Ovington Laser

I’m not disagreeing with anyone that the alloy spars differ and that is likely to be tool wear, my point is that it is simple and relatively easy to control and buy a new die as it wears. 

Ok -well replacing extrusion dies will not come cheap. Has anyone got any idea of how consistent Al mast properties are apart from the mast manufacturer-no . I have compared two nominally the same Al masts and found them dramatically different. Now I don’t know much about Al , but I do know about composites and if you have good material and a good process you can get a very close control on the laminate properties.

Who controls the quality of the extrusion? Who has any idea whether the mast mast is mid spec top bottom spec or out of spec? Has any customer ever seen this data-sorry if I was off hand on my last post -multi tasking after too much wine!

Would have thought any manufactured product would have to apply to a certain standard.

Originally posted by tink Extrusion dies are about 3K and will do a lot of masts before they wear out. The  on cost to the sailor for good quality control will be minimal.

You obviously know more about this than I do, but if, say, you halve the acceptable range of wall thickness for the spars then won't you also approximately halve the life of the die before it produces sections that are out of spec?