Vintage 70's Turner Needle Nose

Carsten Pingel · Post by **Carsten Pingel** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 12:43 pm

Does somebody know what kind of resin was used to build the 70s Turner Summer Skis ?
I have an old one for restauration. The top layer is cracked right in the line of the inner holes of the front truck.
The bottom layer is alright.
I want to fix it with a new top layer of carbon/ fiberglass.

Martin Drayton · Post by **Martin Drayton** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 4:53 pm

Hi Carsten, contact Steven Church via the Turner Summer Ski website, he should be able to help you out!
Good luck,

WeS Carpenter · Post by **WeS Carpenter** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 6:37 am

Carsten,

If you dont find out the info you need.

Feel free to contact myself or josh englund.

We will do what we can to help.

best of luck with your restoration.

Glenn S · Post by **Glenn S** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 12:55 am

Carsten,
I'm gunna say that these decks were made from Polyester resin, just like a typical surfboard is. Where the fiberglass cloth is layed up with Polyester Laminating Resin, and then a gloss coat over that which is basically just Polyester with a wax in it so that it hardens at the surface and can be polished to shine. I'm pretty sure that even the decks up to the point prior to where Steve Church got involved also still used Polyester resin, because even they were showing the stress cracks on the bottom.

From what I've seen is that both Turner and Icks suffer from the stress cracks that you see going across the deck on the botton where the deck flexes the most. The cracking is in the gloss and or gel coat.

Now your problem sounds like it is a bit different than stress cracks in the gloss or gel coat like I mention above. Is the glass cloth also cracked or broken where your problem is, or is it just a surface crack in resin only? Post a picture of your problem if you can.

Carsten Pingel · Post by **Carsten Pingel** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:56 am

Hi Glenn,
also the foam is broken ! Its just the bottom layer which is alright.
I can still stand on the board without cracking it into pieces.
I want to cut the broken area and put a new piece of foam inside.
Then after sanding the whole upper layer, I want to laminate a new layer of fiberglass.
I hope that will work !?

WeS Carpenter · Post by **WeS Carpenter** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:17 pm

Glenn,

Keep guessing.

Carsten,

Replacing the foam is major surjury, you may end up adding weight (density) and changing the over feel and flex of the board.

But if you loved that board, it maybe worth the risk , but i would recommend hanging it on the wall.

best of luck

Wesley Tucker · Post by **Wesley Tucker** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:36 pm

Carsten,

Now that I've read your description of the board's condition, I have to agree with Wes C: Your board is DONE. Hang it up as a keep sake before you wned up with several piece of scrap fiberglas.

The foam CORE is the heart of the board. It's integrity and solidity is the source of everything that makes the board work. Once it gives up the ghost, no amount of patchwork repairs will bring it back to life. Even if you do sucessfully repair and relaminate the board, the core will still be impaired because it no longer has the "whole" integrity it needs to perform correctly.

You know, once a car's frame is bent the car is pretty well totalled? And once a sail boat loses it's single keel it'll never take a strong swell again? Well, the core of your board is the frame, the keel, the heart and the soul of a Turner Summer Ski. Like I said, even if you do fix it, you'll be sorrowfully disappointed in the board's performance right up until it breaks any way. And it will break. Once the core is cracked, the board is on borrowed time with diminishing and weak performance.

Sorry, Carsten. Time for a new board. And take this from a guy who has broken SIX Turners over the years.

Glenn S · Post by **Glenn S** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 1:57 am

I would put quite a bit of money on a wager that the 70s boards were ORTHO Polyester. There are basically two types of Polyester resins; ISO and ORTHO. ISO for Tooling (molds) and ORTHO for your laminates. Back in the 70s there were not Epoxy's that were clear enough yet to put a pigment in them like the Turner decks that I've seen that have crystal clear resin. I helped build the two first ever sandwich (foam core) epoxy composite charter vessels certified by the USCG starting in the mid 80s, I know what was available back then in regards to resin and foam, we did mucho testing, prior and during construction, for the Coast Guard. And it is definitely not Vinylester which is typically more dark amber than epoxy, and was no where near the development it is at today, and these days it is still very dark amber, more so than epoxy in general. So what choice does that leave us for use with typical fiberglass, which I know they are?

I gunna say that Turners back then were ORTHO Polyester because that is all there was really. ORTHO polyester has an elongation percentage of 2%. Couple that with E-Glass which has an elongation percentage of 4.8% and the resin will always fail first, hence the stress crack you commonly see on the bottom. If they were Epoxy they would not do that like they did. Why use S-Glass with Polyester, it is a missmatch. S-Glass has an elongation percentage of 5.4% and was developed to match Epoxy.

And definitely not ISO Polyester which is a tooling resin. Used mainly because of less shrinkage. But it is not for laminates because it only has an elongation percentage of 1.4%, and it would definitely fail. A deck made with this resin would not be good if flex was important and you did not want the resin to start cracking right off.

Epoxy would be best. But I challenge you to find me an epoxy from the 70s or 80s even that is clear like the Turner decks. Epoxy would be best because it can have an elongation percentage between 4.5 to 8 percent. But this is dependent mainly on the HDT (Heat Distortion Temperature) of the epoxy and how it was post cured based on the HDT to develop it full potential. 8% elongation percentage Epoxies would be Epoxies that are used in Autoclaves with post cure temps upwards to 500 degrees. But this is Aerospace stuff.

Now you can bond Polyester to Polyester if the surface is prepped. And you can bond Vinylester to Polyester, and vise versa even, if the surface is prepped. This is because both are Styrene based.

But you cannot/should not bond either Vinylester or Polyester to and original Epoxy laminate. But you can bond Epoxy to either an original Polyester or Vinylester laminate with prepping.

Wes, can you prove me wrong?

Carsten Pingel · Post by **Carsten Pingel** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 9:12 am

ok ok ok ...

Thank you guys ! I thought I could revive this piece of skate history after 20 years !
..you convinced me to put the board on the wall.....R.I.P.

Alex Walters · Post by **Alex Walters** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 9:21 am

It must be sad seeing a board like that going into retirement. Do you have any pics of the board and/or the crack you're talking about?

Carsten Pingel · Post by **Carsten Pingel** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:20 pm

Alex Walters · Post by **Alex Walters** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 12:08 am

Very nice board. I see the crack you're talking about.

Glenn S · Post by **Glenn S** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 1:38 am

Carsten,
I'd say that looking at the damage there, both glass and foam completely broken, that it's memories from now on. A good fiberglass repair person could probably hide the damage so that it "looks" like it was almost never broken if that was important to you so that it looks good hangin' on the wall. But you've lost the original integrity of the laminate.

It is too bad that Bob Turner is not still around; he was a master with fiberglass. He could take today’s much better materials and make decks that would last much longer. Was this your deck from the 70s?

Dave Gale · Post by **Dave Gale** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 12:47 pm

Yup... That's a "wallhanger" for sure! I've got my original 78 Full Nose that has hundreds of stress cracks and I still will "putt" around on it,but never ask it to perform again!! That fracture is into the heart. Clean it up as it is and put the ol' guy to rest! I've got a beautiful red over black needle nose that was under Bob and Peggy's bed that has not a blemish..I even had to drill it. I only ride it on nice pavement,parrellel,and no hard pumping! I want it to be whole for eternity!!
Wesley, good to hear you're all better!!!!
Off to work I go, 2 trips in 1 day today!!!!!!!!

Wesley Tucker · Post by **Wesley Tucker** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 4:02 pm

Just for the record,

Bobby Turner never built a "needle nose" in his life. I don't know how this stupid shit got started, but I wish it would die a quick and merciless death!

Bobby built three kinds of boards:

1. Fullnose
2. CUT AWAY

3. and the occassional specialty board like TR's downhill.

Oh, sometimes the CUT AWAYS were also known as FULL CUT AWAYS as opposed to the FULL NOSE.

To quote my letter from Bob Turner dated March 22, 1978,

"We have two models available: a Slalom Cut-Away and Slalom Full-Nose (sic)"

Then, on August 2, 1978, my letter from Tommy Ryan that accompanied my first Turner Summer Ski says the following:

"Our Cut-Away model was specifically designed for tight slalom race courses, riding parallel stance. The Full-Nose model is basically for Giant Slalom/Tight Slalom courses using surf stance."

That's it. Case closed.

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