Does anyone know who supplies corecell and airex in Australia??
Try FGI. (Fibreglass International) They have outlets in NSW, QLD, VIC, SA, WA. platty.
I’ll give em a go tomorrow !
Hi Bluejuice
In the UK SP systems import Corecell, I believe it is made in Canada. They may be worth a try in Oz too, they supply to the boatbuilders there.
Didn’t we all give up on Corecell during the windsurfing revolution around 1987? Too heavy, too thick, hard to stay wrapped, and gets more brittle with age?
Everyone went to divinicell, then to waterproof airex.
Tried FGI they don’t have it, Tried the ph number on ATL web site the got a message saying incorrect number, so I have sent them an email.
Waiting for SP systems to get back to me.
Lee I believe corecell doesn’t breakdown/crush and crumble over time as easily as divinycell and I don’t think Airex is available in Australia.
For sure every epoxy builder 15 years ago thought corecell was stronger, that’s one of the main reasons for putting up with the hassles of using it.
Problem was, it’s sooo strong compared to styro under it, and it doesn’t seem to laminate all that well with the fiberglass/epoxy skin, that only itself is strong, the whole unit breaks down with usage.
I think most of the SantaCruz epoxy builders were using it in the later '80’s, including the guy who glassed for RandyFrench customs, who should know how to build epoxy boards.
All fell apart before a weaker structured board would, but the corecell was usually intact and strong…everything around it fell apart.
But modern methods might be better, only time will tell.
wow Lee thats bizarre stuff!
would like to hear more comments on your experiences with it…
yeah corecell is super strong and harder to work with…airex is nice and flexible and has a nice color too…
BJ,
i was under the impression that corecell was originated in Australia…everytime i did a search the hits were from AU…not easy to get here in the states…wonder if speedneedle could help you out?
I don’t know willing Haut, Pearson, Wardy, Lars, or Stretch, in addtion to Colleta, are willing to share their info from the old days.
I’ve owned corecell boards from H, P, and L, and all were stoked at first, all bummed within a couple of season of headache breakdowns and breakages, rails splits, delams, and soft spots.
But like I said, with new resins, new ideas, maybe stipling for resin penetration, who knows what will work out in the future?
Possibly heavier than one pound blanks, too.
Bluejuice,
Airex is available in Oz, Miki knows who the supplier is, he told me but I lost the email.
Quote:
wow Lee thats bizarre stuff!
would like to hear more comments on your experiences with it…
yeah corecell is super strong and harder to work with…airex is nice and flexible and has a nice color too…
BJ,
i was under the impression that corecell was originated in Australia…everytime i did a search the hits were from AU…not easy to get here in the states…wonder if speedneedle could help you out?
Hi,
In the usa and canada you can order small quantities of corecell from <a href="http://www.noahsmarine.com">www.noahsmarine.com</a>
I'm sure you can get it from other places but that is where I get it from. If you want to order large quantities I understand you can contact the manufacturer directly.
I have been using it to make kiteboards for a few years now and am not too suprised by LeeDD’s toughness claims - it’s some really tough stuff even though according to the specs it’s not quite as strong as divinycell (if I remember correctly). The foam itself is much less brittle than divinycell (at least when both foam samples are new).
I haven’t really experienced any sort of “longevity” problems with it yet but my kiteboards have way more fiber reinforcement that a surfboard: Typically my kiteboards are 9mm (3/8") thick A500 corecell with the rocker and a bottom concave bent into it, and glassed with a total of 18 oz on the bottom and 21oz on the deck. I could probably get away with going lighter on the laminates. For sure I could go much lighter with a thicker core or a sandwich but I like my kiteboards thin and also extremely flexible by surfboard standards.
There’s this kiteboarding trick called a kite loop, where you jump in the air and then loop the kite around so that it powers you down into the water and you land really hard. My boards hold up pretty well to that - not all kiteboards can take that kind of abuse. If I do a lot of kite loops and hard landings on one of my boards I get some light heel dents after a season or two.
That’s my experience. It seems to be really tough stuff. I haven’t made any lightly laminated sandwich boards with it so I can’t really comment on how it works for that.
Trent
Quote:
Didn’t we all give up on Corecell during the windsurfing revolution around 1987? Too heavy, too thick, hard to stay wrapped, and gets more brittle with age?
Everyone went to divinicell, then to waterproof airex.
leedd …
better do some home work …
sounds like youve had experience with emailing your windsurfing rocker profiles direct to the shaping machine with the mobile phone you must have had back in 85 …
or maybe you managed to do that one before you were born …
pretty cool how you can make a product from materials that werent even invented yet …
regards
BERT
Lee from your experience are you saying that corecell starts to breakdown over a period of time? I’ve noticed with Div that after a couple of years (the areas under the feet) it starts to break up and when I have ground off the glass the div has broken down and crumbled extra layers of glass just delay it a bit longer. Is it too stiff that if the sandwhich flexes down and up again it causes the EPS beads to pull apart, like what seems to happen to coremat??
Pinhead I’ll do a search for Miki and email him thanks.
Gee Bert you just got in and posted before me then.
Hey Bert your up late it’s 10 pm in the west here which means it’s 1 am in Queensland
Bert, you can Email any of the shapers I listed, and they will tell you they tried corecell back in the early windsurfing days, around mid to late '80’s.
Problem was never the flats, it was the curve when you bag over the rails.
Kiteboards don’t need much bagging over curves, so mostly flats, it can work great, as proven in the early wakeboard industry before they discovered cheaper materials worked just as well.
Everything that comes around has been around already…
So does the corecell have a memory and want to uncurl from the rail and try and spring back to it’s flat shape?
With a year of time, some heat, and our water’s around 55, it would appear so.
Everyone even cut/score the outside so it takes less pressure to lap to the peak of the rail, but it still happens.
Worse, lotsa finbox problems. Not the strongbox’s themselves, the connection to the woodies and the connection from there to the foam.
I don’t know what the real problem was, I’d just get rid of the boards…or the g/f, before we opened things up.
As a surf shop employee, I gets lots of stuff really cheap, to try out, to advertise by mouth, to test ride…
leedd…
prior to 91 corecell didnt even exist …
in the early 90s it was still in development in the lab , not until the late 90s did it start to appear as a product for the composites industry and then only available in limited supply , its only been commercially available on a larger scale since 2003 …
so i would say your windsurfing friends were using a different product …
possibly …
coremat??
durakore??
corelite??
klegecell, divinycell, temanto, airex, all refer to themselves as core foams …
so its possibly a case of mistaken identity …
there was a high density urethane based foam at 140kg per m3 , i cant remember its name , but i used some in the early 90s and it had been around for some years , which displayed the same characteristics you described …
brittle , hard to bend , low heat distortion temps , went brown when exposed to light and self destructed in water , as is typical of any urethane based foam …
regards
BERT
hey bert
high modulus in NZ told me there would be no more corecell here and that airex was the available sans foam .they also said carbon fibre was getting almost impossible to get (twill anyway ,i can get a bit of unidirectional stuff). i got a stash of balsa and resin so its sweet .
also i found that the wholsale sheet cost of airex was more expensive then retail price on balsa per square meter
i probably will make the change to paulownia when i move up north as it seems theres good supply over here and the cubic meter price in awsome .it would work out to about $20 dollars per board not including milling and thickness sanding …at the moment Balsa is the biggest cost by far of a board .I prefer the high density stuff anyway, so paulonia or cedar is a logical progression for me.
any of you guys tried these timbers as a core material yet?