http://www.thegreenergrass.org/labels/Surf.html has some concept artwork for this, dates back to 2008…
Just a quick note, my godson and I just put in our order for a 3d object for his “spiderman costume”, the “web shooters” are 3d printed/manufactured—they look good,
a little porus–bondo to fill rough outs–
Hold on to your hats boys—it’s comin’ fast.
I do think the idea of fin cores will be first on the horizon as mentioned.
Shapeways was the corp.
Aloha, Randy
I wonder how many surfboards you would have to make to pay back the cost of that machine. You would have to make each in two parts though since the printing size of this huge machine is ‘only’ 1 meter in the longest direction.
In theory any surfboard size 3 axis CNC machine (which are still thought of as expensive (and uncool) equipment in the surfboard industry) could 3D print a surfboard today by adding a plastruder like this http://store.makerbot.com/stepstruder-mk7-complete.html Just design it with honeycomb chambers (or some other hollowed out structure with reinforcing ribs) in CAD. At 2.5 kg (matching conventional weight) it would cost about 125$ to print. I would be very impressed if it is even possible to match the strength/weight of conventional surfboards with the materials available. Then the next question arise, how does it surf? IMHO surfboards are one of the least likely products to be mass produced by 3D printing.
It might be a game changer in other industries and home printing. A lot of lawyers are clearly thinking so as there seems to be some panic with regards to implementing DRM in 3D files to gain control over what could be printed at home. However I had a good look around at home and at the office to see what I could have used a home 3D printer for. Besides the kids toys, I could hardly find anything made out of plastic that did not have some sort of electronics in them. Unless 3D printers start to print fully functional digital circuits, wood and leather I don’t have much use for one.
To me this technology makes sense where you need rapid prototyping of complex objects in multiple parts which is hard or expensive to make otherwise requiring extensive machining (if the material can be machined) of expensive materials and/or moldmaking/molding. Surfboards are neither complex nor made of expensive materials, PU foam is about 1-2$ per liter in a raw blank. Machinable plastic materials may cost hundreds of dollars for the same volume, metal thousands. With traditional CNC prototyping much of the starting stock material is wasted. Yes, it may be recycled but there is still a significant cost to it. In those cases 3D printing does make sense. For mass production, molding will always be faster and cheaper. Even with the rapid development of 3D printing, it will not be able to beat the 10 seconds it takes to mold a lego block. We might see 3D printing used in limited series/high end/luxury/designer products though in the next 10-20 years.
“I’m surprised everyone is thinking solely of foam and fiberglass boards for this application”
actually, those will be two of the materials that will not utilized, non-applicable for crossover application…think polymerized structures with dialed in flex densities…once done with it, recycle and reuse…endless possibilities, utilizing materials that will be developed in the years ahead…
current printing speed, size limitations and costs are just normal restrictions during initial beta stages of development…my first large data center project, one of the first of it’s kind, was a cutting edge ground up showpiece supporting 1000 racked mini-mainframes that cost $250,000 each…my last, and one of the first of it’s kind, a retro fitted warehouse stacked with 4,000 blade servers that cost $1,500 each, purposed to be thrown away when they failed. First project cost hundreds of millions all in and hella expensive to operate. The second completed for under 40M, much more scalable and much cheaper to operate. Point being, as technology improves, smart people think outside the box on how to apply it, and the solutions to problems change.
Can only imagine what some of the construction threads on Sway’s will look like as decade or so from now.
I can think of polypropylene-reinforced-polypropylene to be printed someday.
http://www.hellotrade.com/comfil/self-reinforced-plastics.html
It would be quite interesting to build a 100% polypropylene high-performance surfboard.
core: polypropylene foam
fibres: high tensile strength polypropylene fibres
matrix: polypropylene
This could be 100% recyclable too (just grind it and recycle).
That would create a glitch in the matrix
or, at the very least, tear a hole in the time-space continuum
I think something a lot of people are also forgetting is that any CNC machine can be retro-fittied with a spool and feeder to become a 3-d printer, they just don’t typically have the same resolution as these small-scale printers.
Having a 3-d printer big enough to print a surfboard now is very possible - you just need a CNC with a high enough resolution to make it worthwile, or you need to do more finish work to make it look good.
Also, I have seen companies playing around with printing EPS (can’t remember the name but it was in an article on engadget a couple years ago)… considering EPS is an extruded foam, it can easily be died into a fillament to be printed. Not sure how they accomplish the melting and bonding hough - I assume its with lasers and I’m sure the beads don’t come out as uniform
I’ve heard one of the materials these types of processes can use is cellulose.
I see something like skins that can be bonded to the bottom of your board. The skins would have a micro design that would allow water to flow faster over the bottom. Rails and fins might have a microstructure that would grip water. Combinations of both would add speed and control, with suction and release Shapers could design their own secret combinations to match the Board. A board for Pipeline would requier one type of bottom and another typ for Sunset.
You may even have a different skins for different conditions for one board. The skins would be easy to bond and then remove. Buy one board with a whole set of diffrent skins. Fast hollow waves skin, a Skin for thick heavy slabs and for average days
I would say we are well beyond the beta stages since there are a multitude of commercial products out there and some of the 3D printing technology is 20-25 years old. Alot of the techology is based on the same technology as is used in printers and CNC which is even more mature. The 3D printing speed and size limitation are limited not only by cost, but the shear physical problems such as getting high accuracy with large structures, vibrations and depositing large volume of material in microscopic amounts at a time with high accuracy at high speed. When you deposite material with 0.01mm thickness you simply cannot have 0.01mm deflection or vibration. When accuracy doubles, the speed goes down eight times since this is three dimensional (one ‘drop’ is replaced by 8 ‘drops’ in a cube pattern to fill the same volume). Have a look at these:
Look at the speed they are moving at and what they are able to produce. The surfaces is pretty crude and they deposit relatively thick layers for speed over accuracy.Yet the speed would have to improve in the order of 1000x to be able to compete with molding or produce a surfboard in a matter of hours. There would have to be a quantum leap with a total revolution in this type of technology for this to happen.
I remember (this is when I start to sound like an old fart…) when I studied there was alot of talk about the convergence of technology that would happen over the next couple of years, the computer and the cell phone would converge into a computer you had in your pocket, set-top boxes and TVs would converge into TVs you could use for surfing on the internet and play games on, etc. Now it’s mainstream, but it took a good 15-20 years longer than what was predicted. Sometimes technology isn’t progressing as fast as we think it will.
Still, I’ll get a 3D printer but that’s because I’m a geek 
I prototyped our vented leash plugs with an older SLA machine (stereolithography). Friend of mine from my enginnering days owed me a favor and created the prototype for free from my 3D computer model.
3D printers are a great way to get dimensions and aesthetics correct but function is limited due to the materials available in rapid prototyping.
Fin systems and leash plugs are the only 2 things I can think of that can be rapid prototyped for surfboards…
~Brian
How about a soft plastic nose guard instead of the silicone ones ?
or a version of deck grip… Potentially a soft abradable plastic where the lack of a perfect finish becomes a traction asset ? Custom colours, custom shapes, corporate logos, artwork, quick prototype for testing… with the added benefit of environmental recycling.
Start a Gorilla Grip company from the kitchen !
Surfers Squirrel Grip LLC
“3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD) announced today that in preparation
for the launch of its first ever plug-and-play at home 3D Printer
Cube™, it is taking Cube™ 3D printers out on the road. The Cube Odyssey will hit over 25 of the hottest and most creative
cities in the country with visits to venues like Stanford’s Cool Product
Expo, Scholastic-affiliated schools, children’s museums, and even
national parks and landmarks like Yellowstone. With 24 hour printing on
the go and live web streams, the Odyssey drivers will be blogging daily
and posting on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr.** Expect to see Cube™
printers at the beach printing surfboards **and sitting atop Mt. Rushmore
printing America’s famous faces”
maybe a decade from now is more like a few years from now…used to be there were a small, select group of engineers working methodically in high security skunk labs for Bell, GE, IBM, their masters periodically marketing some new improvement or technological change…now there are thousands of companies competing in the same spaces, rushing forward at a breakneck pace, best and brightest minds of a generation working feverishly for those all-mighty stock options…and technological gains are now measured in quantum leaps…
From the cubify (makers of cube 3d printers) faq:
"How long does it take to print a creation?
The print time is proportional to the size and complexity of the creation. An average smartphone case will take about 2-3 hours to print."
sigh
An interesting addition to this conversation on 3D printing:
“Through a revolutionary approach to design and cutting-edge 3D printing
technology, MADE has developed a new way to design, create, and
manufacture high-performance windsurfing, kitesurfing, surf and paddle
SmartBoards™.”
If petroleum is used for building stuff instead of moving stuff, what happens to the price? I don’t believe that the idea of oil as a limited resource has been embraced by most now, but it probably will be if oil is primarily used for building. So given capital costs plus rising material costs, petroleum boards might be priced out of reach. Anybody look at what’s happening to sailboat prices? Especially with engineering, labor and material costs? Maybe renewable materials will be the future for boards, as long as labor costs are not part of the equation? Like made in our shops/garages? And then how do we get the materials to our digs? What happens to energy costs? I have no doubt that progress makes it’s way, but look how much we all spend on technology that we never spent before. It’s an added cost to everything. Just some thoughts…
3-D printers won’t make much difference to surfing…electronic shirts and chrome shoes may boost the sales figures for the global apparel companies though …and we really need that.
The main use of technology these days seems geared more and more to make human beings redundant…I wanna know who’s gonna buy all this garbage when there’s no one left …(lol)
I do not agree, this has been said for over a century and still isn’t reality.
As a human being, you have the capability to adapt to a quickly changing environment, a machine doesn’t (at least not in the near future).
I believe that a creative human being will never become redundant.
Yeah , well I suppose those people that go to work one day and are told that they no longer have a job , don’t have much choice but to adapt very quickly…