Care Of Carbon Fiber Spars - Nacra N460 Owner's Manual

6. Care of Carbon fiber mast
Each carbon-fibre mast delivered by Nacra has been manu-
factured using heat and pressure autoclave curing, the best
process available.
Since carbon fibre composite is different than aluminium to
drill, file, or otherwise process, always contact your Nacra
dealer for advice before making any modifications to the
mast.
Handling & Storage
Carbon fibre has properties differing from aluminium.
Though carbon composite is stronger than aluminium, it is
less resistant to impact loads. Where aluminium will dent on
severe impact, carbon composite could shatter or suffer
serious delaminating. Clearly, subjecting your carbon spars
to severe impact is to be avoided.
When transporting your mast it is important to pack it well
using covers which are available at your Nacra dealer.
Ensure that rigging is removed to prevent the stays from
wearing or banging against the mast. It is recommended to
fully inspect your mast when re-rigging your mast.
Care
In order to get the maximum life from your carbon fibre
composite tubing we recommend the following care and
precautions:

Do not allow the mast to become excessively hot.
High performance epoxy resins, together with oven post
curing, are used in the tubes, however at temperatures
o
above approximately 75 C the epoxy can soften which
dramatically reduces strength or otherwise can cause
the tube to bow or warp. Note that black objects are
the best absorbers of IR radiation (heat) and we have
recorded a surface temperature of 65
lying flat on the ground in the sun.
 Epoxy resins are UV light degraded. Although our ep-
oxy resins have UV light protection, excessive UV light
has the effect of turning the exposed epoxy resin into a
chalky layer. Therefore it is recommended to keep your
mast as much as possible out of the UV light . It is best
to cover it when not rigged. Therefore it is also recom-
mended to wax your mast with any UV protection wax
e.g. Teflon wax etc.
o
C from a tube
EN
13