anybody tried techblanks?

General Discussion
1

Wondered what you thought of the quality? www.viralsurf.fr

2

Hi Mark!

To this day, I have shaped four of them: three 8’5"M (mini-malibu blank) and one 8’5"G (gun blank). I’m basically very, very satisfied: these blanks are not what you would call “close tolerance” but I like to have some thickness to work with. Providing you don’t plane too much into the deck, you will get a very strong finished board that will be hard to bump. I was not overly pleased by their stringers (plywood) in the beginning but they seem to be changing that for bass or similar now. So here is my opinion: one of the best blanks I know of, probably the strongest. Downside is it takes some work as compared to closer-to-shape blanks. If you call Viralsurf, ask for Julien or Cedric and tell them I sent you.

Here is the 8’5"M: (with home-glued red cedar stringer)

…and the 8’5"G:


480×640 30.5 KB

3

Thanks,

I am doing some research for Simon at www.snsboards.co.uk who shapes my boards. He is currently using xtra blanks/McDonald foam from South Africa and likes those because of the consistent density all the way through but there are some sizes missing in the range here in the UK so looking to get a batch of others from elswhere. Does the Techblank foam get softer/less dense as you get towards the centre like the Clark did or stay the same like Homeblown and Extra?

Mark

4

I’ve shaped about 20 of them in the last three months.

Good and bad things to say about.

Good points:

  • they are really dense and hard on the surface once you’ve scratched them.

  • they are really easy to give subtiles shapes and you can sculpt what you wish.

  • the foam is superwhite

Neither good nore bad points, it all depend:

  • they are far too thick on some templates, up to 3"1/2 once scratched… I let you imagine the time needed to go down to 2"1/2… and the volume of foam.

  • the feeling of the dust is really dry and far from being as smooth as it was with clark’s

Bad points:

  • there are a lot of bubbles inside the foam, the skin of the bubbles is shiny and may not accept resin so well. Some bubbles are only 1 or 2mm wied but you can see them go very deep… if you want a light tint, then, you’ll see dots everywhere.

  • the foam inside is far from beeing as resistant as the surface one. That means, if you remember you have to scratch close to one inch under the board that you bottoms may be highly dentable…