I just received my 2015 Jones Carbon Solution that I bought off Russman lightly used. He was telling me all the boards are made in Switzerland now. This board is light. Doing a hand weighing test with my old 161 solution the regular solution feels like a tank. And you can tell they softened the flex just a bit from the 2014 Carbon and added a touch more camber. Most Solutions/Flagships didn’t have very pronounced camber and depending on the quality some didn’t have any. I’ve seen multiple differences in camber across the same line of boards from their Tunisian products. But this one you can tell is well built and the camber is very noticeable. Supposedly it’s 500 grams lighter than the 2014 Carbon. Russell says it weighs 6lbs 4oz making it one of the lighter boards around. I can’t wait to try it out with my new Karakoram Carbon Primes coming this fall!!! The karakoram tip and tail clips suck (a minor gripe). The tip clip on this board is tight but that’s because there’s too much plastic and you have to basically push it together until the plastic wears off as cometogether was explaining. Better than being loose for sure but I’ve never seen any karakoram tip clips that have a tight snappy feel as the voiles do. Fix that shit! I would be concerned about snapping this board if I weighed 200+ lbs but at 140 lbs I’m certainly not worried about it 😀

That’s too bad, and kind of surprising. I would have thought that Jones would have these sorts of QC problems under control by now. It’s a really poor reflection on whoever builds those boards to (1) have those problems in production in the first place, and worse, (2) not catch it going out the door.

I’ve already had 3 core shots on my 161 carbon Solution in half a season (approx. 35 days). For comparison, I rode my Storm for almost three seasons (about 80 days a season) without a single core shot. I don’t expect the Solution to last more than 2 seasons. Otherwise, the build quality is quite good.

I reckon base denting is just the price for lightweight boards. If you have a paulownia or balsa core with the new ultrathin carbon laminates (see Textreme), the board is still strong in flex (stretching the carbon fiber) but it loses alot of the resistance to the base being pushed in. Ventures are so solid because they use a lot of hardwoods like ash, maybe maple. this is essentially flooring material and really resistant to impact. Also a board with 19-22 ounce mat of fiberglass smuashed flat with a larger amount of resin offers a lot more resitance to impacts. Poplar and aspen are sort of a middle ground. Fiberglass, while heavy, takes impacts better than the same weight of carbon fabric.

The only solution that comes to mind would be laminating a thick veneer, like 2-3mm of maple, hickory or ash under a paulownia or balsa core, but you guessed it too labor expensive for production boards and probably ending up weighing about like a poplar board when done custom. Let’s see how long it takes before it is the revolutionary technique (from surfboard industry) . . .

FWIW I dont worry too much about a rock tearing into the composite or not, you still need to fix the ptex anyway to keep it fast. That said I have cracked a Kemper and Burton core lengthwise on jagged quartzite back in the day, that’s no good

Scooby2 wrote:

I reckon base denting is just the price for lightweight boards. If you have a paulownia or balsa core with the new ultrathin carbon laminates (see Textreme), the board is still strong in flex (stretching the carbon fiber) but it loses alot of the resistance to the base being pushed in. Ventures are so solid because they use a lot of hardwoods like ash, maybe maple. this is essentially flooring material and really resistant to impact. Also a board with 19-22 ounce mat of fiberglass smuashed flat with a larger amount of resin offers a lot more resitance to impacts. Poplar and aspen are sort of a middle ground. Fiberglass, while heavy, takes impacts better than the same weight of carbon fabric.

The only solution that comes to mind would be laminating a thick veneer, like 2-3mm of maple, hickory or ash under a paulownia or balsa core, but you guessed it too labor expensive for production boards and probably ending up weighing about like a poplar board when done custom. Let’s see how long it takes before it is the revolutionary technique (from surfboard industry) . . .

FWIW I dont worry too much about a rock tearing into the composite or not, you still need to fix the ptex anyway to keep it fast. That said I have cracked a Kemper and Burton core lengthwise on jagged quartzite back in the day, that’s no good

Thanks for running through that Scooby. It will be interesting to watch how lightweight boards from different manufacturers hold up longer term.

I just got a new 14/15 Solution for myself and one for Rebecca now that they have gone on sale. Both look really good and we have not found any defects yet.

I also brought in a new G3 Blacksheep X3 to look at. One interesting difference between the boards is that the Solution rails have only about 75% as much width as the G3 rails.

I am also a fan of the thinner rails on a splitboard for weight savings. They are not that thin (unless it is ground off like my first Jones this season). The G3s are quite thick. I looked at some of my other boards (solid and split) and half have the Jones rail width and half have the G3 rail width.

+1 quality issue here.

Bought a new Jones Explorer from a local shop, then I realized the center cut is not straight at all. I don’t want to cut my skins using these curvy edges, so i will bring it back to the shop this week.

Some pictures:
https://goo.gl/photos/4NscBwmpqLYwkhPGA

Disappointing to say the least…

I may be mistaken on my previous comment. I thought that jones did an inner and outer magnetractionbut I didn’t see it on their website. The shop should know or an email to jones. I hope it’s on purpose otherwise that’s bad on them.

From the jones website under the solution splitboard description. “Inner and outer edge mellow Magne-Traction locks in your edges while skinning or shredding”……. I think you are good

I picked up a Hovercraft Split at the end of last season, just mounted it up and took it for a test ride at the resort yesterday (really liking the new Spark Arc setup!). When I got home and took everything apart, I noticed the inside edge sidewall is absorbing moisture, doesn’t seem to be sealed in any way. That can’t be good for the core.