the d cell foam, it will be very stiff
Thanks!