Crash

trail jacker

Hi all,

Had a pretty big crash earlier on, resulting in me eating a ton of leaves and my bike being flung down a rocky wooded hillside. I climbed down to get it and noticed it was in pretty good shape despite a lot of scuffs from hitting trees (gotta love helitape).

The main damage seemed to be to the left hand chainstay which must have smashed into a rock. As its a carbon frame I was wondering if anyone could advise me as to if any action needs to be taken, as the chip is fairly deep (~.5 to .75mm) and I can move the actual carbon fibres with my fingernail.

pics; http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/85/imag0539g.jpg/
(with thumb) http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/580/imag0538y.jpg/

I was thinking of putting the gf's nail polish on it to act as a protective layer (like a glaze) then helitaping over it.

Opinions? Should I be worried or can carbon frames handle a lot worse?

Many thanks!

delcol

carbon is strong. and can take knocks,,,

i guess the only way you would know if it's fooked would be to have it x-rayed.. not sure how you would go about this or how much it would cost..

is there a noticable difference in sound if you tap it (the area were it's damagd) to the other side or the seat stay
if so this could be an indication there is a problem..

may be try to contact the manufacture(is it a onone) and see what they say...

good luck

trail jacker

Well the drive side chainstay has a Endura chainstay protector ziptied onto it so I cant tap it directly. Tapping around the chip sounds fairly consistent until you tap the actual chip, as the lacquer is gone so its just carbon.
Yeah I may send them an email later on to see what they say.

Would nail varnish and helitape be a good shout do you think? Mainly to stop the lacquer chipping off anymore than it already has!

delcol

personally i would not use it.. speak to the manufacture first.. you dont want to cause more damage by putting something on it that MAY affect the carbons properties....

DodgeT

Hard to tell from the pic, but is there a horizontal line / mark in the chip too?
If your going to put anything on it, a bit of gel coat would be your best bet, should be able to get it from local motor factors. But as said above, a quick call to on one wouldn't hurt either if your worried.
Maybe worth a watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esJJxqPR2-4

James-orange-5

Speak to the manufacturer first they should be able to repair it if not i know there are some companies out there that could repair it, could be costly though.

An alternative is if you know of anybody in the aviation industry could get it repaired as alot of aircraft parts are made from composite materials ie kevlar/ carbon ect, these days to keep weight down

trail jacker

DodgeT - what has happened from what I can see is that the paint has chipped off, then the outer layer of carbon had been chipped off too, what you can see right in the middle of the larger chip is the actual carbon fibres. Great vid by the way, thanks for that. As the guy says in it at 0:40 onwards that clear nail polish can be used to seal the chip back up I think that's what I will do. I have emailed On-One but they have yet to reply, so maybe I will hold off till I hear from them.

I have ordered 7ft of framewrap from Biketart to do both chainstays with after the chip has been sealed to prevent any more chips appearing!

And James-orange-5, I don't think its worth repairing professionally, I cant imagine it will damage the integrity of the chainstay, its just it would be nice to do a botch job to prevent the carbon starting to flake and deteriorate. So I guess once its sealed again and covered in framewrap I will just forget about it.

The Rookie

Again I wouldn't use nail varnish, the acetone most used as carrier is very good at dissolving stuff you may not want dissolved, I would use a resin designed for use with fibreglass as most carbon frames use the same stuff anyway (that frame isn't prepreg), just slowly fill the chip until its level.

Simon

trail jacker

Well I got a reply from On-One and they recommend using nailvarnish to prevent the chip spreading, the guy who wrote to me said he has had bigger chips and used nail varnish on them to cover the carbon back up.

DodgeT

Do as they say then, get some paint and tape over it, then ride it as normal and try forget its there, or at least ride it hard enough to be worthy of breaking it