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Was looking at one of my students bikes last night and noticed that the non driveside chainstay had a hole worn on the inside, presumably from tyre rub (tyre was way to big for the frame)
Hole is about 5mm long and about 3mm wide with smooth edges and no signs of crack propagation.
My advise was to not ride it, bin it as it's likely to go. He asked if there was any way to repair it.
My textbook answer was take it to a framebuilder for advice, however, I do wonder if he keyed it in plenty if he could use a carbon repair on it? concentrate some weave around the area of the hole and extend a tube section 10 or so cm's along the chainstay?
Any reason this may not work as a sorta fix? I'm thinking it'll help, and also if the tube does fail, the carbon will help make it less of a dramatic fail!
what do you lot think?
from my experience I would say that this would work, you would have to roughen the frame about 8-10 cm either side of the hole, and then I would wrap about 2-3 layers of some mid weight cloth, wet with epoxy resin and then compress with some electrical tape. make sure the alu is clean as otherwise the carbon will not bond at all. In terms of if the tube fails, 2-3 layers should be enough for the chainstay anyway
good stuff, this was what I was thinking.
ta muchly.
Raw Aluminium corrodes inside Carbon if I remember correctly, Anodised is ok though.
Id be tempted to find a decent fabricator / frame builder and get it plated
ah yeah forgot about that 😯 - it does tend to corrode the top surface when in contact with water, but this can be stopped by putting a thin layer of fibreglass between the carbon and the aluminium as this insulated it electronically 😛
As can be seen page 2/3 when I didn't uses a fibreglass layer my bb shell separated due to a crappy join - but the fibreglass join seems to be much better 😀 [url= http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/homemade-carbon-xc-frame-pics-and-details-as-promised ]clicky - my bike[/url]
ahh, yes of course, electrode potentials, forgot about that. I'll advise a bit of fibreglass first then if he wants to give it a go.