pavedwave longboarding

camel · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:39 am Post subject:

I haven't had any reason to get a hold of them lately. I replaced that pin and said screw it. I think that I am just going to replace all my Bennett kp's. I didn't even know they had changed owners.

model.citizen · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:10 pm Post subject:

they haven't, Buddy's just made the shift from CEO of Tracker to them as "President". same owners.

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

Mr. Bennett and I had some really great emails before his disappearance last fall, and he was generous in giving $100 to one of the Livestrong Ultras, on top of donating wheels for the cause which I auctioned off. Then I think he changed email accounts or something.

More recently I sent a couple mails to Buddy Carr at Tailtap, the first at beginning of February, then another a couple weeks ago -- but still haven't heard anything back. To not get any reply was a bit disappointing to say the least, but I'm not going to stew on that just yet.

...

What's more interesting to me at the moment is a discovery I made by popping out a few kingpins, getting ready to take them to a local shop for some replacements (finally)

I've been baffled as many know here, how I've not yet broken a Bennett pin -- while others are starting to do so with some regularity. I can safely say without exaggeration I've put several thousands of miles on my Bennett 4.3 truks, the ones that I first bought back in 2006 when Gareth and Brian first started chatting about LDP and my testing out his stuff. I instantly dug the truks and continued to like the 4.3 -- and continued to ride these two I have into the ground.

My beat up kingpins from the old 4.3's are still holding up, and now I think I know WHY. Check the photo:

The pin on the left is the old 4.3 one and the black baseplate that matches it. The pin on the right comes from a newer 5.0 one with a silver baseplate. Ignore the middle one for now.

Note how the older pin's splines at the bottom are WIDE and the newer bolt's splines are NARROW and thus there are many more of them -- which collectively creates more of a horizontal "cut" into the shank of the bolt, right at the stress point. The baseplates are of course grooved to match. I would suspect the newer bolts are fundamentally weaker.

scooterdad · Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:58 am Post subject:

Very interesting... It also appears that there is a bit less threading on the old pin which might explain some of the longevity(less shredding) you've experienced with your bushings compared to what many others have found with the newer pin.

Alec · Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 4:31 am Post subject:

It also doesn't have any markings on it. So what grade is it?

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

Good point Landy. That's what I'm aiming for with the middle one, hoping that the local shop will have that same size bolt, but with far fewer threads.

As for the grade question on the old pin, not sure, maybe Buddy will respond to someone else? sk8info@tailtap.com Wink

LDPanda · Joined: 21 Nov 2008 Posts: 418 Location: Seattle, WA

On the shredding issue, just a quick note. When i switched from a very non-standard bushing setup (two cones in an hourglass with a sliver of a barrel glued on there) to a more conventional one (blue cone superglued to white barrel, no cutting) i eliminated all bushing wear. My bushings look brand new now. I cant really explain it, i used to chew thru bushings like crazy and now they look great, id say if youre having shredding problems it might be worthwhile to change bushing combos to something more standard and see what happens.

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

The four pins on the left are those that Dave and I had made from our trip to Tacoma Screw the other day. We're going to try mounting them up this weekend. Originally 3" in length, we had cool dude Rick grind the tips off, leaving just enough threading for the nut and lots of smooth shank which should help solve the bushing wear problem.

To hold the bolt head in place, we're going to test this loctite compound first, which Barry has done with some success, then try an epoxy, per Camel's recommendation. The best mod here of course would be a little baseplate machining, creating a hex-shaped catch underneath. I'll leave that one to Bennett...

model.citizen · Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 12:26 pm Post subject:

i'm sure you could slap a bead or two of alloy weld into the baseplate cavity using a MIG welder to hold the KP head (or nut, if you're inverting) in place.

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

For me at least, no inverted bolts, no nuts in the baseplate. IMO, that would undo all the logic of this strategy -- given the threaded portion of the bolt loses 18% of its strength compared to the smooth shank, and so far all these bolts are breaking down in that area just above the baseplate clearing.

Is alloy weld like "JB weld"? I'm open to all ideas. We're just going to try some of this loctite the first round, then maybe return the bottle that we don't open, if it doesn't seem to hold (Dave and I each bought a bottle -- stuff is NOT cheap!)