Graphite vs Ptex Base
James Purvis
Im just looking at the new catalogues for boards this winter. Can anybody tell
me the pros/cons of graphite vs Ptex base? Thanks in advance for any info
cheers
James
Stephen Yiu Wah Lau
: Hi
: Im just looking at the new catalogues for boards this winter. Can anybody tell
: me the pros/cons of graphite vs Ptex base? Thanks in advance for any info
A bit of discussion came out last year with Sean Donek and durability/
wax retention etc... I assume you're going for the sintered bases
which are more durable than extruded... Comparing a good quality
regular PTex (like 4000 or Durasurf) vs a graphite impregnated PTex
(yes, graphite bases are just PTex bases with graphite introduced
in the manufacturing... good brand is Electra 4000) both hold wax
well and both are durable... The regular PTex seemed to have a better
abrasion resistance than the Graphite... As for the speed factor?
It's really hard to tell... My friend and I were at Fortress here
in Alberta on the far side which has the long flat to get back to the
lifts... Starting from the same point on the mountain and following
the same line and speed (my friend led, and I followed with about the
same distance between us all the way through before we hit the flats),
while gliding on the flats I ended up passing him with my electra
based board where his was regular Ptex... does that mean anything???
Not really... just a real life experience... I think most people
would agree that the increase in overall speed wouldn't be noticable...
S
--
Stephen Lau --> syw...@ucalgary.ca | I love animals...
The University of Calgary | they taste great!!!
Department of Chemistry |
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~sywlau/ | Office: SB429A/437 Lab: SB436
SpecialtyQ
>Can anybody tell
>me the pros/cons of graphite vs Ptex base?
I'm not a tech wizard, but i rode one of last year's salomons with a graphite
base, and it's EXTREMELY fast.
max
Rakshasa
SpecialtyQ wrote in message <19980919132803...@ng-fb2.aol.com>...
Be very careful with your wax, and a pTex board rides real fast; don't pay attention, and you'll stick to the snow like a landlord looking for rent.
Kevin Kan
could enlighten us with your knowledge of wax. What is the difference
between regular household paraffin and flourinated wax (yeah, I know
it's flourinated which probably means it contains flourine, but what
does this do for wax and glide on the molecular or small scale level).
Why do waxes have optimum temperature ranges? What makes a good wax,
and why is it so damn expensive?
I've used regular household paraffin from the grocery store before and I
found it to work well for west coast conditions. What it lacks in
longevity (on the board longevity, it lasts two to three days) is
certainly made up by its relatively cheap cost. I find this stuff to be
faster than other ski/snowboard waxes sold in my shop and other
snowboard shops.
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Kevin Kan (510) 534-7379 |
|ke...@kan.org 936 Bayview Ave. Apt. A |
|www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Arena/8612 Oakland, CA 94610 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
Sean Martin
we go.
For the Solomon discussion, the increase in speed experienced by Stephen Lau is
more than likely due to solomons stone grind and the tuning of the board. There
are very few companies out there with the equipment to produce a stone ground
finish on their boards(probably why the other board didn't perform as well).
Having spent a lot of time working with US Pro Snowboard, their riders and talking
with their tuners this past summer, It has become apparent that a good tune can
make an extruded base perform almost as well as a well tuned graphite base, but a
badly tuned graphite base can perform much worse than an extruded base with a
mediocre tune. Tuning is 95% of your bases speed and performance, while the base
material has very much less to do with speed and performance.
This summer we (Donek) finally took the big plunge into the custom race market.
We've made some race boards in the past, but we've finally established a
partnership that can really help us produce a superior product. As a result of
this new endeavor, I have done a great deal more research into the base material
issue. This last year Paul Raymer (Zardoz) did some electron microscopy at NREL
on some base materials. They looked at new bases (sintered & sintered with
graphite) as well as bases that had been ridden for 4 days. The surface of the
graphite base appeared to be very abraded and torn up, while the plain sintered
material lasted longer.
For those of you who race, you know what freezer burn is. Due to the intense
abrasion experience along a boards edge, black graphite bases will turn almost
white and begin to look very dry and abraded. There are some custom race board
producers who have gone back to the plain sintered material due to this problem
and the loss of speed that results. We're running a strip of plain sintered
material 1.5cm inside the edge of our boards and using a graphite base down the
middle to help fight this very problem.
As I stated last year, I do not believe that graphite bases are of any use to the
average recreational rider.
James, the way in which you tune your board is much more important than the base
that you are tuning. A sintered base will generally be more durable than an
extruded one. A graphite base will be less durable than the sintered base while
allowing you to get down the hill about .005 seconds faster than a comparably
tuned sintered base. Your most important concern in base material (unless you are
a racer) should be its durability and how it will hold up when you hit a rock.
On another note, far too often I have heard people say, "get the board with the
graphite base, it's better", or "get the board with the carbon fiber, it's
better." A good board is a sum of all it's parts, the engineer that designed it,
and the people who put it together. It's just as easy to make a really bad board
with a graphite base or carbon fiber as it is to make a bad board with an extruded
base, fiberglass and foam. Don't mistake a boards quality for one part that was
put into it.
I hope my ramblings have helped. Let me know if I need to clarify anything.
--
Sean Martin
Donek Snowboards Inc.
sma...@donek.net
http://www.donek.net
James Purvis wrote:
> Hi
>
> Im just looking at the new catalogues for boards this winter. Can anybody tell
> me the pros/cons of graphite vs Ptex base? Thanks in advance for any info
>
> cheers
>
> James
Sean Martin
Stephen Yiu Wah Lau
: I really hate to get started on the whole sintered/graphite issue again, but here
: we go.
: For the Solomon discussion, the increase in speed experienced by Stephen Lau is
: more than likely due to solomons stone grind and the tuning of the board. There
Uhh... just a point of correction- I didn't talk about the Solomon
stuff, the author of that article saying graphite bases are faster...
What I did was compare my K2 Ginsu with a Nitro Range, both companies
do stone grind their bases... I don't know about an increase in
speed, but did notice a better gliding performance... Both were
recently waxed...
James Purvis
Thanks for the comprehensive explanation. My main concern as a consumer and
boarder who goes in all conditions (i.e. from October to July irrespective of
Snow conditions) is how the maintenance, waxing and specifically the repair
differs on these types of boards. My good 'ol ptex based are quite easy to repair...
thanks for any tips
James
Sean Martin
Stephen Yiu Wah Lau wrote:
> Uhh... just a point of correction- I didn't talk about the Solomon
> stuff, the author of that article saying graphite bases are faster...
>
Sorry Stephen, I must have misunderstood.
> What I did was compare my K2 Ginsu with a Nitro Range, both companies
> do stone grind their bases... I don't know about an increase in
> speed, but did notice a better gliding performance... Both were
> recently waxed...
>
The best way to really compare the boards is to have the same person wax the boards at
the same time with the same wax and technique. Another test for the effectiveness of
the base would be to simple remove all the wax with citrus cleaner and ride them dry.
> --
> Stephen Lau --> syw...@ucalgary.ca | I love animals...
> The University of Calgary | they taste great!!!
> Department of Chemistry |
> http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~sywlau/ | Office: SB429A/437 Lab: SB436
--
Sean Martin
I think some day I'd like to find Bill gates and stuff my computer down his
throat. I spent half an our replying to this, pressed send, and my machine
crashed.
Let's start with the fluorocarbon issue. As some of you may know, water has
a polarity, due to the way the hydrogen atoms are arranged around the oxygen
atom.
H H
\ /
O
You can observe this in your own kitchen by running a small stream of water
from your tap and holding a magnet close to the stream. You should observe
a small deflection. By creating a surface with the correct polarity, you
can make your base repel water much the same way water beads up on a freshly
waxed car. Fluorocarbons are hydrophobic, or have that correct polarity.
To my knowledge, waxes containing fluorocarbons contain powdered teflon, a
fluorinated polymer. Why they cost so much, I'm not too sure.
Waxes in general are hydrocarbons, and look similar to this:
C C C C C C C
| | | | | | |
C-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-C
| | | | | | |
C C C C C C C
paraffin is a relatively short chain, where cold temperature waxes are much
longer. The longer the chain, the harder the wax is. As snow gets colder,
it becomes more and more abrasive, thus the need for harder waxes on colder
snow. Your paraffin should perform many of the same functions of other
waxes, but will be scraped off much faster. I'm not too sure why colder
temp waxes don't work as well on warmer snow.
The cost of ski/snowboard waxes is probably due to the fact that ski wax
companies have expensive executives (with expensive hobbies like skiing) to
pay. They also have advertising and marketing budgets and sponsor big name
ski/snowboard racers, where paraffin companies don't. There may also be
additional expense in making longer chain hydrocarbons.
Kevin Kan wrote:
> Thanks Sean. Ah, clarity at last. Nice explanation. Perhaps now you
> could enlighten us with your knowledge of wax. What is the difference
> between regular household paraffin and flourinated wax (yeah, I know
> it's flourinated which probably means it contains flourine, but what
> does this do for wax and glide on the molecular or small scale level).
> Why do waxes have optimum temperature ranges? What makes a good wax,
> and why is it so damn expensive?
>
> I've used regular household paraffin from the grocery store before and I
> found it to work well for west coast conditions. What it lacks in
> longevity (on the board longevity, it lasts two to three days) is
> certainly made up by its relatively cheap cost. I find this stuff to be
> faster than other ski/snowboard waxes sold in my shop and other
> snowboard shops.
--
Sean Martin
Donek Snowboards Inc.
sma...@donek.net
http://www.donek.net
Stephen Yiu Wah Lau
: Let's start with the fluorocarbon issue. As some of you may know, water has
: a polarity, due to the way the hydrogen atoms are arranged around the oxygen
: atom.
: You can observe this in your own kitchen by running a small stream of water
: from your tap and holding a magnet close to the stream. You should observe
: a small deflection. By creating a surface with the correct polarity, you
: can make your base repel water much the same way water beads up on a freshly
: waxed car. Fluorocarbons are hydrophobic, or have that correct polarity.
But regular hydrcarbons are hydrophobic too, so the fluorination
must provide some other purpose, perhaps to do with developing
crosslinks, which change the properties of the wax...
: Waxes in general are hydrocarbons, and look similar to this:
: C C C C C C C
: | | | | | | |
: C-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-C
: | | | | | | |
: C C C C C C C
Your picture didn't come out clearly on my browser, but it's
incorrect as shown above... there are no such things a H-H bonding
except for H2 (hydrogen). I THINK you mean:
H H H H H H H
| | | | | | |
-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-
| | | | | | |
H H H H H H H
: paraffin is a relatively short chain, where cold temperature waxes are much
: longer. The longer the chain, the harder the wax is. As snow gets colder,
Also, the more crosslinked, the harder... You crosslink them enough
you get a polymer which is essentially what we come to understand as
a simple plastic... PTEX is a long/crosslinked polyethylene... But
crosslinking starts decreasing the waxiness/slipperiness of the wax
(as does length)...
: it becomes more and more abrasive, thus the need for harder waxes on colder
: snow. Your paraffin should perform many of the same functions of other
: waxes, but will be scraped off much faster. I'm not too sure why colder
: temp waxes don't work as well on warmer snow.
But you don't mention glide properties of fluorinated vs
non-fluorinated... I'm sure one doesn't wax a board solely to
protect it from abrasion (although that is one of the reasons...)
If it were the primary reason, go to a harder plastic like
polycarbonate or something... I think the fluorination changes
the properties of the wax at different temps... As you get colder
and you need a harder wax, that harder wax loses its gliding
properties... Fluorination probably lets the wax retain that
"waxiness" or slipperiness while still being a hard wax...
PTFE's antistick properties occur throughout it's useful temp
range (-?? celcius to ~400-500 celcius where it doesn't liquify
but decompose... if you have a mixed polymer of PTFE and a
regular hydrocarbon it decomposes to give HF gas... not nice!)
whereas waxes have a much smaller useful range of waxiness...
You mentioned above that some fluorinated waxes have PTFE powder..
it must be really fine powder which gets absorbed into the PTEXs
pores, as PTFE softens but generally doesn't liquify...
Lifebuoy
way I can understand what the heck you guys are talkin about! :)
I've got a few questions that you folks should be able to answer.
First question. I have a 97-98 Burton Supermodel with a Stone Ground
sintered base. I hit a rock early this year, and it made a large gouge, and
also caused my egde to warp slightly and seperate from the cap. I took it back
to the store i got it from. They ended up sending it back to Burton.
When i got it back they had repaired! Very cool.
Burton repaired the egde and side wall. The store used p-tex to fix
the base. My question is does the p-tex restore the base to full perfromance?
Or should i get it base welded? I herd that reagular P-tex repair does not
work as well as the base weld.
Second question. Should i us Florinated wax in all snow? Should i
just use it in wet condtions? I went to Swix's web page several months ago.
I learned a lot of good info. How well does wax layering work? Any recommand
ations for wax?
All info and suggestions are welcome. E-mail me direct if you
want cus' i check my mail more often. Thanks.
Jon,
New Mexico rider.