I am 15 years old and I live in Cornwall, England. I am making an environmentally friendly surfboard for my GCSE, DT project and I have been asked to create a discussion to give me a wide range of opinions and ideas on making this board. I am also considering making my own fins to make the board completley sustainable.
Could you please give me any ideas on suitable materials for the board and fins, designs suitable with the materials, positions for the fins and any other environmentaly friendly surfing products???
Give Tris at Homeblown (Redruth) a ring and ask him.
He’ll be able to give you all the information you need about materials etc, and supply them.
designs for the board and positions for the fins are a bit much. Although because the resin is a bit soft it tends to work better on logs or short fat fish type boards apparently, talk to Tris 'cause he told me this.
Oh, and these guys make plant based plastic resins, they’re based in Portreath, but have links with homeblown so talk to them first.
sorry that I can’t remember the guys name but he used to be based at the Eden project down near you (may well still be), anyways he has done some really interesting stuff re enviromentally sound boards, foam and resins…He’s also founder of surfers against sewage so will have some raelly useful info on the subject. He may be contactable via Eden or SAS.
In my opinion wood is the go though. Hemp or bamboo glass cloth, plant based resins?
Perhaps you could share your progress and thoughts with us here. Pictures are always good.
You can also check out the Greenlight Surboards website. They use EPS for the foam, bamboo stringers, bamboo fabric for glassing and have bioplastic leash cups and fins.
Just glassed my board using the bamboo fabric and RR epoxy. A little tricky to work with but not all that hard.
the others have given you sound points of contact which i dont think i can better but im sure we will all give you plenty of advice along the way!
the guys from sustainable composites, homeblown and eden project are linked to each other in some way i think its the fact they are business partners together but dont qoute me on this.
a friend of mine has tried their bio resin but found it difficult to set with hemp fabric as the uv rays needed to set the resin struggled to get through the fibres but he has tried cotton and it works fine.
jase is right about wood though in my opinion and if you can get away without fibreglassing it even better
Yeah i will definitly post some photos and info on how im getting on. But at the moment we are just doing a series of design ideas and material possibilities. A bit boring, but its got to be done!!!
Basically, the less rocker the faster the board. The more rocker, the more manoeuverable the board. But combinations are infinite. A minimum of rocker helps to avoid “pearling” on take-offs.
Talking about rocker alone is strictly theoretical since it interacts with other curves of the board (outline, rails) and with the fin(s).