I suppose this message is mostly directed towards Greg Loehr and the gentlemen at Resin Research. I am attempting to make a completely green surfboard.( green meaning; a surfboard built completely from sustainable non-toxic materials). So far I have created two boards using sustainably harvested wood, Resin Research epoxy, and a fiberglass that uses no styrene in its production. I am very pleased with the performance of the epoxy. I have been riding these boards full time for the last two months at Ocean Beach, San Francisco, and they have held up perfectly. What I am looking for is more information on the Resin Research epoxy. What Exactly goes into it and its production? As well as any knowledge or information on alternatives to fiberglass. Thank you for your time and I truely admire your dedication to making surfboards safer for people and the environment.- Danny
“I have been riding these boards full time for the last two months at Ocean Beach, San Francisco” danny, i’m stoked & want to check out the boards but i must say the waves at ocean beach have been all blown to hell. have you been getting any good rides out there? can you post some pics of the boards? i’d love to check them out. approximately how much time/money do you spend per board. fellow S.F. surfer, j.
danny, i am also very intrested about your overhead and results with these materials. please tell more… pictures?
You’re kidding yourself if you think epoxy resin is “green”… “The basis of epoxy resins is diglycidol ether of bisphenyl A…Bisphenyl A is produced by reacting phenol with acetone under suitable conditions…The “A” stands for acetone.”… Source: The Epoxy Book - Sysyem Three Resins Publications. http://www.systemthree.com/index.html
Thank you Paul. I think J’s got this one figured out too. If this isn’t a troll, I’ll eat it. Why not: “I’m willing to pay double for a car and fuel to not pollute on my way to work at a smog belching factory. And I’ll vote for any crooked politician who’ll force everyone else to do the same thing”. If a person has to spend more, he can bet that somewhere, it took more fuel, and dirtied the air a whole lot more. But as long as it was a corporation, and it happened somewhere else, he can bitch about those greedy other people polluting “our” air. Now this fool can get in his car carrying the extra 350 pounds of remanufactured lead and hydrochloric acid, and drive away. But good luck on not having a wreck with him.
Paul is right about Bis A, but in most processing plants any acetone released during the reaction is recaptured. And acetone in Bis A is no longer a solvent like styrene in polyester. It is reacted into Bis A. Believe it or not, most chemical companies are pretty good at reducing escaping gases and not because they’re “green.” Most do things like recapturing because they want to increase yield and watching a commodity evaporate into thin air costs money. All epoxy prepregs, which are supposed to be the “greenest,” use solvents when impregnating the fabric and all the companies that do this recapture. Why buy more solvent when it’s right there in the air? One of the saddest things about the surfboard industry is the almost absolute disregard for doing things better. What I mean by this is that there are few who want to make these things stronger, lighter, safer or greener. This is a sport that portrays itself as environmentally concuss. Our largest surfing organization is Surfrider. Yet the overwhelming production of surfboards remains polyester resin in spite of better methods and materials. For all the surfing media talk about environment, 95% of all surfboard companies are using resins that are, or will soon be, outlawed by state and federal governments for being too dirty. And nearly all waste indiscriminately. Piece work labor and poor production practices are the rule not the exception. Come to our shop. We don’t wear masks. We don’t use clean up solvents (at all). There’s nothing but faint odors (1/50th that of polyester). Our foam waste is recycled. Our drums are recycled. We use 1/3rd the resin the average polyester shop uses. And our finished product is significantly stronger and generally lasts much longer. (sorry if this sounds like spam) You want to talk the talk. Then walk the walk. None of our practices are tricky to accomplish or costly. They are no more time consuming or difficult. They are less toxic to workers and the environment. We are seeing epoxy surfboard production grow in every market in the US as consumers slowly come to the realization that a better quality product exists. Better durability and ridability. What I’m talking about here is the quality of the glassing of surfboards. Most will equate epoxy surfboards with polystyrene foam. That’s NOT what I’m talking about here. Regardless what core you use, epoxy makes a stronger, lighter, safer to produce and greener surfboard. One that is within the bounds of EVERY upcoming government restiction. On the question of replacing the fiberglass, Shale Gordon of Bamboo Australia, is involved in using bamboo which is one of the strongest and most renewable materials available for surfboards. Check out their website @ bamboosurfboards.com.
I know about the superior mechanical properties of epoxy resins but what about the yellowing and the fact that epoxies loose some of their abilities with longtime epxposure to moisture ? Maybe Greg Loehr could correct me if I´m wrong. I also wonder why epoxy boards use less resin than the standard up boards? It is possible to extremely change the fibre/ resin ratio ? Thanks
hey danny, i’m still interested in seeing the pics of the boards. can you post some pics or send us a link? fellow s.f. surfer, j.
It is possible to make non-yellowing epoxy. I’m pretty sure some of the epoxy I glassed with four years ago was Resin Research epoxy. I mixed it 2:1 with raw epoxy, then covered it with Silmar. The board is still as white as when I glassed it. However, some “non-yellowing” epoxy… isn’t. Epoxy mix is lighter per volume than polyester. Epoxy absorbs better than polyester so that you need less volume in the lam. But I don’t think both of these factors would get you to the above claims. There are many ways to compare resin weights between two different lam structures. You can compare lams of equal strength, lams of equal glass schedules, lams using dissimilar materials. Polyester resin won’t make a carbon fiber lam much stronger than a warp-E lam, so you would have to build up the CF layers emensely to compare such a lam, strength-to-strength, with epoxy. You can make an epoxy board much stronger, much lighter, or some of each. In judging epoxy properties formula seems to be everything. As for epoxy changing properties in water… again, formula. Raw epoxy is pretty thick, like molasses. The bad epoxies add VOC’s to thin it down. Lam with bad epoxy and let it harden. The VOC’s all evaporate leaving tiny holes and channels in the lam. Water wicks into the voids and wrecks havoc with the lam. Don’t use VOC’s in the epoxy, and the problem goes away.
back to the the “green thing” in the original post. i’m wondering, and i’ll bet greg can tell me, about the volatiles in polystyrene blanks. i’ve shaped a few and could smell what i suspect was the styrene in the blanks. i’m not saying it was bad, but it was noticeable so therefore, potentially not “green.” and btw, i’m sure it’s not near as bad as what’s coming off a during a polyester glass job.
I’ve become convinced that using epoxy is easier on my health than using polyester. But that’s from experience. The only epoxy “strawberry skin” I’ve received, I’ve been able to trace back to carelessness and stupidity. That’s a far cry from breathing the styrene which polyester emits… Yuck! But that’s not a consumer or public issue. You came here claiming that epoxy is inherently “greener” than polyester because it emits less VOC’s WHEN YOU USE IT. Again, what is the overall environmental difference between two “equal” boards, one polyester and one epoxy, from the wellhead to the wave? Where are your facts? Glasser and shaper VOC emissions from the major materials is only a small part of the overall picture. I could name more pertinent factors here, but I don’t wanna feed your sordid crap. The sad thing that we’re dealing with: “Consumers and manufacturers must bypass the rule of law, the facts in evidence, and come to me for approval.” Why? Because you’re an expert in law? …chemistry? …factory processes? …the environment? “No, because I caaaare more than other people.” The sick thing we’re dealing with: It’s merely a means of attaining power without earning or deserving it. The message and the perpetrators should be summarily ignored.
What you smell in polystyrene blanks is pentane. That is the blowing agent and it is used at 2.5% in most beaded foams. The other agent in blowing polystyrene is steam. Yellowing is ancient history for us and water absorbsion in epoxy is much less than in polyester. This is because of the 35% solvents in polyester. As far as Noodles comments, you know, we are comparing apples and oranges many times. Fact is I can’t control what others in industry do. I can only concern myself with what I do and with the industry I’m involved with. The saying, “start in your own backyard” means to me helping this industry to see a different path. Reducing waste, recycling and building stronger more durable product MAKES A DIFFERENCE ENVIRONMENTALLY!!! Read my post again!!! This time carefully!
Thanks Greg.It is telling that the food and catering industry has used polystyrene for eating utensils, packaging, and meat trays etc. for over 30 years primarily because of its hygiene and safety.Aromatic qualities of hydrocarbons have little bearing on the level of toxicity - take for example isocyanates and carbon monoxide.On the otherhand, wood-dust in the context of furniture manufacturing is classified by the IARC as a Group 1 (highest risk) human carcinogen! (Reference:http://monographs.iarc.fr/htdocs/monographs/suppl7/furniture%26cabinet-making.html)
I don´t think that polysterene is far superior than polyurethane from an ecological point of view. Noodle is right here: the overall environmental effect counts. A bigger step forward towards greener boards would be the use of bio- resins, natural fibres and organic core materials, an easy way is to build stronger boards that are surfed for a longer time period. But obviously it makes you a better surfer if you snap 50 boards a year.
Hey here j, thanks for your interest, I am working on getting some photos on line, though I am not to computer savvy. Look for a bright yellow-green vw bus down at the beach most mornings. Thats me, and I would be happy to show you the boards. -Danny
Read my post carefully again. I never say (and never have) that polystyrene is far better environmentally. The fact that I can recycle the scrap makes it better. But far better? I also don’t say epoxy is far better than polyester in the processing of the material itself. The fact that I can use 1/3 as much resin in my shop makes it better. I’d say FAR better. Epoxy also allows me to eliminate clean up solvents. That makes it FAR better. And the fact that it doesn’t contain solvents makes it far better in a local sense and far better for me and my employees. And I also eliminate possible government restrictions. So yes, all tolled, I would say far better is correct. As far as futuristic ideas, generally you want environmentally sound materials to do one of two things. Either you want the stuff to break down without causing pollution, or you want something that doesn’t break down and cause pollution. All surfboards are more the latter case and don’t really cause pollution when discarded. The other issue would be their useful life span. Again, on average, epoxy technology lengthens lifespan of the product. Regardless of the core.
Thank you for the detailed information, you’ve answered alot of the questions I had about the production of your epoxy.I would definately recommend it to those who would like to build surfboards in “greener” fashion. In terms of laminating wood it has proven far superior to other epoxies I have used in the past. What do you think about a bio-degradable epoxy ever being produced? -Danny
Read my post carefully again. I never say (and never have) that polystyrene is far better environmentally. The fact that I can recycle the scrap makes it better. But far better? I also don’t say epoxy is far better than polyester in the processing of the material itself. The fact that I can use 1/3 as much resin in my shop makes it better. I’d say FAR better. Epoxy also allows me to eliminate clean up solvents. That makes it FAR better. And the fact that it doesn’t contain solvents makes it far better in a local sense and far better for me and my employees. And I also eliminate possible government restrictions. So yes, all tolled, I would say far better is correct. As far as futuristic ideas, generally you want environmentally sound materials to do one of two things. Either you want the stuff to break down without causing pollution, or you want something that doesn’t break down and cause pollution. All surfboards are more the latter case and don’t really cause pollution when discarded. The other issue would be their useful life span. Again, on average, epoxy technology lengthens lifespan of the product. Regardless of the core.
The mecanical properties of epoxy are superior to polyester resins - I don´t question this point. That´s what I wanted to say: longer use of boards. And this is an advantage of epoxy. To Daniel- some resins that are based upon vegetable raw materials do exist ( at least at an experimental stage) but I´ve seen a motorcycle helmet which was built using those " bio-resins" and natural fibres. Once the resin has set, the board is not harmful to the environment any longer. So it can easily be discarded by landfill. But thats the point: it won´t biodegrade, it is not recyclable, it can´t be incinerated for energy regain, no matter if made with epoxy or polyester. The fibres are more important in the " greener board" construction attempt.
The “recyclable surfboard” Vs. “throwaway” is a perennial debate that will no doubt rage on till legislators force the hand of industry.Just one observation though : what we are quibbling over is 2-3 litres of petrochemical product total per board, with maybe a saving of 1-1.5 litres at best.This is compared with maybe 50-100 litres of HIGHLY DANGEROUS Benzene-containing product that goes into the atmosphere (in refueling, driving, and vapour leakage while parked) EVERY WEEK by way of using the surfboard - it’s called the motor car! Face it, how many of us NEVER drive a car in order to get to the beach ? I’m all for a cleaner, greener industry - but what i’m saying is, the real polluter is quietly sitting in the driveway with our surfboards strapped to it’s roof.Like that motto about paper shopping bags Vs. plastic shopping bags :Who cares ? : How did you get to the shop ?! Cars are arguably the most polluting consumer product on earth. In addition to the increasing scrutiny of surfboard manufacturer’s, don’t forget what the real villan is - do an audit of your car’s pollution output @ http://www.environmentaldefense.org/TailpipeTally/ and walk, ride, hitch, or bus-it to the beach next surf !!!