Can any of you that have worked with either corecell or divinycell as a skin material for watercraft weigh out the pros and cons between the two,it would help to have some opinions on which is better.Thanks.
Corecell is definitely superior in strength, both through looking at the specs and just picking up a piece and feeling the difference.
But, the lower weight grades, such as 60 kg/m3 - 100 are really coarse in their cell size, and they don’t have a natural skin on them.
This means it drinks resin like crazy, you will end up with a heavier board.
It’s also harder to sand, if you want to fair it out super smooth (which I always do).
So i’d actually go for Dcell or Airex, they are better suited to the application, despite being “weaker” foams.
There are different properties that make them suitable for different applications.
The heavier grades of corecell are awesome, really fine and buttery smooth, but of course they are heavy.
Corell is a reasonably nice colour, whereas Dcell can be downright offensive… the dark grey stuff looks pretty cool though.
Hey Jesus…
Everything Kit said…
Here’s one I made from offcuts splicing BOTH corecell and Dcell together, just for fun, but I was thinking stiffer in the tail section. Its not some thing I took further, but its a possibility…
Josh
I just pulled a sheet of Corecell onto the deck of a 7_10. I didn’t have my roller handy so I squeegeed a layer of 4oz on and the Corecell definitely sucked up the epoxy. This is my 1st experience with Corecell. I was thinking about vacuuming the 4oz outer lam (1st time as well).
Would sealing the Corecell with lightweight spackle be a bad idea? Thanks for any input
Bert hinted in a post a while ago about using gravity to keep it from soaking the epoxy.
Vacuum bag with a bleeder cloth, but after you put it in the bag, flip it over, wet side down.
But really, how much weight are we talking? maybe an ounce?
A friend of mine recently glassed his d-cell skinned board over 1# eps and the d-cell was un sealed.He said it would soak up the resin and leave dry spots in the lam and eventually the cloth would separate from the d-cell.He kept nursing trouble areas with resin until all appeared good.The finished board weighs 10lbs,and its a 6’2 fish with 1#eps,2oz cloth,1/8 d-cell,and 4oz cloth around the whole board,and 1/2 d-cell rails,and the blank with the d-cell on it was amazingly light unlike any blank we had ever seen.So we are talking about pounds,not ounces.
not to mention brittle i would think with all that resin soaked into the foam.
Thats very impressive,is that corecell runnin up the center of the deck or something else?What’s the story with the logos,did or do you work for firewire?
I found that the 3mm (1/8") 80kg/m3 corecell I can lay my hands on soaked up about its own weight in resin…
Scary.
Here’s a plug for good ol’ wood! Sand it really fine and it doen’t soak up much.
Ahhhhhhh natures flagship composite!
Speedy will be characteristically modest/shy/coy about his FW involvement, but it’s safe to say he was (past tense) one of the brains behind the tech.
Although i’m pretty sure that his tech is pushing on more than just a wee bit now he’s the master of his own destiny…
I agree with Kit and Josh - the d-cell is flexier but I think its actually better for surfboards.
Elongation at fail for d-cell is 30% whereas core-cell is about 8%. So
it’ll bend more before snapping but still has the compressive and shear
strength to work as a sandwhich core.
The 80 kgm3 D-cell I used (the grey stuff) didn’t seem to drink much resin on my last board. I did spray the foam red before doing hand layed up 4 oz on the outside, however the inside 2 oz seemed ok. The cell size is pretty small, smaller than core-cell. One side of the d-cell I got seemed to have a smooth surface and the other had a more gritty honed look to it.
Smooth side
Gritty side
It might be that one side drinks more than the other - have to do some tests.
