I meant protect from heat, given your feet will roughly be in that area; in addition to other body parts when getting up to speed.
may i‘m going to install an aluminium plate, but it‘s nothing planned so far.
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If you’re assessing the strength of the fiberglass layer, you might want to wait a week or 2 before drawing any conclusion.
Each time i’m finishing a new board i can’t wait to get it in the water… they usually end up in the water a couple days after finishing them, but it always feel much softer the first time…
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True. It takes up to 10days to fully cure at room temperature. I did the same mistake too… Sometimes without waiting 2 days but less and the resin became “foggy”.
Blocoloco why don’t you do a mix, glass and one carbon layer? That really make the thing stiff and resistant to dings and pressure marks. No good for surfboard but perfect for foilboards
Be very careful mixing Fiberglass and Carbon for structural applications. the article linked at the end is very clear… In short: Mixing different fibers in the same load path can lead to a component being weaker than it would be if only one type of fiber had been used.
Actually, it applies to any combinations of material, the “board” on the picture below is made of wood wrapped in fiberglass.
I choose to use a thinner wood plank, and wrap it with 3 layer of 6oz fiberglass to make it stiffer(deck of surfboards use 2 layers , so i should be fine) . Result: the FG cracked when i started pushing too much on it… Why? because the FG is much stiffer so it takes all the load… the wood only starts taking any load when it deforms enough, but that way after the fiberglass cracked…
So far (finger crossed) , no failure over the the last 9 years DYI production… I consider a foilboard like a ‘pipe’, like a big sandwich of polystyrene and composites. The ones I mixed were only to get an hard surface (foam glassed) to be able to pull the vacuum and lay down the carbon fibres properly. In any case, the article is arguable, it’s the same infinite discussion “would a cave rod be more stiff than a cave one?” Definitely yes at comparable weight, definitely not using the same cross section!
On kite race hidrofoils the core is still foam, (to ensure even pressure inside of the two halves mould) and several different type of carbons are used, other than uni fibres oriented at different angles. It doesn’t make foils weaker if well designed and with enought material. What the article doesn’t say is that if you’re saving layers because of carbon, then ok, you’ll end up with just the carbon to get stressed, but on a kitefoil board, your goal is to keep the inserts and mast attach in, other than avoid press mark (which, with time, could occour on surfboard even with 2x 6oz glassing).
To recap my thought, in place of 3 x 300g of glass, 2 glass and 300g of carbon outside will make a board that you can run over with a car!
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thanks for your post. which setup for glassing the board you’re reccomend?
Then it sound like we agree:
I usually put 2 x 6oz top and 1 6oz on bottom + a few big patches on the bottom to spread the load of the foil .
That’s enough for the board not to snap in half, but not enough against pressure marks.
Adding Carbon will do a good job at avoiding pressure marks.
Another option is to add a layer of thin balsa wood below the glass. it doesn’t really make it harder, but if the glass deforms, it then comes back to the right shape. and it makes the board look good 
However, it’s a bit harder to deal with the rails…
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Yes, balsa, bamboo (difficult to glass avoiding bubble tho) or even termanto (I miss the English name of that hard foam.) all that make a “sandwich lamination” will do. On kitefoil I did 1x glass, 1x CArbon, carbon patch under “feet area” and near mast box.
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This is an expanded PVC foam made by a company named Termanto.
Hello blocoloco
2 days ago I had the opportunity to test my efoil.
I use an identical hatch like her, unfortunately she is not waterproof. Please test your before laminating!
greeting mac
thanks for your advice. i know that it’s not totally waterpoof. everything in below this hatch will be in a waterpoof box.
Why don’t you let it overlap? That would make it stronger and avoid cracks. You won’t notice the extra height of a double layer if that is your concern.