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PostPosted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 1:36 am 
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Joined: Sat Nov 21, 2009 8:45 pm
Posts: 343
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Hi Stringy,

That's great feedback - looks like the Sika 291 should do the trick!

It does seem to be pretty resilient stuff and the inside of the knuckle 'socket'
provides a very decent amount of surface area to securely fix the aka
in place.

Cheers,

Mike.


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PostPosted: Thu Jun 06, 2013 5:13 am 
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Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2010 7:53 am
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Location: Palm City, Florida
Mike,
Glad to hear it's all working out. I didn't know 5200 wasn't available in your area. Time and usage will tell how well the Sika holds up, so please keep us posted in the future.

There's more than one school of thought on the matter and we're all interested in learning what works best. The important part as Jim stated, is keeping the rivets from moving and as dry (protected from salt/water) as possible.

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Palm City, Florida
2014 Tandem Island


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PostPosted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 1:01 am 
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Location: Melbourne, Australia
I've attached the second aka back into the knuckle joint using Sika 291i only. It's had just over 24 hours to cure and it's already rock-solid.

I've clamped the AKA and tried to twist, pull and flex the knuckle and I didn't see any movement at all of the joint between the two. Unless the Sika undergoes some sort of catastrophic chemical breakdown I can't see how I'd ever get it apart again!

I'll probably put the rivets back in anyway, but it looks solid enough to sail without them.

Cheers,

Mike.


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 25, 2013 12:40 am 
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Location: Melbourne, Australia
I joined the remaining three AKAS/knuckle-joints with Sika 291i sealant and left the rivets
out. Did a 25km trip last week (fairly calm conditions) and all went well. Post-trip inspection
showed zero-movement in the joins.

Out again tomorrow in more trying conditions, probably another 20kms at least.

The only difference I noticed was a peculiar noise, which took me a while to pinpoint. A
strange 'tubular' popping sound, seemingly happening at random. It turned out to be the
waves lapping against the underside of the AMAS, which funnelled the sound up the inside
of the AKAS and out of the open rivet holes!

Mike.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 09, 2013 10:08 pm 
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Location: Melbourne, Australia
3.5 months later and 6 or 7 trips out and the joints are still holding fine with just the Sika 291i and no rivets.

No movement between the joint and the AKA bar and no visible signs of deterioration of the sealant.

Mike.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 2:17 am 
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Joined: Fri May 08, 2009 5:06 am
Posts: 1701
Location: Lake Macquarie NSW AUSTRALIA
Hi Mike. I just got a new set of Akas as a warranty deal with Hobie due to corrosion. As soon as I got the new ones I questioned the rivets. They were stainless ??? I thought the new design was to have aluminium rivets with Sikaflex in the joint. Well apparently not. I don't know if there is any Sikaflex, or similar, in the joint but I have been assured that the latest design is back to stainless steel rivets.

I would say ( only guessing ) that in the manufacturing process in making the Akas, the original design was to paint, assemble, drill, rivet. The new process is probably to drill, paint, assemble, rivet. So that paint becomes the barrier between the stainless rivet and the aluminium knuckle and tube.

I suppose I could drill out a rivet, just to ease my mind. Or, better still, I could put it out there on the forum and wait for somebody else to do it :lol:

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PostPosted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 5:30 am 
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Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3057
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
With all the corrosion problems I have had on my older TI's ( mostly SS rivets in aluminum). When I bought my new TI in 2012 before doing anything I sprayed Krylon clear coat on all the metal parts, and soaked all the rivets with clear coat. Now it's over a year later, and everything still looks very nice with no visible corrosion and the clear coat kind of helps keep the aka's and metal parts from scratching. After putting my registration stickers on the hull, I clear coated over them, they seem much more durable now, and don't peel off over time.
Just thought I would share my observations.
Bob


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 4:19 am 
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Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
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Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
Fast forward to present (3 plus years later). Clear coating all the metal parts and soaking all the rivits with clear coat when the boat was new turned out to really work well. I also wrapped my AKA bars with black high quality electrical tape ( in a looping fashion like you would bike handlebars). I only go in saltwater, and average around ten to fifteen miles a week (pretty much year round). I put the boat on the trailer, when I get home I rinse the entire boat off with the hose in the drive then pull the trailer in the garage with the ceiling fan on for a day or so (takes all of 3-5 minutes). I'm happy to report I have no visible galvanic corrosion that I can detect anywhere on the boat after 3 yrs of abuse (both my previous TI's had rings around all the rivits, and the AKA bars looked like they went thru WWII with all the dings and scratches after a few months with a great deal of the black coating gone. On this boat everything still looks like new. Same applies with my adhesive boat numbers, and the boat name on the side (The Ultimate Tandem Island). Before putting the vinyl decals on I cleaned the area well with heptane (Bestest rubber cement solvent/ thinner) sprayed a thin coat of Krylon 'for plastics) clear coat on the area (the active ingrediant in Krylon for plastics is heptane), then stuck all the decals on. I then soaked over the letters with Krylon clear coat, making sure all the edges around the letters had a bridge of clear coat around them. 3 yrs later all the decals still look like new except the L in Florida on one side, which is now gone. On all my previous TI's the numbers had to be replaced every year. I have to admit I'm pretty impressed and thought I would share.
I have the newer redesigned 'glued' AKA knuckles on this boat, and have'nt had a lick of problems with the knuckles (knock on wood)
FE


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 6:58 am 
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Joined: Sat May 09, 2015 8:53 am
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Location: Paoli Pennsylvania - East Coast USA
fusioneng wrote:
Fast forward to present (3 plus years later). Clear coating all the metal parts and soaking all the rivits with clear coat when the boat was new turned out to really work well. I also wrapped my AKA bars with black high quality electrical tape ( in a looping fashion like you would bike handlebars).
I have covered my aka bars with windsurfer boom grip and was keeping quiet about it - in the belief that I was on the lunatic fringe doing something like that.

Now they are not scratching/scraping each other as they bounce around in the back of my pickup truck and they are more hand-friendly...... Not pretty.... but friendly.

Was it worth the effort ?.... Dunno, but I had the stuff laying around - left over from an aborted windsurfing career - and had time on my hands.

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Last edited by PeteCress on Fri Oct 02, 2015 12:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 8:01 am 
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Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
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Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
Yea that electrical tape thing is really cool, I bang my AKA bars around all the time, and they still look like brand new (3 yrs later), where on my older two TI's the AKA bars looked like they went thru WW2 after about a year with dings and scratches all over and much of the paint removed, When I first put the tape on I figured I would be re-taping every three months, well, the original tape is still on there and going strong (who knew lol). Obviously I use my boat a lot. Salt water and intense sunlight and heat is really hard on everything.
FE


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 12:49 pm 
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Location: Paoli Pennsylvania - East Coast USA
fusioneng wrote:
...Salt water and intense sunlight and heat is really hard on everything.
Among windsurfers, the common wisdom seems to be that the life of a sail can be expressed as a number of hours exposure to sunlight/UV at a given latitude.

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2015 AI in "Dune" - "The Grey Pig"
2017 Trailex 450 Trailer
Pre-September 2015 cradles
(anybody want to buy a slightly-used AI SpinKit?)
eMail: [email protected]


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 11:04 pm 
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Joined: Sat Nov 21, 2009 8:45 pm
Posts: 343
Location: Melbourne, Australia
It's now been over 2 years and I'm still running of 4 x AKAS that have Sikaflex holding them together with no rivets.

No signs of degradation of the sealant/adhesive, no movement, nothing and no corrosion... :-)

Mike.


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 4:44 am 
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Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
Mingle:
Yea but the big question is.... Do the AKA bars still whistle, some guys said ( Might have been you), that when they glued the AKA bars and left the rivets out the AKA bars whistled (air rushing in and out of the holes), I thought that was kinda cool at the time.
Yea I probably scolded Hobie a little too hard on the improper application of rivets, I'm sure they are tired of my crap, but hey they started gluing the AKA bars shortly afterwards, and I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a single rivet failure since 2012 model year, previous to that I suspect all AKA bars failed within a year or two of use. Thanks for paying attention Hobie.

Same applies with the scupper cart holes, I was really PO'ed when I destroyed my first (2010) TI hull just pulling the boat out of the water on the scupper cart (8ft on flat sand) and the hull ripped. Hobie did replace the hull (actually they had a new boat on the truck that same afternoon (my dealer was right there with me when it happened and called them (lol)), pretty cool. When the new hull came in a few days later, to insure it didn't happen to me again, I shoved and glued (with silicone again) some PVC 1" Id pipe into the scupper holes. Never ripped another hull after that, then a few months later all the boats started shipping with the black re-enforced scupper hole sleeves. Hobie in my opinion is one of the most progessive companies out there. My current 2012 TI just keeps going and going without any issues and I use the heck out of it, probably way harder and faster than anything else out there (because of my minor mods). The darn boats are like the energizer bunny, they keep going and going, I pretty much ran out of things to complain about..... I have to admit I'm pretty darn impressed with Hobie, and don't ever plan to own anything else, the boat pushes all my buttons (just saying) . And it keeps getting better (I would give my eye teeth for a new one, but there is nothin wrong with the old one (darn).
FE


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PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2015 8:43 am 
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Joined: Fri Jun 05, 2009 7:44 am
Posts: 132
Location: Philadelphia, PA
I've asked this question elsewhere on the forum, but maybe this thread is the place to put it again.

I have a new AI 2 (owned a TI before, and an AI 1 before that). The rivets haven's started walking yet after one season of occasional mostly fresh water sailing. But, in the sort of chop I've been in on Lake Ontario and Barnegat bay, the xbar/knuckle insertion joint is so loose that the windward ama is thrown up and down 4-6 inches on the majority of waves going to windward or beam reaching. I can see the wear already on the knuckle insertions. It's really slamming against both sides of the play in the joint.

What are you all doing about this? I can see the looseness as a "design feature" in longer gentler waves, because the amas can float slightly independently of the main hull--so the whole boat is not forced to rotate. If there was some kind of shock absorbing feature in the knuckle-xbar connection, well OK. But it is clearly putting sharp, heavy shock loads on the knuckle, and abrading the insert very quickly. This was part of the reason I sold my TI. I just felt the scaling up in size (needed strength goes up by the third power) had left this joint behind.

Now I'm seeing the same thing on the AI 2. The insertion and removal process from the xbar is much easier. But the to me scary looseness remains. I know this is a compromise to preserve quick assembly and disassembly. But...

Is there another thread about this? Have any of you done anything about this, had any problems, etc?

Also my AI 2 aka/knuckle joints are not glued that I can see. That is, I see small movement in them. Thanks


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 12:33 am 
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Joined: Mon May 18, 2015 2:49 am
Posts: 63
Location: Galway, Ireland (formerly CH)
Just a side note on AKA joints being glued by Hobie...
In contact with my dealer at the moment and found out that they are supposed to be glued (as said here before apparently since 2012), however my 2015 AI is not glued and AKA joints are getting quite loose already! Just wondering if other 2015 AI owners have glued AKA joints and hobie forgot to glue mine or if hobie just missunderstood my dealers request.

Cheers

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