Openly leaning my face into the strike zone with this thread…don’t hold back the fastball,
I don’t care what’s thrown, this ones going out of the park!.
Stay tuned!
rails look too boxy. Super white foam, hard to discern the the outline. blends in too much to the background, Shaping room lights too high and too bright also.
Really poor camera skills, too. Contrast is WAAAY to low.
A colour shot might be better?
Ha Ha sorry pics will be coming
First I must define the design intent:
Light, strong, AND cheap, the cheap part is why I’m building it.
It won’t be cheap by swaylocks standards but cheap by off the shelf standards.
I read a bunch of Ben Thompsons old posts on here, about surfboard stiffness. although he didn’t finish his experiment completely, one of the most interesting conclusions he made was when given a bunch of identically shaped surfboards with various stiffness. in blind tests, surfer unanimously preferred the lighter boards. So I’m going for weight.
I break shit, all the time, I’m not particularly careful, but also have a view that things should stand up to real life. that means ghost surfing into the rocks hitting the odd driftwood, scraping the fins on the bottom, stomping airs, dropping the board, blowing away on the beach (I said light) and just plain not snapping in half.
Simple dings if used undetected are board enders most EPS boards due to water absorbtion into the foam. I’ve done this repair too many times to be satisfied with current eps construction.
So strong and impenetrable is what I’m after.
I had screwed around with this earlier in the following thread.
http://www.swaylocks.com/forums/new-guy-new-test-lab
"the sauce"was
lighter and stronger but the real benefit is a hugely durable surfboard.
The outer skin is made from one of the lightest strongest fabric in the world, is incredibly abrasion resistant and the panels can be beaten with a hammer with zero penetration
It will do a better job of keeping cracks/dings and leaks from getting to the eps core than any other material.
The carbon fiber is “armoured” by the outer skin and the corecell.
Being considerably stiffer, the carbon fiber will be carrying most of the structural loads. burying it beneath the corecell balances this out a little but ultimately the armoured carbon will be the load bearing member and very well protected to take the buckling loads.
This material combination is lighter than a 4 + 6 glass.
Although the Extra bondng of corecell adds resin weight, it’s likely I can get this board as light as a typical pro board by using a light weight core especially when water penetration will not be a concern.
strong light impenetrable
Clever
I’m wondering how the deck holds up to denting. Corcel alone of .75 EPS will dent like crazy. With Carbon? How hard is it to shape? It might be realy soft and spongy.
… But polyethylène on the outside is very hard to laminate. It’s also expensive in woven form.
What is the density (pcf) and minimum compressive strength (psi) of the 1/8" corecell you are using as the outer skin?
Years ago dpiction posted a method using a corecell skin over what I think was an O-C Foamular 150 XPS housing insulation (1.3 pcf, 15 psi) core.
http://www.swaylocks.com/comment/384532#comment-384532
All very very good warnings
Every surfer: I’ve use .75lb and 1lb foam. In kiteboards. (see below)
I’ll take pics of my blanks, shaping isn’t pretty but isn’t hard.
bagging requires vacuum control to prevent crushing it.
rails and finboxes need re-inforcments.
Was planning on running 90 degree 6 oz carbon. Under the impact zones. In addition to the 4oz 0 degree. That will give me the same amount of fabric for dent resistance While being stiffer than glass
I’m not worried about dents, carbon is really stiff and doesn’t really bend much , it just breaks.
Went with uni. As at 90 it won’t create a lot of additional stiffness. And will reinforce the 0deg. Carbon in impact
This board is gunna be pretty stiff I don’t wanna make it worse. but weight trumps flex according to Ben t’s. Blind experiments
Stone burner using 80kg/m3. divinycell 200psi compressive strength (5lbi/ft3 (ish)
Have multiple boards with years of beat downs as strapless kiteboards with the following
12oz eglass
1/8 80kg/m3 corecell
6oz e glass
0.75lb eps
6oz eglass
1/8" corecell 80kg/m3
6oz eglass
I believe that’s a typical Bert Berger style construction.
1.5lb eps is readily available but adds a lot of weight.
Jago. I like the hard way. This will surely require multiple trips to the vacuum bag
Regarding cost, since it doesn’t bond worth a crap, can’t be cut and is generally shit to work with no one wants the spectra. generally what good is a really strong fabric that doesn’t bond well so can’t be used structurally. good in ballistics only
Find a composite store that brought in a big roll and they are usually eager for you to find a use for the stuff to take it off their hands.
I’m getting it cheaper than most other expensive stuff.
Not gunna give up my source yet i. may wish to put a lowball offer on the roll depending how this goes.
Are you doing corecel on top and bottom? I did a corecel carbon on deck and bottom once. It was way too stiff. No flex at all. I then started only putting corecel on the deck.
Top and bottom it’s gunna be stiff…
Going to try to shape to compensate
Will explain shaping choices shortly
That’s another long story
In addition to a light board and a strong board I want a fast board.
Planes early. Fast turning, high top speed.
Flat bottom would give me greatest speed, but with the stiffness of this board it’s going to ride and slap the water badly. It’ll be like riding a rodeo bull. So no flat bottom. My current board is flat bottom, ultra fast, and ultra thin/flexible to offset the bounce. it’s ridable but not ideal if it gets choppy.
So without a flat bottom for good speed, I’m leaning towards a high concave Modern planning hull.
However I am worried about the width and parallel rails being difficult to turn the board.
Was in surf shop checking out various bottom shapes. when in walks a guy with a cracked broken 5’2" tomo vader full of water. inquiring about repair costs.
After watching his face drop when he was told his board was a lost cause, I followed him out offered to do the repair for free if he would let me ride the crap out of his board for a few days.
I’ve heard really great things about this board but hadn’t been on one yet and I was skeptical of it’s turning and straigtline speed capabilities. Like many I figured all the channels and intricate bottom carves could just be someone getting horny with their new planer. After about 48 hours at 40 C under vacuum, I pulled a few pounds of water out of it. repaired the cracks, shined it up and took it out to the water.
Used it with a kite in choppy waves to get some serious riding time on the board. it was fantastic. Planed incredibly early, was much faster and smoother than my previous “fastest board ever” and could initiate a turn with a wiggle of my big tow, just think about turning and the board would start changing direction. LOVE IT…Until I broke it…Again. I hit some random water debris, punched a hole in the bottom and pushed a fin box in .
So I measured up the board, built some jigs and templates. repaired all damage made it look invisible, wet sanded and shined the board and gave it back, owning up and apologizing for the abuse it had suffered. Guy didn’t care, it was a free board as far as he was concerned and in better shape then he have it to me. Quite happy to have it back.
I would be happy to purchase a board of this caliber, but this was unacceptably weak. I REALLY like the shape though
However it looks REALLY complicated to build…
The beaten path is for beaten men…
doing everything the hard way.
Cut the outline from 0.75lb 2" home depot foam subtracting 1/2" all the way around
Added 1/2" 80kg/m3 divinycell around the outside of the board using gorilla glue and every clamp I could find.
Used oversized Dcell in the previous step then Planed the D cell flush with the board.
Cut out area of the finboxes all the way through the board. Taped the bottom with tuck tape to seal it
poured 4lb urethane foam into the hole to get extra tough fin boxes.
cut off and planed down the cancerous 4lb foam muffin tops.
From the donor board I took measurements of the concave depth every 6 inches at center line and 1 addtional point about midway between the rail and center line
Knowing the depth of concave I shaped a 2x4 to match the concave to work as a sanding jig.
Having depth at mulitple pointsI set my router to the measured depth and put a “depth marker” at any location I had a recorded concave depth. I coloured these depth markers black. This would allow me to see
a) is my sanding even. side to side.
b) am I deep enough yet.
then I just scrape with my sanding jig (60 grit) keeping it straight(ish) to remove foam until the depth markers became invisible.
then carve out the other fancy bits on the front
And plane out the channels on the rear
then take off a bunch from the top. Made it extra thin as 1/8" D cell is going on both sides
Wow!!! Are you kiding me??? This is gold!