Hi all — I make a fiberglass-reinforced cork bodyboard/paipo hybrid board called the Bodypo. The board is a sandwich composite with alternating layers of cork and fiberglass—shaped like a bodyboard, but thin and fast like a paipo.
More relevent to Swaylocks, though—I sell Bodypo blanks, which you can shape yourself at home with really simple tools (a saw, sandpaper) that I’m sure you all have lying around. The cork is infused with polyurethane and epoxy and the resulting boards don’t require sealing. So they are super simple to work with. You can shape it in the morning and surf it in the afternoon. If you don’t like the shape you can continue to shape it throughout the lifetime of the board.
Here is more info on the blank: http://californiasurfcraft.com/products/bodypo-blank
Here is a step-by-step on shaping the blanks: http://californiasurfcraft.com/blogs/news/18973875-how-to-shape-a-bodypo-blank
Here’s a group on Facebook that likes to shape an discuss Bodypo: http://www.facebook.com/groups/148150308854086/
And here is a short, silent video showing how I like to shape the raw blanks into boards. The blanks I sell are sanded and have their leash plug installed, so they are a little different than the one I’m working with in the video:
http://youtu.be/7VEi2pQOjPA
I just wanted to introduce the Bodypo blanks to the Swaylocks community and answer any questions you all have. Thank you!
Is there a lot of flex in this blank/board?
What is the thin layer you are sanding off of the surface in the video?
The blank is a bit pricey…
Here’s a video that shows the torsional flex on these boards: http://instagram.com/p/575MSRifzM/
They have more flex than a wood paipo, less flex than a foam bodyboard. The raised area in the center of the board adds stiffness—the center is approximately 2.5x stiff than the edges of the board. The design allows for a good amount of torsional flex (shown in the video above), but I’ve taken away a lot of the longitudinal flex, which often creates drag.
In the video I’m sanding off excess resin that has infused into the cork during the vacuum bagging process. The blanks are made with a wet layup and vacuum bagged over a mold. Under vacuum the resin seeps into the surrounding cork, creating a permanent, mechanical bond throughout the board. It is incredibly unlikely that these boards will ever delam. Also, the resin plugs up some of the empty space in the cork, sealing it from within.
After they are out of the bag I sand down the excess resin to expose the surface of the cork. That gives it its good looks, but also adds grip on the deck. No need for wax. I leave the hull as exposed cork, too, because it doesn’t ding on rocks and reefs, it’s easy to repair if you do get a ding, it adds a bit more buoyancy, and it’s easier to work with as a shaper. Theoretically, for whatever it’s worth, you could argue that the exposed cork hull disrupts the boundary layer and actually makes the board go faster than a slick bottom…but I’m not sure that theory really holds much water (excuse the pun). In my testing I didn’t find any difference in speed between a cork hull and an exposed fiberglass hull.
And not to ignore the point you make about price. Sure, it’s not cheap, but it’s handmade in the USA out of sustainable materials, and that’s a pretty expensive thing to do. It’s nearly $100 cheaper than a finished board, so you can see I’m trying to keep the price down. Free shipping right now, too.
Well done , something original and new made in the usa , good luck to you .
