So let’s have it, someone deep into foam and fiberglass has some good info on making snowboards, SURELY. =)
Good luck man, i say that sincerley. i looked into it, and would love to see a sway step by step if you do. A combo of Wood/foam, glass, metal edge, made my head spin. From a backyarders standpoint, I was thinking making a mould of an actual snowboard, just the female bottom, and vaccing all layers to that, but contructing a metal edge, or forming that to the board is what got me.
Holly…
Great links. Thanks a lot to everyone for the quick responses.
I actually worked for Mervin MFG. and finished snowboards such as LIB Tech, GNU,Roxy… etc. I have a solid understanding of how they did what they do best. But I know there are other ways. I’ve been cataloging info on backyarders, DIYers for a few months now. Due to a temporary layoff at work until the new year, I am going to push forward with a project I’ve been planning with much anticipation.
Don’t want to spill to much about it here… however if I succeed in my goals, my design and use of core material and structural design method will produce a snowboard with more memory (POP), durability to ensure overall performance and longevity. No more buying new snowboard every other season… I’ll be sure to post fruits of my labor 
If timeliness on a production line isn’t an issue, snowboards, like surfboards can be customized all kinds of ways.
That said, there’s probably a pretty good reason that snowboard design has pretty much stayed constant for last 10 or 15 years. I’ve seen some specialty designs like swallow tails for powder or flat squared off tails for racing but most are fairly standard double enders.
A few minor to moderate spec upgrades seem to separate the high end boards from the cheapies… that and their rather expensive pro rider endorsement contracts.
I wonder if Sean White really rides a stock off the shelf “Sean White Pro” model Burton on tour?
Don’t know about the Burton and Shawn White story, but when I worked for Mervin making LIB, and GNU’s Danny Kass was… still is? a big deal and he rode boards hand finished and laid up by the same guys that did the boards for the shelves, as far as anyone knew. If there was a secret factory full of mad scientists doing special pro models behind the scene, nobody at the factory knew about it.
In fact, I know that at times the head finisher would have sets of boards to pay extra special attention to (mainly to see they were not a kill board aka scrapped) for an unnamed someone.
Yeah i made a few.
Will be making more soon.
there is one in the resources here I made.
The best info is on www.grafsnowboards.com and skibuilders.com
If you can build a compsand, you can build a snowboard.
In short,
you will build a mould like kiteboard rockerbed, this is where you will do a layup of base, glass, core and deck materials to be vacuum sucked together. That is the easy way… the longer way is to build a proper mechanical press with heating system but that is prohibitive for a garage project imho… unless you have a good lot of pals willing to pitch in and help out.
SDave beat me to it but grafsnowboards.com is a great site, step by step tutorials. snowboardmaterials .com also sells some videos and you can order all your materials from them, is a lot easier than building and profiling your own cores.
have fun
just to add a bit … seeing as you seem to be gearing for the experimental.
from my experiments…
Foam cores fail, invariably
Balsa cores fail, pity cuz they ride awesome…
Ply works
Woodcore works best…
Everything I have seen so far indicates that what the major labels are doing is pretty much what is possible without getting into metallics, that is a field all on its own in terms of resonance and harmonics, best left up to the racing ski-freaks imho…
osin,
if you’ve worked at mervin, then you’ve seen the evolution. snowboard construction, done on a production scale uses techniques that few backyarders can access without significant capital investment. use of high tensile glass/carbon pre-pregs is the norm (not to mention the basalt fiber they get their hands on…I want some of that chit) and require heated, hydraulic presses for good adhesion and high strength-weight laminates.
I think if what you’re after is a board with more pop from the woodshop, then do that; go to the woodshop; it’s in the core, and it’s in the camber. Fact is that without going to pre-pregs you’re not going to build a board that is lighter than a well made production board. The high tech, aerospace grade fabrics that are being used these days require high tech, aerospace grade equipment. You’ll want to have an autoclave, or something comparable.
I’ve seen multiple small operations, with two guys cranking out a couple of hundred boards a year on a few cassettes, I’ve seen full on factory production. They ALL use hydraulic presses; some used heating mantles, others didn’t. Results without the use of pre-pregs were always variable and the boards delammed/cores broke, so regardless of whether the intention is to build a board that will have pop from year to year, if the construction won’t hold up to abuse, you’re hooped. The ONLY reason I could see wanting to make a snowboard for oneself is in the desire for a custom shape, currently unavailable commercially; you’ve got really big feet, or you like a goofy sidecut that you can’t find anywhere, or you’re pissed off because your local shop didn’t order one of the 10 doughboys MM decided to make this year and you’ve got tickets to Haines for February, so you’ve gotta make your own gigantor monoski.
Going with vac bagging, as suggested above, will get you somewhere close to production, but will still fall short of industry standard and make pre-preg useage difficult. Good luck; interested to see what you might come up with, but personally, I’ll be buying my snow stuff and making my surfboards…I’d be begging some time on my former employers presses for the actual final run though…
g
P.S.; Foam makes a GREAT core for snowboards; Morrow made some amazing corecell cored boards, Nitro was using Rohacell and a buttload of carbon…I’ve ridden both, and still have my circa 1995 169 Morrow; it still gets laps every year, and still drops rocks…more than 200 days of riding on a foam/carbon/glass board and it still rules; very “natural” feel.
Way back when I had a pair of skis made by Rossignol. The core was an incredible combination of MANY sticks of different woods laid up strategically by grain direction and wood type to impart a specific flex pattern. I saw a sample cross section on display at a shop and it really was remarkable how all the woods went together. I sometimes wonder if the pro’s cores get special attention?
Many types of skiis and boards have a 3-D deck… certain areas, namely in the tips are cutaway in the core while other areas are built up - basic composite sandwich theory in action.
Sidewall design and construction ia another area of interest.
Simple tuning measures like edge bevels and even wax can make a difference in ultimate ride.
I’ve discussed the 3-D concept with some of the compsand guys as a way to focus flex pattern, but to my knowledge no takers. I believe it was Bert Burger who implied that constant flex pattern wasn’t necessarily the best pattern to have. I.E. maybe a “hinge” sort of flex with stiffness behind? With selective cutouts of the composite core, a flex “hinge” could be applied most anywhere…
Quote:
GreatWhiteNorth
basalt UD glass:
http://www.r-g.de/htmlexport/3641.html
commonly available…
but, as you say, you should have a press and a heat blanket.