I’ve done a lot of reading in the archives where some of you guys got your hands on basalt cloth samples, but I couldn’t dig up much in the way of results (pretty sure I read every search result for ‘basalt’).
I was curious if anybody had much in the way of success? I’m assuming not since it doesn’t seem like there has been much said about it (except re: Lib Tech), and/or has found a source to buy smaller quantities of the stuff (maybe 10 yards?!
I’m mostly curious as I’d like to try some out for one of my upcoming projects, and from what i’ve read it seems to be very similar to glass to work with (and I like to be different/make life more difficult for myself using unique materials).
Sorry to sig out such an old thread, but I’m about to order stuff for some builds, one of which will be stringer less. I tried sourcing something a bit greener than carbon and came across basalt fibre. I could track down regular cloth, but no tapes.
So a question to those, who worked with it: does it cut like glass? or would a cutlap with basalt cloth be a disaster waiting to happen?
This is one of my personal boards I made a few years ago with 7oz basalt cloth. Cloth cuts easy, takes a little longer to wet out but easy to work with. Cutlap is just like regular cloth, when the cloth doubles up on the rail it gets a really cool striped dark brown that sparkles in the sunlight. Very strong, more flexible than carbon fiber and very dent resistant. I had it out today for 3 hours and it still looks like new . Downside the cloth is expensive, now they have 4oz available. I used one layer of 7oz basalt on the bottom, one layer of 7oz basalt on top plus one layer of 4oz e cloth, the board is not heavy at all
Hope this helps
Tom
Sidiabed you are welcome.
Mike if you go to e bay and type in user name momentumcs , they sell the cloth, the 4oz is $14.55 a yard. Yes I did a hand lay up, if you go to my Instagram mahadysurfboards I have a video of me glassing the bottom of the board, you have to scroll down to the middle of my posts if you want to see it, it’s a time lapse video
You got a sweet ride as well! And boards also of course.
I recognized, that you also use that technique of flipping the laps over to saturate them. Do you always do it this way?
Ima try that as well on my next builds, maybe I won’t waste as much epoxy that way.
Sorry guys, I gotta ask another question. About to order basalt cloth and they have plain weave and twill. If I’m not mistaken, twill might be the go to for my parabolic rails? I’d use the rest of it for the tail patch in the fin area of a single fin.
Or would it be harder to work with and easier to just go with the plain weave? They’re more or less the same weight and price, so no difference there (150gr vs 160gr, 5.3oz vs 5.6oz).
I’ve down 10 or so boards with basalt. The plain weave that I used is a flat weave and tends to move around alot like carbon does. I have not seen the twill but it should have a little more stability to the weave. And basalt will disappear if you just look at it with sandpaper so be careful when you sand the hot coats.
R
Thanks rob, sanding will not be much of an issue, as I plan on putting down the basalt rails under the regular glass laminate. Also, I guess both are flat and not twisted. The ruler is metric.
My first board was basalt. I really like the look of it and it protects from UV.
I used a twill weave version from China at the time which tended to be a slightly heavier weave than 4oz. It stayed together easier than 4oz e-glass but any loose stands of course show up. I didn’t know how to cover the loose strands at the time. I think you have to do a cut lap? When I tried to cut that lap in just found it was either too wet, too sticky or too hard to cut? I had to dremel cut to recover the ensuing disaster.
That’s my experience with it. I’d like to use it again when I’m more experienced. I quite like it
I bought it at incotelogy.
They have a webshop called xperial i think. They also sell on eBay, compare both options for best price…
Is Twill what we call Köper? If so , I’d choose the plain weave, the Twill shifts even more.
