Guess the link to the gloss/polish board didn’t work. try this link:
http://entropysurfboards.blogspot.com/2009/11/surf-sap-high-gloss-polish.html
hey rey, found a forbes.com writeup about your boards after going over your site. what are your disposal protocols for your biofoam offcuts, and how long does it take to become reusable/compostable after disposal?
Grizzly likes Surf Sap Bio Resin, me think it taste good! No for real though, Rey and his bro have a great product on their hands that I really enjoyed working with. As a bonus, it is made from either 33% or 55% reclaimed materials depending on which formula you use. I know that we are excited to work with them and distribute their product in the near future.
in the begining,some 6 months ago or so,
the resin was described to me at the time(in the begining) : one, experimental …,and : two, a bio-resin.
i had no idea where or who it came from…it wasn’t til’ just a few weeks ago that i found out it was your resin.
actually the board did yellow…but just that…it’s yellow so it looks painted yellow,rather that a browning blank or resin…personally i could live with that…or just color/paint it.
i did the lam,as the resin was given to me by persons who remains to be nameless,for his or her protection.
the bond is top notch and the strength is super,super tough.
about a month ago, i dropped it down my stairs,going end over end,smashing into the wall and metal hand rail several times, ,without any sign of a ding/shatter or delam.note: this is a full flight of stairs.
it’s glassed in single 4oz “s” glass top and bottom w/ the exception of box reinforcement patches only.
it has no sign of wear at all,but keep in mind that the deck is covered w/ hydroturf that’s seated into the deck via a complete channel.
i like your product and i wish you much success with it.
i believe you’ve got a good thing there.
herb
ps. i have enough of the 1/2 gallon(?) or so to make a couple skateboard decks,so i have two in the press right now.
one is made of : discarded formica, top and bottom,w/ recycled brown paper @125lbs. burst wt.,scrape 1/4" high-density foam,and recycled uni-directional fiberglass 1/16" sheets used for sales signs…a kind of green skateboard deck …as you would have it.
if you would like to know the out come of the skater decks…let me know.
surfiber- Yeah, that Forbes piece was fun. We took a journalist into a poly shop and showed him exactly what was going on in the surf industry with regards to glassing with polyester, and why low VOC resins are better for air quality and the people breathing the fumes everyday.
With regard to offcuts, we use various CNC vendors to rough cut the boards. So it kinda depends on them since that’s where most of the waste is created. Some are part of the Re-Rip program so the biofoam can get turned into recycled blanks. About half, and increasingly more of our blanks now are EPS, which is a recyclable material. We’ve spent some time talking with EPS manufacturers and have learned the following:
EPS is tightly regulated for manufacturing in the US, since the pentane (which is toxic) used in it must be recaptured and recycled or burned. So from a VOC argument, EPS may actually have lower emissions during manufacturing when compared to PU blanks (biofoam, MDI, or TDI). It all depends on how the PU blanks are blown and in what type of equipment/ molds.
Our main CNC vendors for EPS are active parts of an EPS recycling program, where their offcuts are reground and either reformed to be made into other products like RV bumpers or bean bag chairs. I know of one other EPS company actually regrinding their manufacturing waste and turing it back into surf blanks.
I don’t believe any of the current surf biofoams are any more biodegradable than regular PU (someone correct me if I’m wrong here). Just because a polymer comes from bio feedstock, that doesn’t necessarily make it biodegradable. Same goes for our resin. We try to optimize the balance between sustainability and performance. Unfortunately, if you make something readily biodegradable, you by definition are making it easier to break down, which in turn can make it very weak from a mechanical standpoint. If you’ve tried those corn starch plastic forks and knives, and had them break when applying even a little bit of pressure, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The bio-feedstock of our resin does start as something that is readily biodegradable, but by the end of processing, it ends up being not very biodegradable because we want it to last a long time mechanically, for performance reasons. By using reclaimed feedstock materials, we are really trying to reduce the carbon footprint, toxic by-products, and energy required to make our stuff. Hopefully at some point in the near future, either we, or someone else, will come up with a material that is both strong and readily biodegradable. Bioremediation (with microbes or enzymes) would be another interesting strategy to tackle waste.
Herb-
That’s great to hear. Yeah, I’m actually not worried about how you got the resin. I’m just glad it worked for you and you weren’t turned off by it, as it was an earlier version where we were still working on speeding up cure time and nailing the viscosity for surfboards. We were only trying to prevent bad word of mouth at the time. We’ve since solved those issues, so no worries.
Your story about the resin being durable is something we try to pride ourselves on. The elongation and adhesion of the resin is really high compared to standard epoxy. This is actually a nice side effect of the bio-materials in the resin. Keep us posted on how it holds up over time.
That’s cool too that you’re putting it into skate decks. Wood is really the best application for the resin, since the resin is partly derived from wood pulp. I like to think that it makes sense to put the “sap” back into wood to give it life again. One testament for wood apps is the experience that Danny Hess has had with the wooden board we glassed for him with our resin:
"I’ve really been impressed with the resin. Impressive impact strength and elongation. I’ve been loaning this demo board out for the last couple years. It’s been to Japan and Indo. Not a single pressure ding or ding of any kind. " - Danny Hess
(pics of the board can be seen here: http://entropysurfboards.blogspot.com/2008/10/hess-entropy-collab-sacred-craft-show.html)
If you think about it, the higher elongation of the resin allows the wood & fiberglass composite to have a more “natural” flex that can bend and return more easily during flexion. The high adhesion works alongside the elongation so that you can flex the composite while keeping everything bonded. Standard resins tend to be stiffer and can crack rather than flex when stressed.
Keep us posted on the skateboards too, would love to see pics.
Yes! We are excited that reputable and experienced shops/ builders like Foam-EZ are interested in working with us. We will do everything possible to support the local and garage builders, since that’s where we started too! Foam-EZ and Swaylocks were both instrumental when we started, so we hope to return the favor.
hi rey, good to know fellow pinoys like you & your bro are going in this direction. your materials science background is a definite advantage.
btw i’m curious if you’ve considered coming up with a greener biofoam option that mimics the closed-cell structures of banana trunk sections and/or coconut husk (sans the moisture), and made from similar (waste) materials. both are inherently buoyant, highly renewable and widely available in the tropics. appreciate your thoughts on this.
cheers
PS - did your folks teach you guys to speak tagalog or any other pinoy tongue? IMO it’s an advantage too hehe
i used some of my magic from all the years using epoxy when using your resin.
flowed out nice,set-off time was controlled easily.
was for the most part a no-brainer.
again,it’s tough stuff,and the polyester resin hotcoat bonded 100%,w/o signs of delam…at least at this point.
keep in mind this is a poly blank as well.
lol…ya,it works!
let you know how the skaters go.
herb
surfiber , kumusta pare! unfortunately, only picked up a little bit of tagalog, and can understand better than I can speak.
I like your thinking on the use of a material in its close to natural state. Just like wood, or cork, those materials seem to be strongest before they get processed too much. It’s been suggested that we look into biofoams. We’ve heard rumors about some cork manufacturers in China who supposedly could make a whole blank out of cork, but have yet to see anything. I like your idea about using the natural materials indigenous to the Philippines. We’ve looked into using abaca fibers as part of a natural composite. Companies like Mercedes are already using it as dampening insulation in their car doors. It’s super strong and plentiful in the Philippines, as you may know already. The banana trunk sounds cool. I would love to make a whole board out of that. I imagine it may be like using agave?.. fairly porous? Is it heavier than balsa? Maybe I’ll check that out on my next trip there…
hey rey pare, 'musta!
yep i’ve also read about local tropical fibers like abaca used for high-end applications in motor sports & space craft, except IMO there’s too little mention of the technical aspects every time they’re featured in the news.
for your product development purposes, fine-woven abaca may be more appropriate as an alternative to fiberglass cloth, considering its strength. in fact if cost were not an issue i’d glass my soon-to-be-completed HWS (clad in layers of woven rattan, raffia & grass) using translucent ‘barong’ shirt material, say, made of banana or pineapple fiber.
re coconut husk or banana trunk sections as board core material, seems like you’d have to first deal with rot-causing moisture by freeze-drying 'em then applying a chemical bath to preserve cellular rigidity. you know about this stuff more than i do hehe but it’s good to think of the possibilities in turning what’s considered useless scrap material into something useful. i’ve challenged a friend who’s in the foam insulation business to figure out a way to make bio foam from either raw material, still no solution in the horizon though. who knows, the solution might be closer to the recipe for making nata de coco!
btw tell your VC dad he has lots of fans here hehe. he gets featured in business news every time local media finds out he’s here on a visit
cheers,
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