David :

This reminds me of when Annie was looking for battens for Fanshi, and the pultruded stock tubing readily available in NZ was found to be too floppy to support its own weight, like this USA stock. This must have been made with random directional fibres as well.

David,

Do you think you could stop by my place and align all these randomly oriented fibers in one direction for me? Seems easy enough.

Your preferred supplier has excellent pricing. I would really like to find something like the '30mm (OD) x 27mm (ID) GRP Tube - 6m Length' around the £74.59 price advertised. I assume google is converting that to $98.03 properly.

The closest I can find is $190.00 for a 2.4 meter length here.

I think maybe 'Filament Wound' is the more common term in the US for the 'Pullwound' construction described here.

Anonymous wrote:

David Th wrote:

Would you be better off with aluminium battens? I used T5 alloy battens very successfully on the big sail on Footprints. They were light but strong and I never had a failure. Larger diameter with thinner wall thickness seems to produce a reliable batten. But it looks as if you are locked into a diameter based on your already made batten pockets. 

After reading the other David's message I spent part evening trying to find unidirectional fiberglass tubes. The only ones I can find online are VERY expensive. The remainder of my evening I have been convincing myself that ripping out the batten pockets and replacing them with larger ones might be fun. I think I have all the materials for that effort. At least I do not need to buy anything.

It is a real bummer to waste all the tubes and epoxy that I put together only a few days ago.

I don't know how you can quantify this but can you give me some idea how rigid the battens were on footprints?

The alloy battens were the top three on the sail and were 6.5 meters in length and from memory about 65 mm diameter and 1.5 mm wall thickness. To lift them individually there was no flexing, and with the sail up and working there was very little deflection, not really noticeable at all. I know the recommendation is to use T6 alloy which would allow smaller diameter but my T5 battens were fine. I imagine for your sail you would only need 25 to 30 mm diameter battens, but others might be able to advise better on sizing.

Would you be better off with aluminium battens? I used T5 alloy battens very successfully on the big sail on Footprints. They were light but strong and I never had a failure. Larger diameter with thinner wall thickness seems to produce a reliable batten. But it looks as if you are locked into a diameter based on your already made batten pockets. 

I could use some help. I think my battens are too flexible. The tubes I glued together for the yard and for the upper most sheeted batten (larger than the others) seem good to me.

The others seem to bend significantly under their own weight.

Is anyone willing to guess if the batten I have shown in the photo might be acceptable? If I am going to re-work it I would rather do it at the house and not after it is rigged on the boat.

The photo shows a one inch pultruded fiberglass tube glued inside a 1.25 inch tube. The wall thickness is 0.125"

David: Thanks for the information about melting epoxy. I ended up gluing on a second 'hinge' for now. I still need to cut or melt the first one off somehow.

David wrote:

[...] application of heat to the stainless will release the joint. A normal heat gun is usually adequate, you need about 250 to 300 degrees celsius.[...]

It is epoxy to 6063-T6 aluminum.

Do I need to worry about messing up the temper of my mast by heating it with a heat gun?