The trueness of Zylon® - best use at night only!

[Schneewurm]

Zylon®-Boards from Virus - the first Night extreme Carving-Boards

Well, as a branded poeple "whithout any knowhow in fibre composits at all" (on FrozenBackside anyone/V wrote: ihm fehlt das Wissen über Technik/Materialien und deren Zusammenspiel) I spend this morning half an hour to check what Zylon® is. You should know apart of Carbon, Aramid and Zylon® ther are a lot more fibres you can use/buy. Since 1998 there are German companys they are applying Zylon®, they find out, that one potential problem is the Hydrolysis that reduce tensil streght. Hydrolysis is the breakdown of a chemical structure by the action of moisture, it's not reversible. (So there should be some precautions handling the material on work!)

There are a lot of good attributs on this PBO improved fiber fabrics, called Zylon®. But ther are also things they ar good to know!

TOYOBO CO., LTD. Technical Information (Revised 2001.9):
- ZYLON® should be protected not only from ultraviolet light but also from visible light.
- The compressive strength of ZYLON® is much less than the tensile strength.

At the end of the Technical Information there was again an extra Warning (see Picture):
"The materials are to be stored free from exposure to light."

After 300 hours (= 50 days of 6 hour snowboarding) of illumination exposure with about 500-1000 lux, TOYOBO measured a tensil loss of about 20 % ! What will hapen at a bright sunny day in the mountains (50'000-100'000 lux = 1000x stronger exposure) they didn't say us! (Is there also some tiny charge of ultraviolet light up in the mountains at winter-time?)

Now, Virus as the first and only company on the world, producing equipment with visible Zylon® ! it seems they have the voodoo to manage the facts easy with big mouth!

But maybe next time there will be some News from Virus for Zylon®-Boards to prevent brittleness:
"Virus is proud to present the worlwide first and absolut exclusive Carvingboard - Sun-Cream"

In addition Aramid is on compressive 60 % more robust the Zylon®. So i hope that the upper side from snowboards will be free of any compression like flexing the board, or all this hits from the sticks or skis of skier when you are in the lift-queue.
Also abrasion resistance of ZYLON® is much lower than Nylon fiber, so you should spend your jacket on the lift-queue protecting your board, because the jacket is more robust against scratches!
Never you should twist your board to excessive!
Y. Yamashita/ S. Kawabata/ S. Okada and A. Tanaka from the University of Shiga, Hikone 522-8533, Japan reports: after 1000 torsion interactions, strengtness of Zylon® is reduced to 30 % of Aramid fibres, because the fibril of the molecular chain bandle shifts easily, transforms, comes loose, and breaks.

Well, please don't be worry about all this informations, there are perhaps only a view more poeple on the world "whithout any knowhow in fibre composits at all", like me too!

[codighel]

Ok,then i'll go snowboarding Just at night !! you chose a bad day for a topic like this.A war seems to be finished a few hours ago...now this revelation....just in time or what else?

[Hans]

May be we better ask Frank instead of Professor Zylon Schneewurm

[skywalker]

Well, as a branded poeple "whithout any knowhow in fibre composits at all" (on FrozenBackside anyone/V wrote: ihm fehlt das Wissen über Technik/Materialien und deren Zusammenspiel)

He may have been wrong in the past, but not on this one, as you have proven one again without any doubt.

[...]that one potential problem is the Hydrolysis that reduce tensil streght. Hydrolysis is the breakdown of a chemical structure by the action of moisture, it's not reversible. (So there should be some precautions handling the material on work!)

Didn't exactly the worm tell us, that there was no moisture inside a snowboard (i.e. damaging these new cores)? Did you at last find a way to bring some into your board? Well, be happy with that.

- The compressive strength of ZYLON® is much less than the tensile strength.

A person who wants to build something with fibres and load them with compressive load, proves exactly the sentences at the very top....

In addition Aramid is on compressive 60 % more robust the Zylon®. So i hope that the upper side from snowboards will be free of any compression like flexing the board, or all this hits from the sticks or skis of skier when you are in the lift-queue.

I see, you are deeply involved into the secrets of mechanics and snowboard constructions

Also abrasion resistance of ZYLON® is much lower than Nylon fiber, so you should spend your jacket on the lift-queue protecting your board, because the jacket is more robust against scratches!

Which is absolutely true, if you forget the raisin (epoxy) on your board.

there are perhaps only a view more poeple on the world "whithout any knowhow in fibre composits at all", like me too!

Well, what can one say...
At least a worm also took his chance to prove it's intelligence today.

skywalker

[Felix]

Well the thing that would scare me more about Zylon is the danger it is causing to your health from what I heard after the probs that appeared with Zylon Vests for Police Officers. I have not heard that it is solved. About Sunrays I can't say anything.

That's what Wikipedia community has to say about the problems descrived by Schneewurm above: In early 2005, Armor Holdings, Inc. first [2] recalled its existing Zylon-based products, and decreased the rated lifespan warrantee of new vests from 60 months to 30 months. In August 2005, AHI decided to discontinue manufacturing all of its Zylon-containing vests. This was largely based on the actions of the U.S. government's National Institute of Justice, which decertified Zylon for use in its approved models of ballistic vests for law enforcement.

Definitely not a material to store in your bedroom like you may do with other boards.

In case it breaks down it would remind me of older Atomic skis with the Betaprofile which broke down after 20-30 days of use and started break down the bit of woodcore Atomic put into the skis. So after 40-50 days of using the skis you would definietly see huge improvements in new Atomic skis. Skis worked great when new and degraded faster than you could imagine after some very good first 20-30days. Seen one opened. Looked kinda scary. Never seen a ski that looked so crashed in the inside as some old Atomics with the dissolving Betalubes. Must have promoted the technical designers into the toplevel for such a great idea.

[leeho730]

What can I say? Companies want to sell more stuff and one way is to make sure products wear out fast.

I remember K2 skis were pretty durable until they came up with this idea: use softer steel for edge and edge will wear out faster so people will buy more skis!

Not sure about Zylon and the sunlight... I'm sure they [Virus] know this fact so they would have worked around the issue... but I won't be a guinee pig to test product, I'll wait for someone to test the performance and durability, thank you very much

[VIRUS 1]

Lieber Schneewurm:
Wissen ist Macht! Nichts wissen macht nichts!

[nils]

good answer
N.

[István]

Well, I cannot really add to this very scientific topic, but I am willing to sacrifice myself on the altar of science. I happen to have 2 Zylon Gladiators (the first I broke in an accident at the tail , but got repaired quite decently).

I think the newer one was produced approximately 18 months after the first one. (I guess Frank can tell you exactly - Proto 175/01 and 175/015), so we can even track the gradual decomposition of the material.

Both are under my bed and both will be ridden in the future, so I'll send you reports on their performance. Should the reports discontinue to come, it means I'm dead due to having stored both under my bed.

Frank, I am willing to test more Zylon boards, regardless of endangering my precious health, so any more free test boards are welcome

Schneewurm: any danger of having a wide smile on my face when riding these boards?


Cheers


ps.: Frank, I hope those sun-creams are available at Riml, I'll need some this weekend!

[Pogokoenig]

Istvan: Are you in Sölden or in Pitztal?

@Felix: Maybe I should not wear my snowboard to protect me against driveby-shootings.

[István]

Still Pitztal, but the 70km driving cannot prevent me from getting that sun creme!

[codighel]

HI Frank !!!so,can I use a simple sun protection cream for My berserker ?? I usually buy first quality moisturing creams like..Roc...Clarins...Nivea...are all they good ??

[kurtsk8]

I think that the most important thing is the time which the decomposition process occurs, if it so long that you will chance the board before the negative effects appears it's not a problem
and if the damage caused by the process are not notable it's not a problem

[codighel]

..hope as late as possible ! Never would be even better

[RicHard]

I usually buy first quality moisturing creams

Good for your skin too...

like..Nivea

FIRST QUALITY?!?!?
NIVEA?!
6 euros in the supermarket?!?! Ehm... it's better not to use it, than using it!
Your skin will thank you.