It’s public. They’re on the net:
I’m particullary deceptioned. Glass mat everywhere???
I’ve seen those before too. I think they even made a thread here before. Oneula was asking about some material that might be good for the cores of skins (like balsa) and I put up one of those photos & asked if that was it…
I don’t think its as bad as it looks. If that was a top layer, wet with epoxy and then vac’ed with peel ply or perf. ply & absorbent, it would add a lot of strength without the horrible weight gain you’d see if it was hand-laid or shot on.
There remains one detail which concerns me greatly, however…
Where on earth is there a market for boards with these graphics?
Do you suppose it really says “Bump”? Are they out there trying for dings on other surfers’ boards? Yikes!
Benny1 wrote:
Where on earth is there a market for boards with these graphics?
…
Do you suppose it really says “Bump”? Are they out there trying for dings on other surfers’ boards? Yikes!
==============================================================
Well, I don’t see any board example quite that garish on their website, but it does look like like they may have hired the former graphics designer for BIC…
-Samiam
YES! Finally I can have a board that looks like a cartoon! I’m so excited I think I’m gonna wet myself.
Well, those PVC sheets are laid over the deck and bottom of kiteboards, some of which are built in the same factory as you can see in the 1st pic.
That PVC offers a very good protection against sand and cobblestone beaches. A trully headache when trying to fix one of these kiteboards, believe me.
Benny, I guess mat fibreglass can offer a very good impact resistance. But what about board stiffness???
I hope the outer sandwinch layer is roving glass…
ive seen that graphic
it actually says “bum sex”
at the top it says
“goat”
Wow, Bum Sex!!
Now that’s a specific targeted marketing campaign. Very select group of highly specialized individuals. Must be pricey to cover those margins. Kind of like the Louis Vitton Surfoards a few years back
Just what I want to be surfing on. Resinhead, and his Bum Sex, Butt Pirate Model. Surfing the Seven Seas looking for sea going Brown Trout.,Agrrrrrrhhhhh
Perfect.
thanks resin
you just made my day
laugh’n out loud
Quote:
ive seen that graphic
Japan?
Quote:
Benny, I guess mat fibreglass can offer a very good impact resistance. But what about board stiffness???
The more composites I make, the more I learn that the materials don’t have nearly the effect on flex that shape does. If you make a board wide & thin & flat, it’ll flex no matter what you make it out of; if you make it narrow & thick & with lots of compound curve (like deck dome & progressing rocker) it’ll be stiff.
I’ve used all kinds of stuff by now, from E, S, volan, crowfoot, and carbon cloths, to 1# & 2# EPS, d-cell, bamboo, balsa, urethane, birch & mahogany veneers…and all in different combinations. Wide & thin, they all flex; thick & domed, they’re all stiff.
BTW, working on a kiteboard right now, actually. 1/2" d-cell core, balsa skins. Crowfoot (its a weave of glass with fibers at 90*, 0*, and both 45’s as well - very strong but lousy appearance so good to bury it) glass under both skins, double 4 oz over both skins…no urethane or EPS at all. If I had some matting, I’d be happy to try that under the balsa as well…as long as I could vac out most of the resin.
Quote:
Quote:ive seen that graphic
Japan?
Kind of reminded me of this commercial
Quote:
ive seen that graphic
it actually says “bum sex”
at the top it says
“goat”
don’t forget goat bum sex when all your pirate mates are “bum tired”
baaaaa
Haha!
Jay,
i almost fell over reading what you wrote…
pmsl
Flat stock preshaped each side seperately prior to glue-up. The template above. Is this called Bookmatched?
Oceanrider,
Don’t know how serious you are with your question but…
Bookmatching is a woodworking term for matching grain from sequentially cut boards or veneer which requires a degree of skill and/or artistic talent to do well…
The methods displayed in the pictures - the poorly shaped blanks and rank amaturish routing for stringers - only says POP-OUT to me…but that’s just my opinion.
The solid colors and repetitive finish schemes - every single one looks like the next - have a K-Mart look (and marketing scheme) I can’t get around…no matter how nice the original shape…
Pete
Quote:
The more composites I make, the more I learn that the materials don’t have nearly the effect on flex that shape does. If you make a board wide & thin & flat, it’ll flex no matter what you make it out of; if you make it narrow & thick & with lots of compound curve (like deck dome & progressing rocker) it’ll be stiff.
Benny, is this a change in opinion from what you were saying last month in the Compsand Stiffitus thread:
Craftee could probably put that board deck-up between 2 tables and stand in the middle and it would flex the same amount - this is just an easier way to take a photo 
Or am I missing something? It seems intuitive to me that if the stiffness was primarily due to rocker or domed deck curves, then stiffness would depend upon which way you flex the board, whereas if it was due primarily to materials and board thickness then stiffness would be less dependant on direction.
"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes."
-Walt Whitman
Aw, man, I dunno. I’m just a dumb surfer. 
But actually, that second comment was specific to Craftee’s work. We’ve had some offline discussions about how we build our respective stuff & why and I think I know where he’s coming from. His boards aren’t built symmetrically, top to bottom, but they are designed to flex & rebound in both compression & tension…
He does very cool stuff…and his quote about the dead fish is spot-on. I probably should’t say any more, except that he’s a pretty unique compsand builder…
well I believe that’s the same slovakian factory (Boardworks = Made in Slovakia Sticker) that Bob Miller has his new line of Cobalt boards made (once the masters are designed)
Bob Miller is one the pioneers of this sandwhich stuff up in the Bay area doing windsurf and surf craft and was one of the first “name” shapers Boardworks brought on board.I remember wanting his epoxy “fusion” design for a longtime. Benny and Blakstah can validate it cause you never hear about Bob Miller’s contribution to all this new tech on sways outside of Benny. BW seems to pick the more eclectic line of shapers such as Miller, Hynson, Aipa, Forstall, and Schaper.
So there must be a reason why Cobalt seems to be okay with these “popout” guys versus sending their work down to Brazil like M10 did. Both Cobalt and M10 have been at the forefront of this “epoxy army” revolution for any years whereas Stretch got the genius award.
Those Dcell stringer inserts probably gave birth to the Soly blue foam disk ones. And all that fraying glass cr*p gets compressed in the high pressure mold that puts the shells on. Which is why them seems prone to rail blowouts in the early days when you dropped them. I had the PhatPig and Gary Linden big boy thruster for a couple of years as an experiment in StyroPop. Somehow the French and Merrick Surftechs seemed better boards somehow.
Hi there,
I’m the one who took these pictures at the old Boardworks Factory in Slovakia back in 2002 and posted them on our website, www.boardworkshi.com.
I have been distributing Boardworks boards in Hawaii for 7 years now, before they were even called Boardworks boards and have sold thousands in Hawaii.
A lot has changed since these pictures were taken. It’s true that Boardworks had it’s share of problems over the years, especially with the rails, fin boxes, and bumpy finishes as mentioned in other posts. Actually, the rails re-enforced with the glass matt and “foaming resin” as shown in the picutres were quite strong, the splitting rail problems came later when the process was changed to reduce weight.
I’m happy to report that the construction process was greatly improved and these problems have been resolved. With the technical help of Casey McCrystal and other surfboard construction experts, the proprietary process now involves molding the high density foam sandwich onto the EPS blank first, then hand glassing the sandwiched blank after the molding process with fully wrapped rails, eliminating the seam and allowing a cleaner finish. This process is more labor intensive than the one step molding process used before (shown in the pictures) but has greatly improved the quality. I have not had a chance to visit the new factory in China but the boards we received since late 2006 have been excellent. I have not had a single warranty claim on over 600 of the newer boards sold in 2007 (on pre-2006 boards we had warranty problems with 3-6% of boards sold, so this is amazing).
An easy way to tell if the boards are made with the improved construction process is to look for the TEC logo on the rails, they started printing the logos on after the construction improvements were made, so that’s something you can look for when browsing you local surf shop.
Regarding the stringers:
I asked Boardworks to put stringers into the boards and the pictures show some of the first boards with the high density foam stringers that Boardworks made. I asked to have them installed for Hawaii since I wanted the boards to be stronger and because surfers did not believe boards without stringers could be any good- Part of the reason for putting in stringers was for marketing and to set Boardworks apart from Surftech. When we saw a big decrease in broken and buckled boards and positive feedback (increased drive and responsiveness) from Ben Aipa and teamriders, they were made standard in all boards over seven feet. Sure, they can still break, especially the thinner longboards, but they are without a doubt less likely to break than a standard pu/polyester board and, in my biased opinion, than a comparable Surftech board. So the stringers actually proved to be very effective.
I’m glad somebody is interested in this stuff and will check back soon.
Thanks, swaylocks.
Aloha, Robert
Thanks for the information and i agree that boardworks has come a long way since the beginning. I have several of them myself and for the most part they are good. I recently got one and it has a problem, for what ever reason the deck has started to delaminate. I am in So Cal and i wrote a email to boardworks in oceanside and i hope they get back to me about this issue. Other than that i can see am overall improvement in the product, i am hoping the customer service has improved also.