Modifying A Composite Blade

[padobo 0]

I recently bought a Bauer Nexus 1N with a P02 curve (old Lidstrom).  The last time I used a Lidstrom curve was when I owned a shaft with a wooden blade.  I always liked the curve but was never fond of the length of the blade, so I used to cut a half inch off the toe and cut the corners at a 45 degree angle, then round it out with a file to my liking.  It was easy enough with a wooden blade because it didn't affect the durability for me, but now I have a one piece stick and I'm tempted to modify the blade again.  I know I won't be able to use a hacksaw to cut it, but would it affect the blade that much if I shaved down the toe of the blade to make it shorter??

[IPv6Freely 2092]

You'd destroy it. 

[marka 526]

Howdy,

Composite repair is a thing, but its not a thing I know anything about.  Isn't there a guy here that did composite stuff for real?  I'd pick his brain a bit.

I'd also experiment with some broken sticks first.  🙂

Mark

[flip12 712]

@bunnyman666‘s the composite guy.

[puckpilot 312]

From what I know, generally, a stick blade has a foam core with a composite wrap. So if you cut into the blade, you're going to expose that foam and the internal fibres of the composite. Depending on how the blade is structured internally, you could be compromising the blade's stability too.

Exposure to external moister is one of the reasons why a stick breaks down. Chips open up the internals of the stick and allow moisture into the blade and/or shaft. Over time this, weakens the stick a little at a time and eventually it breaks. Now, I'm sure you could seal exposed areas with some sort of resin to protect it from moisture. But not sure if you can do anything about a weakened structure.

my 2 cents.  It's worth what you paid.

[flip12 712]

I’ve considered composite patches if I ever get around to trying to curve my blades again: https://www.compositepatch.com/en/index.asp

The demo video of the oar blade looks pretty impressive.

My curved blades develop cracks like that. Just to get most of the stiffness back would be awesome. I imagine it could work quite well for sealing up a shaved toe. It just looks pricey unless you can use the whole patch and do a large batch of blade repairs at once.

[ParabolicActivity 48]

Can you modify the curve of a composite stick?!

[Novotnoa 8]

I used to repair my composite blades with a fiberglass and Epoxy mixture. It worked but you had to cake it on pretty thick. I imagine if you really wanted to you could do it, but if it’s an expensive stick it’s probably not worth it.

[Cavs019 708]

Just get a P106 or P72. 🙌

[padobo 0]

14 hours ago, puckpilot said:

From what I know, generally, a stick blade has a foam core with a composite wrap. So if you cut into the blade, you're going to expose that foam and the internal fibres of the composite. Depending on how the blade is structured internally, you could be compromising the blade's stability too.

Exposure to external moister is one of the reasons why a stick breaks down. Chips open up the internals of the stick and allow moisture into the blade and/or shaft. Over time this, weakens the stick a little at a time and eventually it breaks. Now, I'm sure you could seal exposed areas with some sort of resin to protect it from moisture. But not sure if you can do anything about a weakened structure.

my 2 cents.  It's worth what you paid.

That's pretty much everything I needed to know to not try it.  Like you said, it would need to be sealed, but that seems like a lot of work to change the blade slightly.  Thanks.

[padobo 0]

8 hours ago, flip12 said:

I’ve considered composite patches if I ever get around to trying to curve my blades again: https://www.compositepatch.com/en/index.asp

The demo video of the oar blade looks pretty impressive.

My curved blades develop cracks like that. Just to get most of the stiffness back would be awesome. I imagine it could work quite well for sealing up a shaved toe. It just looks pricey unless you can use the whole patch and do a large batch of blade repairs at once.

Oh yeah that looks like a lot of work and money, Plus, where I live there is absolutely nowhere close to get something like this done to a stick.

[padobo 0]

7 hours ago, Cavs019 said:

Just get a P106 or P72. 🙌

Hard to find those where I live haha the majority of the curve patterns (probably 85-90%) are Crosby, Ovechkin, or Nugent-Hopkins.  The other 10-15% are made up of variations of mid and toe curves from different brands.

[flip12 712]

5 minutes ago, padobo said:

Oh yeah that looks like a lot of work and money, Plus, where I live there is absolutely nowhere close to get something like this done to a stick.

I was thinking of it as a DIY project. Doesn't look too hard: gloves, scissors, sandpaper, some wrap perhaps, garbage bin; you're set.

I've thought about contacting them to see if they have any micro-scale patches or patch kits. One of their smallest I figure would fix half a dozen to a dozen blades. I never have that many to fix at once, and the epoxy sets whether you use it or not.

[bunnyman666 445]

On 10/7/2018 at 11:33 PM, marka said:

Howdy,

Composite repair is a thing, but its not a thing I know anything about.  Isn't there a guy here that did composite stuff for real?  I'd pick his brain a bit.

I'd also experiment with some broken sticks first.  🙂

Mark

Thanks, @flip12 for the mention.

I am embarrassed! I replied to @marka when @padobo was the one who asked!

What you’re wanting to do is TOTALLY doable; just possibly a bit above your paygrade at the moment. Marka is right: play with broken sticks first!

Composite repair is not nearly as daunting  as it sounds. Blades are easier than shafts, for certain. Since a blade has a core, it is really a simple fix.

You need 80 grit sandpaper, epoxy, and fabric. You can cut fabric to cover 1/2” of either side of the crack, sand the area with 80 grit paper, mix up enough epoxy to equal (or slightly more than) the pieces of fabric, clean area with acetone (modern, commercial grade foam is pretty resistant to cured foam on a blade), thoroughly wet your fabric, squeegee off the excess resin, apply the fabric to the crack, then wrap it with electrical tape. Of course for small cracks along the bottom edge, mixing powdered graphite with two part extra strength household epoxy or JB Weld, then compacting it with electrical tape works very well. This was for a break.

You would treat trimming and rounding the blade slightly differently than a crack. Carbon tape would be your best bet. You would wrap the rounded bits with strips of the tape. 

Repairing a shaft will affect flex and kickpoint properties, which I am not too keen on, though it is not all that hard to do, either.  But be warned- repairing a shaft will make the stick not perform as engineered. It is physics, plain and simple. However- you SHOULD try it once! But start with blade repair.

My biggest suggestion is to search far and wide for research material. Widen your scope to home built composite bicycles and parts and you will hit the jackpot on how to fix and build composites. I got my start from a simple hole poked in my Zipp disc bicycle wheel. 

Please @padobo PM me if you have more questions.