sorry put this one in the board talk section by mistake....


Anyone know where I can get a sup boardbag that doesn't come with a zipper that'll rust away within the year?

Bit annoyed about the top quality Balin cover that ive had for 12 months which now has only one working zipper.... my stuff gets a nice salt coating even in storage due to where i live.... 30 knot seabreezes straight off the ocean in into my shed all summer.

They make fine plastic zippers, work great on my ute canopy etc. I dont see why no one seems to use them on boardbags

I have sold off most of my Balin, Flying Objects and OceanEarth bags when Ive sold boards... and have mostly gone with Blackhawk bags.... cheap and do the job nicely. Have one large plastic zipper that goes right around most of the bag, so you can open it up completely to wash out and dry out. The oldest one is still only 18 months old...but has had plenty of use and abuse. I guess you have to really keep using them and wash them in fresh from time to time to make them last. However, the more expensive ones seem to have all the fancy features like vents and soft padding and such... however, they are not easy to wash and dry. So.... for mine.. you are better to pay for a cheaper bag anyway.. if they are going to wear out equally as quick.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/BLACKHAWK-SUP-PADDLE-BOARD-DAY-RUNNER-CARRY-BAG-COVER-SIZE-10-106-11-116-/111254488894?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&var=&hash=item19e748c73e

I know what you mean. Why use crappy metal zippers on board bags that corrode!? Brass zippers are good as they work on wetsuits but they are too expensive to use in board bags. I am getting two custom board bags made by Stash-IT in NZ and they use good quality plastic zips: www.stash-it.co.nz/

I always wondered why board bags don't use Velcro as no moving parts and won't corrode?

and that inox stuff looks the go...

cheers danny lee.

I've been mucking around with oil/hotwater/CRC/vinegar/silicon lubricant you name it in to get the zippers on various board bags working... might as well add the inox stuf to the list :) at least it appears it'll work on my fishing reels :)

beefarmer said..
and that inox stuff looks the go...

cheers danny lee.

I've been mucking around with oil/hotwater/CRC/vinegar/silicon lubricant you name it in to get the zippers on various board bags working... might as well add the inox stuf to the list :) at least it appears it'll work on my fishing reels :)

Sure will, doesn't affect your expensive braid either Spray it on, spin it round a few times and simply wipe off the excess. Do it every few trips and never had corrosion problems on my expensive reels.

Yeah too true sands, problem is I don't get the sup out much over summer, bloody windy up here for 6 months so that's the kiting season, the sup tends to sit there two or three months without getting used

but thats the situation i'm in, and I need a solution.... i found a nice boardbag in the end with a plastic zipper, theres a few out there if you look around. Windsurfing companies seem to be a bit more switched on in this regard and the bigger windsurf bags will fit smaller SUPs

My Balin was a really old windsurf one so could be I was giving them a bad wrap. It had two zips and they both flogged out in about a year. Sorry Balin!

Not sure who makes them with plastic zips but I had four zips corrode on my O&E bag and decided to test out some stainless steel sliders. They were recycled from an old backpack I hadn't used in years and I haven't had issues since - cut the old one out and sewed a stop near the end of the zip after fitting the new slider. My Dakine snowboard bag is stored alongside my SUP bag in the same slightly salt prone garage without a hint of corrosion in over 5 years. You could also source new sliders from a sail rigging/canopy place and request something with better corrosion resistance - might be a bit $$$ but still much cheaper than a new bag.

Hey Marco, I have always wondered why they don't put handles on both sides of the bag. Let's say you want to put the board on the roof, the natural thing to want to do is grab the handle and lift it up. But I "always" seem to be on the wrong side, so I have to lean across to grab the handle on the far side. If they were on both sides then it would always be easy. (Or is it just me?)

And I have always wondered why they don't have small breather holes at the nose-end of the bag: a) so that there is some ventilation, and b) so that if you roll the bag up from the fin end the air can get out quickly. Sure, I could roll it up from the other end, but I find myself often trying to roll it up from the fin end. Again, maybe it is just me, and maybe your bags already have holes at the nose.

And while I am sharing dumb ideas, why don't you make an inflatable board cover? Imagine if you had a series of 3 cm dia. tubes running the length of the inside of the bag on both sides of the board. If you knew the board might take a beating then you could inflate the tubes to give the board lots of protection. Under normal conditions the tubes would be deflated.

The inflated tubes might also provide heat insulation - so it survives longer in the sun (especially if you had two optional tubes with a wide diameter that would create a bigger gap between the board and the cover for ventilation). If you could give our precious SUPs better protection (than the common bag) you would surely sell more bags.

And what about attachment points for a shoulder strap that were in a better position so that you could walk more than 20' before the strap had either decapitated your head or it had slipped off your shoulder. I am yet to find a bag where you are comfortable carrying a board any distance.

Now that's a bag I would buy ;)

+1 for the flying objects covers, there was four of them on my roof for a recent road trip (14'x30, 12'6x30, 9'6x30 and 8'6x30 plus a F.O. kite harness and couple of wetsuits in the car)

I just wish they had a 7'10x28 for my latest board, might have to make do with the 8'0x30.

Hi All,

Firstly Beefarmer, thank you very much for making the decision to buy one of our bags even before my pimp

We are based in Osborne Park and have been in the Wind / Kitesurf industry for 30 years, our bags are a large part of our business and a product range that we have gained a very good reputation for. Our products are now in about 40 odd countries and all the product development and testing is done in WA.

In response to a few of the questions above:

Many of the features and materials used are generally done so based on price and how we view our product should sit in the market compared with other brands. It would be awesome if I could just make a bag with no thought to retail cost but that simply would not work.

We design our bags firstly with the materials that offer the best protection / durability and the we fit them out with as many features we can to reach the target price. So including more handles, holes / breathers, longer zips etc.... simply bump up the cost. As Balin pointed out the YKK zip is very expensive and we just use enough to make sure the bag opens up past the mid point of the board.

We already use white reflective tarpee in our other ranges and I have considered doing this in the SUP range. However materials like the reflective silver do not last as long as using the 600D. In the past we used the Silver version and it was quite often a source of issues / complaints with durability. Creating another line makes stocking more costly for my distributors but I will probably end up offering another cheaper line with the white tarpee.

cantSUPenough,

Thanks you for your suggestions, always keen to hear ideas from the end user.

more holes in bags, mmmmmm!!! This does go a little against the point of a bag, they do not only protect the board but quite often are used to protect the car. We already have fin slots and a breather that release air so putting more holes in the nose is not necessarily beneficial, in fact with most boards sitting on a car roof nose down this could lead to salt water dripping on the car. I have also never heard of somebody rolling up a bag, but as you point out maybe just a case of going nose to tail.

More handles = more cost, flipping the board over is probably an easier process

Our shoulder straps are adjustable in length and these should be used in conjunction with the center handle. Currently we do not supply these but they are an optional extra. Developing another system for a part that is not used by the majority is an extra cost with the least benefit.

Inflatable bags have already been used for surf boards, great idea and it is reasonable easy to incorporate a kite bladder into the bag for this purpose. I did looked at this as a new project a while ago but once again cost is a major factor in development. I just question how many would actually be sold at the price required to make viable.

Tightlines,

I am actually working on some Vanguard style bags, if you bring your board in I can measure it up and make a sample with my others. Who knows it may even find a home once its been checked for production

I'm away till the 16th of March but drop into Airborne anytime after that


Cheers,
Marco

Mazdon - if you can't find stainess zips you could try your local tailor/alterations place for generic sliders (if the rest of the zipper is in good condition). I'm not a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination and even I managed to cut, fit and re-stich the bag in a few mins. Less time if it needs to be done again in a year or two. Total zip length is about 5cm shorter than is was before but my O&E bag has a zip the whole length of the board anyway, so doesn't really matter.

Dvlakic said...
Mazdon - if you can't find stainess zips you could try your local tailor/alterations place for generic sliders (if the rest of the zipper is in good condition). I'm not a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination and even I managed to cut, fit and re-stich the bag in a few mins. Less time if it needs to be done again in a year or two. Total zip length is about 5cm shorter than is was before but my O&E bag has a zip the whole length of the board anyway, so doesn't really matter.

Thanks.
Will do some recon this weekend. My mums handy with an over locker, so worst case I'll hire in the help (may take some bribing and time off water though)