Vumad
Super Hero, with a cape!
- Location
- St. Pete, FL
That's a lot of damage at an important spot. I'll give a disclaimer that i don't feel comfortable with that repair. Its in a very bad location both for doing a quality repair and for the consequences of failure. You should strongly consider a new pole.
If it were my pole, i'd replace it, but for the sake of an argument, lets say I'd probably grind out all the damage being sure to not warp the structure. Not removing the damage will let it spread under the repair. Fill the pole with foam being sure not to affect the cable routing. Sand the foam down so its even with where the glass should be on the backside. Sand down the pole and clean with acetone. Rebuild the missing glass over the foam flush to the pole. Then wrap the whole pole with several layers of glass.
There is no way to make the pole safe and pretty. I'd bulk it up and be safe. I'm talking 3-4 layers of 1208 biax, several inches wider than the damaged area (if the area you ground out is 4", then at least 12" repair, 4" on both sides. Note: you can only go up the steering casting). Wrap it fully circumferential and don't let 2 seems lay over each other. 4 layers would be something along the lines of 18", 16" 14", 12" (even over the crack, so possibly smaller pieces if you can go past the damage the same amount on the steering side as the bracket side) width full circumferential 1208 biax then finished with a 19" width of conform cloth (i believe conform cloth is 2oz). 3:1 laminating resin. Feather it in with resin mixed with talc.
If you can handle bagging it, then you can maybe even go more layers, plus a tighter dryer layup, and tighter finish. You can vacuum cheap with a shop vac, some visqueen, a valve from a storage bag and some double sided tape. Its just hard to get a good seal like that.
I don't want you to get yourself hurt and then say "well that's how Vumad said to do the repair". Vumad's repair advice is to buy a new pole, sell that one to someone looking to homebrew a fixsteer, and buy another much safer pole. You wont save much fixing it after materials anyway even if you time has no value.
That's weird. You tagged me and the tag links to my profile but I didn't see a notification.
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