This was the first time riding the top half of Cold Spring trail, and it more than lived up to expectations! Awesome chunkiness almost all the way down! To say I was apprehensive is an understatement, since I’m still not fully recovered from back and finger injuries! :o
Filmed 9/1/13
Btw, I cracked my Scott Wallis CF lift handle during the ride. Any suggestions on how to repair it? I’m wondering if JB weld would do it.
That’s no fun! How did it happen?
I’m guessing the best way to repair it would be to find the correct resin for CF and fill the crack. Of course I have absolutely no idea what that would be though…
Almost certainly it’s epoxy. There are other things it could be, but probably 99.9% of consumer-grade carbon fiber parts are laminated with epoxy.
Btw, JB Weld is epoxy with metal filler, “steel” they call it–ferrous, whatever alloy it might be. Ideally you’d only be putting the minimum amount of resin in that it took to seal up the crack, and I don’t know that the metal filler does you any good there. I’d say go with plain old two-part epoxy. And if you knew someone you could bum a little scrap of carbon fiber cloth off of to laminate over the top of the crack, so much the better.
That’s a pretty safe bet, but the question is what kind of epoxy. I’m certain there are loads of kinds. For instance, my dad uses t-88 epoxy for building wooden airplane parts and musical instruments, and I don’t think it’s the same as the 5 minute epoxy available at your local walmart.
Okay, just looked and there it appears that there’s all sorts of cf epoxies available on the web. The question is choosing which one looks the most appropriate.
If you’re building an airplane, spending lots of time to figure this out is a fine thing to do. For fixing a cracked handle, maybe not so much.
I think you’d find that the differences between them are more about cure times and temperatures, handling requirements, how well they flow and wet out various reinforcing materials, etc. I doubt you’ll find a huge difference in mechanical or chemical properties. Anyway the job at hand here is best described as gluing, and glue isn’t hard to get.
I tend to go with the regular kind, not the 5 minute stuff. I’m rarely in that big a hurry and the 24-hours-to-full-strength variety is a bit stronger IIRC.
JB weld seems to have done the trick. If it does end up breaking again, I’ll try it with a layer or two of cf or fiberglass cloth. But right now it feels pretty solid.
Good old JB Weld! That looks good so far. Hope it holds. Like you say, try something else if it doesn’t.
How do you get to the trail heads?
Great movie Terry, as usual! Most muni appears to be descent - do you usually hike up to the top of the hill or is there a nice road loop, get a lift?
Best Regards,
Mark
