Laura Brooke-
Your advice is very good. I have experience in carbon fiber bicycle repair and construction. If there are no manufacturing defects, any damage should be visible. However, it can be a little difficult to determine the extent of the damage visually. One common method to determine structural integrity is to tap the structure with a wooden dowel/peg. Uncompromised composite structures will ring; cracked/delaminated/compromised structures will sound flat or even have a slight buzz. You can compare the questionable structure tone to a known uncompromised structure(s) to compare tones. This is not perfect, but with some practice on different samples, a tech can get quite good at analysis. The gold standard for carbon analysis are radiographs and sonograms, but those are not practical in most bicycle repair applications.
Kevin Dwyer
On May 7, 2023, at 5:24 PM, Laura Brooke via TheThinkTank thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org wrote:
We had someone come by our shop this weekend. They had just bought a Specialized Allez from the early 2000s with a used carbon fork. They wanted to know if it the carbon fork was safe. None of us at the shop at the time have a ton of knowledge for what to look for... we suggested:
- Email the fork manufacturer to ask if there were any recalls
- Look for signs to see if the bike may have been in a crash and any clear signs that the fork may be damaged
- Take the fork out to inspect the steerer tube and look at the races
Any other advice, yall? Thanks for your assistance!
-Laura (volunteer at Freeride Montpelier) _______________________________________________ TheThinkTank mailing list -- thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org To unsubscribe send an email to thethinktank-leave@lists.bikecollectives.org To view this discussion on the web visit https://lists.bikecollectives.org/hyperkitty/list/thethinktank@lists.bikecol...