OK Hippies…since we are talking eco stuff here there may be another way.Do you guys know what a gourd is?It’s a giant squash that grows fast and when you dry them out they become hollow shells that are tough as heck and light in weight.You see them at flea markets made in to bird feeders and other junk.The Japanese have developed a gourd that can be grown in a mold.They can make them any shape and some are like 6 feet long.Why not make a mold in the shape of an Al Merrick and just harvest that sucker.It would be hollow with seeds rattling around but who cares?Maybe you could inject some foam or something inside.Once you had the farm set up I bet boards would be around $2.00 each( plus a fin system of course.)I bet you pot growers out there would find this to be piece of cake and legal too. RB
your probubly joking but I wonder if the gourd would work if you injected it with foam! My girlfriend doesn’t have hairy armpits and dreadlocks but hey when it comes to searching for least toxic alternatives count me in.
There is a biodegradable cleaner you can use for your tools and hands that takes off resin It is at fiberglass supply or Harbor Freight i am not sure which. Stuff actually works good but I still use ascetone again on my tools right before I use them because it dries away so clean.
Anybody here done the Bamboo vaneers I heard about someone in Oz doing that and i heard the boards really go good
I think a gourd would be the ultimate hippie board… You just now need to find how you can grow a tie-dye one.
I want to be a gourd trainer! Been searching around here… Any idea what the name of that gourd is, or where you saw that story?
regards,
Brennan
“Sit gourd, sit. Good gourd.”
glass them to last, take good care, keep them out of the sun.
No one can train a gourd Brennan, but simply guide it through its groth so it may find its own potential
If you take all your empty beer cans to the recycling center it will make you look good to the Eco Gods and they will let you vent off some toxic fumes!
I recycle aluminun cans ,plastic bottles and paper products. I also get killer compost from the city of Oceanside for my garden.
No ,I am not a Hippie.
Ray
…where’s Cheyne ?
…and ‘rasta’, and dick van straalen when you need 'em ?
Actually, come to think of it…I seem to recall some ‘Tom’, an american fellow, up in Noosa in the D.V.D. ‘Sprout’ making some boards that didn’t seem to feature a lot of waste …
ben
I have decided to quit shaping these toxic death sticks, grow dreadlocks, not shower or groom myself for three monthes and ride mats of bundled straw so that I may be one with my earth mother
Seriously though when is clark foam going to get their shit together and recycle broken board foam to make new ones
Does anyone know if I can get those recycled corn or potato starch eps blanks on Oahu without shipping
Howzit stingray, Recycling is a good thing, but you should see what they’ve done here in hawaii for a recycling law. It’s a joke which has turned into a hidden tax. The state tacks on 6 cents per can, bottle , plastic bottle. then we are supposed to take the stuff to a recycle center to redeem 5 cents. The state uses the 1 cent to run the system but the big joke is there are only a couple of redemption centers and they are open only a few hours a day and here on the north shore we have 1 center that is open one day for 3 hours. Therefore people have large amounts on recyclables and can’t redeem them. That means the state is getting to keep a lot of the money and the recyclers get paid by the state 2 cents and then get to sell the aluminum cans for more profit. The consumers are the losers and we are getting really mad. Aloha,Kokua
yo kokua
of course it is a hidden tax, but they had to start someplace… it will get better as time goes on. they do the same thing in many other states and it works just fine. i only moved to the islands 6 years ago but two of the major bummers about living here were always throwing away cans and the piles of trash every place you turn… the last few years people have really stepped up against the dumping and it has made a huge difference, hopefully the recycling will do the same…
Howzit jip, I was actually doing more recycling before the new law, now I have a van full of empties. I think the state should have followed the way some of those other states do it. Unfortunatly the stores were able to convince the state they shouldn't have to deal with this mess. What are you doing with your empties? Aloha,Kokua
Yes ,
The same things happened here in California.
But I still recycle.
Hi skeletor! Nice thread! I’m also interested in eco-conscious board building as you can tell from my thread about the hempboard I made. Like cleanlines mentioned I had problems with delam…I thought this was because I forgot to put in a ventplug(am using biodegradable Eps),maybe this is not the only reason?poor bonding?what if I bagged my board? can anyone help with that issue?But I’m going to give hempcloth a couple of more chances so will post when next hempboard is done,but could take a while.I havent found any replacement for todays resins so I’m using epoxy now,but am thinking of doing some research about an old japanese method using tree resin.
regards from Japan.
the stores pulled a fast one…
here in Massachusetts, it boils down to ‘if you sold it, you gotta take it back’. Not just the redemption centers, but all retailers. http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/regs.htm . Basicly, the people who take it back get 2.25 cents per, whoever brings back said container gets the full nickel. the money saved on cleanups, etc, is prolly worth it all by itself. and kids can pick up bottles and cans and save up for boards, etc…
hope that’s of use. also, see http://www.bottlebillhawaii.org/
doc…
Morphing from eco-shaping to recycling in Hawaii- I’ll harp in. On visits to Hawaii over time, one gets the feeling that they must have an endless landfill. The throw away society that is entrenched has its head buried in the sand. In 2005 we’re still talking about bottles and cans. What about paper and plastic trash, wind generation, solar power. Hawaii has a long way to go, and in my opinion could be a model for the world. F$%k Starbucks!
let me follow that a bit - considering that we are talking about an island with high transport costs, not only should be but it’s almost an economic necessity.
you would,'t freakin believe the hassle they are making here for somebody who wants to set up a windmill farm. Rich bozos with NIMBY on their minds…
Yoshio I saw your hemp board and they looked great man I liked the natural color of the hemp when it was glassed on. what weight cloth did you use? I am still waiting to hear back from sweetwater fibers about their hemp silk blend and weather or not it will be porus enough to absorb resin.
Do you think if you stoped sanding your blank at 100 or 120 grit you might have gotten better results with the delam. I wonder if part of it is because of the cloth not being entirely clean of small particles and stuff which wouldn’t allow it to bond as well.
Where did you get your recycled blanks from? Was it from the US or Japan, and did you have to glue up your own stringer
Kokua, I know what you mean about our new recycling law it is full of these beuracratic loopholes for the state to take money without responsibility of showing representation for it, and it kinda sucks for the outer islands, but here on Oahu since the program has started it has been great. The homeless are fed and i don’t think i have ever seen Ala Moana park so clean. They went about it the wrong way and should have just sold a curbside pickup contract to some dumping company. Hey what can you do Hawaii lawmakers don’t have the best record of making aplicable laws
I’ve never had a hemp board delaminate.
This is a relitivly simple subject.
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Use recyclable foam (eps) and recycle the scrap. It gets ground up and reused in insulation foam. We’ve done this for over 15 years.
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Use high solids resins (epoxy). Use just enough to do the job… reduce the waste. Been doing this for 25 years.
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Eliminate clean up solvents. No more acetone. Clean up with soap (GoJO type) and water. Wear disposible gloves. Wipe squeegees clean with scrap fiberglass. Use disposible brushes. Been doing this for almost 20 years.
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Capture sanding dust with air filters… over 10 years.
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Build more durable boards using better materials and techniques.
You can’t eliminate your footprints but you can make them signifcantly smaller. Talks cheap… if your going to talk the talk then walk the walk. It ain’t rocket science.