Carrot fiber instead of Carbon or Glass

Industry Talk
1

I just came across this article in The Global Village News.

Sounds FANTASTIC.

I can see the “Carrot Sticks” coming already!

I’ll take one…shout out if anyone will give this a whirl!

If I’m not mistaken, carrots grow real well up around Santa Cruz.

Imagine, you could grow organic carrots and make boards out of them…

No jive.

Carrot Power

A new and revolutionary material made from the humble carrot could soon begin to replace materials such as glass fibre and carbon fibre in all sorts of things, from fishing rods to car parts. Through a special new process, nano fibres found in carrots and created by the energy of Mother Nature, are extracted and combined with resins. The result is a tough and durable component that can be moulded to whatever shape, degree of stiffness, strength or weight required.

With colourful backgrounds that have taken them from university research to being involved in advanced aerospace technologies, the Curran inventors Dr David Hepworth and Dr Eric Whale, are poised to revolutionise manufacturing. A unique range of ‘biofibre’ fly fishing rods are one of the first things to roll off their company’s production line.

Dr Hepworth said. “The potential of Curran is enormous. If we can replace a small percentage of carbon fibre in our products, the effects on the environment could be significant and wide ranging.” And Dr Hepworth believes that this new technology can be developed further. It is not limited to just carrots. There could also be composites made from turnips, swede and parsnips.

“The irony,” he concludes, “is that the main ingredients for achieving this major step forward have been with us all along.”

Contact: Cellucomp Limited,

Unit 3, West Dock, Harbour Place, Burntisland,

Fife, Scotland, KY3 9DW

Tel: +44 (0)1592 870 335

Website: www.cellucomp.com

Photo: Cellucomp

First published in Positive News Issue 51 Spring 2007

This is one of many stories available from Positive News newspaper. For more stories like this please visit: www.positivenews.org.uk

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

2

natural carbon fibers . . .

3

…being a carbon unit myself, it’s a little hard for me to immediately bite into, then again we look at the dynamics of bamboo (such the renewable resource), leashcups made out of “organic plastic” (corn based)…and coal made into diamonds…given the time.

4

FYI

Sugar Based MDI blanks are available from ICE 9.

There out of Orange County, California.

I’ve shape a few and they are really shaper friendly.

I sent my kid to Indo with a few and will have some feed back this week.

I may switch my TDI PU to MDI from ICE 9.

They have Alumium molds and automated pouring.

After glassing I weighed them and found the finished boards to be very light.

The crew at ICE 9 are brillant Chemist with years of history in the Aero-Space Industry.

Their factory is the most modern of all blank factories.

It will be scary for all the concrete mold guys with TDI base PU Blanks.

Better yet made in California, USA.

Mid June they will launch.

5

Thanks for your update…yeah there is a lot to sift through these days.

Quite honestly, I was sort of wooed away from the biz by the promise of working in the insurance industry. Which I did for the last 4-1/2 years. You can earn renewals and stock earnings and some other perks. I worked for a company that has cute duck commercials that some people like.

What I found was the earning amounts promised were half of what they claimed…you basically are independent and have to work about 200 hrs a week to equal what I used to make during my surfboard/sailboard hey days (hay days?).

Not only did I find the industry is one of the most anal businesses in the world, I also found myself spiritually bankrupt. Yes, you can help people in their hour of need, but all too frequently it is never realized nor appreciated.

Now that I made peace with myself and decided to be true to myself, I felt as excited and hopeful as when I was 19. I am faced with a new learnng curve on the many foams that are out there being offered and it will be interesting to see who will be around tomorrow.

…And yes, there is the China thing that looms like a black cloud threatening to rain on everyone’s parade. But none of us can psyche ourselves out to the point of laying down and dying. If you are resourceful and are willing to be a shape to shine craftsman you can make more money off less boards while retaining your soul. There are many people that want the custom experience that China or Thailand or Vietnam won’t satisfy. People continue to buy BMW’s while others by crap…does anyone remember Yugo’s? What a disaster.

I started “The Surfing Underground” back in 1980 to pay homage to all of us who cut down our longboards to shape smaller more manuverable counterparts when the big boys couldn’t react fast enough to the new direction. While my involvement and subsequent success in windsurfing had me expand the factory tenfold over a decade, I never lost sight of who we were. I was and am a surfer first, and boardsailing allowed me to incorporate exciting leading edge ideas into my surfboards, whether it be with composite reinforcements, alternative cores, or advance compound curve dynamics. All this R&D crossed over to benefit my surfboards. The answer to China is: go underground, get the best materials at wholesale prices and setup with zero overhead…even China can’t beat you at home. Sell your boards in the water with happy surfers advertising word of mouth.

The MDI is a great direction because of the focus on renewable resources…if nothing else, that makes the gesture noble.

Many people don’t realize that SurfTech is from the Cobra factory in Thailand. Nor do they realize that Channel Islands was sold to Burton Snowboards. This week some of the longtime established production shapers left CI to go do their own thing. Quite a few have moved on…that says something to me. Are they crazy…or do they just want to fulfill their creative wanderlust?

6

Sweet…literally. Yum!