There’s someone on the surfline forums who’s claiming
that he’s had a board made with “epoxy foam”.
I’m wondering if such a foam even exists, and if so,
has anyone ever heard of it being used for surfboard blanks?
I am of the opinion that this person is confused.
Although the guy most probably meant polystyrene foam with epoxy glassing, almost any plastic material can be blown into some kind of foam, using the right “porogenous agent” i.e. an additive which creates gas when mixed into said plastic. So epoxy foam might very well exist but I have never heard of it being used for surfboard blanks.
Howzit balsa, Very interesting, I’ve been working on a wooden sculpture restoration and have been mixing epoxy, milled fibers and Q-sel for a filler for the cracks in the wood. The other day I had some of the mix left over and just set it aside to cool down before throwing it away. When I went to throw it away I noticed it had all kinds of holes in it and it looked like a cup full of foam since it had expanded and over flowed the top of the cup, but it was a little heavy weight wise. This got me to thinking that it might be possible to make foam out of, but then I just said nah to heavy. Have no idea why it expanded or was full of holes but it got my brain working.Aloha,Kokua
Kokua,
You can get all kinds of resins in a foaming form. Epoxy, polyurethane etc. I think what you were thinking about - where some kind of hollow material like q-cells is bonded together with resin to make a kind of foam is called syntactic foam. I had the mad idea once that you could build a clear mold. Swish a mixture of q-cell, glass fibre and UV polyester resin around inside it, bath it in UV, open the mold, take out the “blank” and then tap it to drain out the uncatalysed resin. Hey presto a hollow blank.
bitchin
I wanna 62C
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we weill dominate
the Known universe
dr.zarkov
…ambrose…
galaxy clear with
multi tints in the pores
forward from steve shaw
author of surfboard builders journal
Hey everybody, there’s a popout company in Thailand where we need to have the world surfboard design award ceremony, at a hotel nearby, televised with Skip’ s videophone to eyesurfclub websiites worldwide.Here’s the deal: surfboard design stagnated for, what, three decades? Molders caught up, and Cobra in Thailand is popping away the jobs away from our brothers and sisters. We need to raise prize money for best working designs on surfboards and organize a kind of regional, then worldwide, new design competition. What sayest you? Chow Hana from Steve Shaw 808-521-0800, fax 808-531-2129. Honolulu
Shit, I said “mold” - Ambrose has rightly identified me as one of Satan’s henchmen. Wait a minute weren’t Clark blanks made in molds?
In boatbuilding we use an epoxy foam to fill hollow rudders and centreboards. It comes as 2 liquids which when mixed, poured into the hollow blade foam nicely and it STICKS!! Trouble is you’d have to form the deck and bottom first. I have tried allowing it to stand, foan and then sand it…No problems but the bubble sizes vary enoumously if it is allowed to foam “uncontained”.
I have made two half blades in a female mould, poured foam into each half, placed a ply board on top and when the foaming stopped and it cured cut it back to the mould line with a router then glued the 2 halves together and taped the edges, worked fine. Its the mould making process that ia such a pain…