I just read on another website that firewire may be replacing the balsa on the rail with carbon fiber instead.This was from someome that was at the ASR industry show so I don’t know if this is true.It would seem to be more expensive to do that but the guy said it was to improve the strength of the board.
haha lol
sounds like marketting hype to me.
carbon would make the board stiffer,
thus more brittle,
thus weaker,
not stronger.
composites don’t follow the same rules as tradition pupe boards.
pupe were stiff already so you could strengthen them by using stronger materials. The way you strengthen a composite is by alowing all the materials to work, move and give together. The materials need to be matched. The stiffest/strongest part is actually the weak link in the board.
4est, I disagree that the simple presence of CF would make a board stiffer, more brittle, and weaker.
Composites are never that straightforward. Used improperly, it could certainly have that effect. But used in the proper amount, layup, and shape and the effect could be just the opposite.
CF golf club shafts aren’t designed to be stiff & brittle, they’re the lightest, most flexible, and durable choice on the market. CF rear triangles in bikes are more flexible as suspension, while more stiff for energy transfer, than anything but titanium. Its all in the engineering.
In the case of FW, I’d suspect they just want to eliminate the variables. I think Bert chose a lot of his balsa by feel… you just can’t train a production staff to do that. And you can’t control exactly what your wood supplier sends. But every yard of 4 oz CF is going to be exactly the same. So once you figure out the correct engineering, your product will be more uniform.
"4est, I disagree that the simple presence of CF would make a board stiffer, more brittle, and weaker. "
Benny, very true, quilty as charged of over simplifying, which was the point I was actually trying to make.
So let me restate the point… adding CF will not necisariliy make the board any stronger.
I personally believe the idea of going to CF has less to do with design and more to do with taking advantage of a the trend where the public thinks CF is better. Maybe I’m being unfair in my skeptisim. We’ll see.
I just feel firewire is more interested in hype than performance. I did finaly see a set of firewire boards in my local shop and they were nice. But they look more like lite pupe boards than the compsands BB and sway crew build. i.e. they were all tending to follow traditional size dimensions and not tending towards wider thinner boards.
So after all the knocking I just did, I did enjoy fondeling the boards.
Here’s a thread by one T. Stamps who was experimenting along those lines a while ago. If you’re out there Mr. Stamps how about a ride report?
http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=333942;#333942
october aussie surfing life mag
Hi Barb , I saw that too and my first thought was “holy shit this new tech thing is really gunna happen”.
JS are one of the biggest domestic surfboard makers in OZ with some serious surf star power at their disposal (Parko, Occy, Bruce Irons etc ). If they go epoxy perimeter stringer sandwich tech then the whole citadel will collapse. Wonder who taught em the tech ? Anyone know what Parko and BI are riding at Trestles for the comp ? Very intersting times. GL must be laughing. Wonder how Bert feels about these guys starting the tech in his (new) backyard. They’ve basically ripped off his whole trip.
looked very much like bruce irons was on a perimeter stringer board at trestles…he ripped too, but then, he always does
barb that pic of parko is he on a JS board and is that a board ad to sell a compsand board?
Yes and yes. A perimeter carbon stringer epoxy compsand of some description. (sorry to answer for you Barb).
surfercross, yeah its a JS
i’m guessing its not a composite sandwich board, more likely just carbon fibre wrapped on the rails of a
high density eps blank
there are a couple of aussie name shapers dabbling with the concept
one of them claims to have a patent pending which i find interesting
Hey Lennox, I would think GL and BB are laughing at it all.
The hallway with many doors.
patent pending
well hes done his money then eh?
I dont much about patent laws but you would think so.
At $900 aussie for one he’s probably making some $ though.