A little known piece of surfboard history, is that the first foam/fiberglass surfboards were Styrofoam sealed with Epoxy and glassed with Poly. The first one I saw was in 1958. I was convinced it was a fad that would NEVER replace Balsa. I held out until 1960 when I finally made a foam board for myself. (Walker Foam) Fast forward to today. Greg has a superior Epoxy Resin System, water clear, and predictable The EPS for surfboards is ALMOST there. (my opinion) Certainly the densities in the 2#/3# range are what’s needed. For me the final “improvement” will be when the small size bead ( T size ) is available for surfboards. The cosmetic appearance will be outstanding, and may well not even require sealing or spackeling. (Resin swirl time) The historic construction method for surfboards, is the devil we all know. And the Epoxy/EPS method is the devil many of us don’t know. But it is the FUTURE, and as a practical matter it’s here NOW. That said, I’m holding out for the T size bead at 2.5#. For those of you that remember the “Shortboard Revolution”, this could well be a change of the same magnitude.
For those of you that remember the “Shortboard Revolution”, this could well be a change of the same magnitud
i was thinking the same thing since clark went under, and i had thoughts about ir since i came to sways for the first time listening to greg and bert.
A very interesting perspective from someone whos seen it all.
Im optimistic as well.
So is T about 1mm? Less?
Greg talked about the size of the bead affecting fusion…would like to know more about this topic.
cheers
Greg talked a little on bead size. 4 categories: A, B, C, T.
A biggest bead, T smallest.
A == surftech (I think)
B == Lowes/HomeDepot and most of the EPS surfboard blanks
C == some surfboard blanks
T == coffee cups
smaller beads fuse better/tighter. no need to seal the tighter bead, but Greg also doesn’t think there is any need to seal the 2.5 or 3# eps with the current class B bead. Sounded like Greg doesn’t really think 2# needs sealing either, unless your doing color work.
b.t.w. most of the comment/notes from the event are in the Cerrittos College event stickied at the top of the page. I’ll copy this post there.
Bill, Dave Sweet mentioned the same thing . . . in his website for history of foam . …
Fusion . . . means fusing the little balls together. . . I think Greg L was referring to a manufacturer’s perspective on how the foam is blown / formed / made / built into blocks.
Thanks for the insight Bill. Stuff like that is valuable . . .
Bill:
Sorry I didn’t see ya at Cerritos, but what a crowd! It was great to see so many people. I was hoping to have some time to talk to Greg but the media was hogging him as you probably saw.
I have 14 years of prior experience with EPS in a custom molding situation. I was a plant manager for a national corp. and we made just about everything for all the big users like Apple, Sony, etc. so my comments are based on that experience but things might have changed in the last few years since I left so here goes:
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We don’t want T bead. This bead is for cups and will not work at all for block. It has to do with the skinning effect of the bead (really scientific) so I won’t explain further. C bead will be the ticket.
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What we need is well fused C bead. All the samples I saw at Cerritos were from partly fused block. Blocks are usually so large as to produce 4 x 8ft sheets for industry so they don’t need to be well fused to do the job and get the k factor. A well fused C bead in 3lb density should not produce bead tear out. Tear out happens when the bead is not fused to the surrounding beads. It will also be so strong longitudinally that the poly boys will run back to China!
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We need to find a Cali molder that will make small blocks at the right densitys (2.4, 2.75, 2.8, etc) and bead and with the right fusion. We need to have smaller blocks to get the fusion all the way thru. This might be a little more expensive for a raw block but should produce reasonable prices in a finished blank.
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Bead as it goes into the mold does have pentane in it, that is what causes the bead to expand into the next bead were they are fused. This pentane slowly disperses out of the foam over a few days and is not considered to be a big contributor to the polution index. We should be more worried about the scrap. EPS has a half-life (the time before it starts to break down) of over 100,000 years! Scrap can be recycled into new block, but you have to lug it to the manufacturer and then talk him into taking it! Whomever gets the blanks perfected needs to address this problem or they are just another Grubby.
Anyway, the epoxy part of the seminar was stellar, can hardly wait until Aloha or Waterman’s gets rolling!
Brian
Good info here. Some further, the block manufactrers can today use any size bead, even T. I will agree though that at higher densities C will be fine and color fine too. The block molders of today also have the ability to fuse the foam much better than in years past.
IMHO what we need is a manufacterer in the west who will make exactly what we want. They are already doing a decent job, and the equipment today is so excellent that it just comes out pretty good no matter what. With a few tweaks we could have the stuff just a bit better.
We already have a manufarturer in FL who is making better block foam. We will have that here in the west within weeks I think. In the meantime the stuff out there is actually quite good. Better than any urethane already. So what will be better in the future will be somewhat splitting hairs, but it’s where we want to end up with the best we can get.
I’ve also seen the future of molded blanks of EPS as well. As Brian posted above, once that’s available all other techs will look so weak it isn’t close.
Thanks Bill for attending and seeing that the future is a bright place of expanded possibilities.
Hey Greg:
Thanks for the update. Back in the day when I was in the biz the T bead had a coating which made it great for cups but crap for anything else.
I’m still in the tech/business loup a little and as to your molder info, just wanted to let you know I saw a new block machine from Germany (Koehler I think) that was a vertical and had movable walls to make any size block necessary including small ones. Now if Isulfoam would buy one and dial in some 2.4lb…
Brian
Greg
Have you seen Jim Richardson’s molded EPS blanks he’s selling here in Hawaii?
they’re 1.4 and 1.8
Why are they that much better than the block from insulfoam?
Is it case the beads are compressed tighter in the mold?
Also Jim said the steel molds were outrageously expensive to setup…
How do they compare to Grubby’s concrete molds?
Is it really to costly to start making close tolerance EPS molded blanks versus just hot wiring them from big blocks like Sfoam is doing?
Be interesting to know if we have a good solid resource here already with Jim’s blanks…
Also Greg Griffin just published a photo of the TC shop which was stocked wall to wall with Bufords…
I don’t think they and the other big factory with another huge warehouse of blanks are feeling a things with Clark’s demise… too bad as usual it’s the small guy that gonna get pinched out here as always… I wonder why T&C spent all that cash building out that separate epoxy glassing space this summer.
The pressure on the big boys would’ve been nice…
But Kalani and Meanshapes might help change things out here if they get lucky out here with their APS3000 setup…
That’s what insulfoam does have. So do all the mojor block builders in FL. Just gotts get the process specilized a bit is all. Like I said they make good stuff now and are only a short way from making great stuff. With the demand for surfboard EPS they will be more willing to listen to us. Insulfoam is making 2.5 and 3.0 now.
Hello Fellow Swaylockin’s
Just got finished talking to my foam manufacturer company here in the South Bay (Southern California), they stated that they make 3lb foam right now. When I asked the sales rep. about making a 4 to 41/2lb foam, he stated that right now at this time they don’t have the chemicals to produce that weight of foam.
Greg: Did you say that right now your foam company can make the 4-41/2lb foam?
Respectfully
Surrfdaddy
Greg
Have you seen Jim Richardson’s molded EPS blanks he’s selling here in Hawaii?
they’re 1.4 and 1.8
Why are they that much better than the block from insulfoam?
Is it case the beads are compressed tighter in the mold?
Also Jim said the steel molds were outrageously expensive to setup…
How do they compare to Grubby’s concrete molds?
Is it really to costly to start making close tolerance EPS molded blanks versus just hot wiring them from big blocks like Sfoam is doing?
Be interesting to know if we have a good solid resource here already with Jim’s blanks…
Also Greg Griffin just published a photo of the TC shop which was stocked wall to wall with Bufords…
I don’t think they and the other big factory with another huge warehouse of blanks are feeling a things with Clark’s demise… too bad as usual it’s the small guy that gonna get pinched out here as always… I wonder why T&C spent all that cash building out that separate epoxy glassing space this summer.
The pressure on the big boys would’ve been nice…
But Kalani and Meanshapes might help change things out here if they get lucky out here with their APS3000 setup…
What Greg told me is that the molds just help with the fusion between the beads a bit. Because of the molds they dont have to seal the blanks and still get good results. The molds are outrageosly expensive and I cant really see much benifit for that sort of money especially since higher densities are now available here on the island. CMP will have comparable stuff in the higher densities, 2.4 and 3.0 lbs. No need to seal the foam and weights that will be comparable to Clark. I have already seen them and guess what…their cut just like the Clark stuff…