After checking out Shaperoom.net I couldn’t help but notice that there are EPS blanks available and some nice looking balsa composite boards being made. I don’t understand much of it but the photos show a squared off templated blank, a big block of EPS and a nice finished board…
http://www.shaperoom.net/articles_surf_interview_shapers_46.html
This is an article on the new “atua.cores” website www.atuacores.com
Photos can be found on the last page, this link shows my last 6’6" shortboard http://www.atuacores.com/realisations4.php
My brother and girlfriend manage Atua.cores and for now they specialize in EPS cutting with the numerical hot wire cutter we purpose-built. Anybody can have a blank cut to their specifications, either from the catalogue or totally custom. We cut 2 EPS densities, 1 for “normal” construction with fiberglass and epoxy, 1 for sandwich technology. I tried sandwich construction after trying vacuum bagging fiberglass on XPS, but it would easily pressure ding with 2X6 oz on each side due to the low thickness of the composite, so the next step for me was to move to sandwich construction. At the same time, Bert Burger started his now world famous thread and like others I got really inspired and could mix my own thoughts with all the hints Bert gave to us all. Sandwich construction is a must! We want to give people materials to build better boards, either EPS/Epoxy or sandwich technology.
The web site is very new and an english version might be online soon, sorry.
WIll they ship blanks within Europe ? How much for a blank ?
Having seen Pierre’s 6’4" and a couple of pre-shapes in person, I’d say that they’re on to something. We plan to use their services for pre-shaping a series of Chris Garret style wood-skinned boards, as well as for ‘standard’ sandwich boards for our shop. Great guy, great ethics, and a lot of passion; I hope this is just the beginning of a successful project for them.
If there’s any info that’s lacking from shaperoom due to translation problems, don’t hesitate to ask. There are several of us who’ll be happy to provide English summaries or answers to specific questions.
I thought this would be a place to give a plug for Airframe. He is doing the same type of service. He uses Greg Loehr’s templates and he makes both traditional and parabolic stringer versions. Its worth checking out!
I thought this would be a place to give a plug for Airframe. He is doing the same type of service. He uses Greg Loehr’s templates and he makes both traditional and parabolic stringer versions. Its worth checking out!
Good call Dan! Ken is a great guy…here’s the link
http://segwaycomposites.com/FoamBlanks.html
Check out his carbon fiber boards while you’re there [indent]
Gil[/indent]
Pierre!!!
At least. Someone here in Europe can cut EPS blanks!!!
Any chance to get sent some of them here to Spain???
Any chance to suply also the sandwich core material??? (very difficult for me to find here)
Hey Pierre -
The boards shown in the “vignettes” pages are looking really good. You guys are ON IT!
Yes we would like to supply sandwich core materials, that would be balsa wood at first (very good core material, very nice looking and no pollution involved unlike PVC foams!). We should also be able to ship to other European countries, the costs are being calculated right now!
Thanks John for the kind comments. I’m looking forward to make other boards and refine technics. Swaylocks is a really good source for inspiration.
Jeffrey, I’m looking forward to meet you again, so we can discuss about the projects. Nice discussion in perspective, nice projects from both sides! Thanks for your kind comments.
Aloha PierreK
but what is that material is running down the middle of your 6’6"?
and
did you wrap those angled pieces of wood around the rail or did you use wood rails and just join them on the top and bottom with out wrapping?
I would think trying to wrap the rial across the grain around such a tight curve would be difficult versus bending the wood along the grain.
Pretty board…
Pierre,
Nice to see this. The technology for this construction comes originaly from Europe. Now the continent has a supplier of blanks. Hope to get some resin over there soon.
Blank suppliers now in:
TX
FL
Europe
CA
OR
NC
NJ
Brazil
Costa Rica
Need a few more …
HI and Aus would be nice.
Hey Greg,
Who’s the NJ blank supplier?
Hi Oneula,
The dark band in the middle of my board is just paint, I painted the wood before glassing, with acrylic paints without thinning because the wood would suck it otherwise and it would bleed under the masking tape. I didn’t wrap the wood around the rails. Here’s what I did, Bert Burger’s style board :
1- I cut a blank in EPS foam (10 kg/m3 desity, a little bit more than 1 lb/sqft I think) with our CNC hot wire foam cutter (had to build it before making the board)
2- I built the balsa rails with 4 thicknesses of 3 mm balsa wood. I used the offcuts of the outline to push the wood against the blank, the planks were taped together at the nose (making a “hinge” section). I used paper tape to join the planks together, and the tape stays there forever once glued, except on the outside. I used white vinylic glue, so there are no concerns with toxicity, and it sticks well wood onto EPS. When gluing the rails, the blank was on it’s bottom offcut with weights so it wouldn’t twist.
3- I finished making the rails by gluing balsa blocks where needed at the tail section (where the balsa planks wouldn’t bend easily enough).
4- I shaped the blank and inserted balsa blocks for the fin boxes (future)
5- I prepared top and bottom skins by taping (outside face) 2mm balsa planks together. I used the corner of my table with protruding wood blocs so I could align the planks at 90° and tape them with very little work. There I realised that taping the planks at an angle make a skin that flexes much more than having the planks longitudinally taped together. Putting the planks like that doesn’t allow the wood to go around the rails for sure.
6- I put 3.5 oz fiberglass under the wood with resin on top and bottom skins and bagged them on the shaped blank at slightly more than -0.1 bar depression (-0.12 maybe).
7- One of the longest part of the work, cleaning the edges of the skins that overlap the balsa rails.
8- I finished cleaning all the work and prepare the board to be glassed on the outside, I glued the Future boxes on.
9- Big mistake, this time, I wanted to experiment glassing using a thick PVC plastic (like the ones used for making the bottom of pools) in order to have the finished slick aspect of the plastic on the board once cured. I put the fiberglass and resin on the plastic, and put everything on the bottom of the board that was laying bottom up on 2 EPS blocks, on an 18 mm pine board, everything in the vaccum bag. When I applied the vacuum, it wouldn’t roll my fiberglass+plastic around the rails like I wanted it to and I could see the once flat 18 mm pine board flex upwards and the board have many inches more rocker downwards. The pressure was trying to pull everything together (I should have expected that anyway, stupid boy!!!). The nice thing was that I could then verify what Bert Burger was saying, these boards can flex way further without braking…and go back to their original shape…extremely impressive “experiment”. I had to stop that if I didn’t want 10" nose and 7" tail rockers, I stripped the plastic out and ended up glassing by hand like I usually do, with a roller (excellent tool for that in my opinion, you use very little resin and it spreads it very evenly!).
10- I cleaned the lap very easily the next morning as the resin was set but not too hard yet.
11- I fiberglassed the deck trying the same thing as for the bottom, but the board was lying on the bottom offcut so it couldn’t bend like before. I used 1 X 4 oz fiberglass on both the bottom and the deck.
The result using the plastic sheet on fiberglass under vacuum wasn’t too good as the surface was mostly even except “holes” where there wasn’t enough resin to make the perfect finish.
12- I cleaned the lap very easily once again (so easy with 1 X 4 oz fiberglass)
13- I directly glossed the board with resin + 10% monomere styrene + 5% waxed styrene as I read on Swaylocks. 1X 4 oz weave is very fine and my lap was on the rail so easy to clean well (no added thickness then, and it had been bagged, so well compacted).
14- It ended up that the bottom that I eventually glassed by hand had a better finish than the top that I glassed under vacuum with the plastic sheet. I had better vacuumed using peel ply and breather like usual but I wanted the slick finish straight away…
15- Sand and polish the board. I had a few sand through though, but that’s OK. The weight of that board is 2250g without fins. I’m happy with how it rides for now, haven’t tried it enough though (4-5 sessions for now).
Thanks for the nice comments.
Pierre
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Hi Greg,
Your resin has to be in Europe too, it seems to be soooo good, we’re lacking such specialized product even if there are good resins here. We are using 1.5 lb/sqft EPS for cutting blanks, I think this is a good compromise for making light and strong surfboards the “traditionnal” way, and we use 0.625 lb/sqft EPS for the “sandwich” blanks. Your influence goes to Europe too, all your posts on EPS/epoxy construction are a rare resource on how to proceed to make “better” boards without being so far from the “traditionnal” way to proceed. Hopefully, all those info will be able to spread in Europe too and change people’s way of making surfboards. Thanks
Pierre
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Burnsie, the english version of the website (www.atuacores.com) is online yet though still not perfect. You can ask for international shipping prices, shipping to Europe is possible.
hey pierre , hope you guys are gonna split that prize money with me ???
kind of ironic , that all the entrants who made the finals had stuff based on my work …
na only joking …
look forward to working with you guys in the future …
i havent been able to respond to any emails coz my computer and office equipment were temporarily lost in transit …
did you get to see the boards nev took to france ???
ok getting late gota go …
regards
BERT
Hi Bert,
Actually we’re two different Pierre (“PierreB” and “PierreK”) !!!
I (PierreB) is the Pierre who built a hollow wooden board and
who, along with Jeffrey Swartwood won the second prize at
Eurosima with a project of building eco-friendly boards made
with XPS and wood veneer (no fiberglass, no resin).
The other Pierre (PierreK) is the one who built several sandwich
boards inspired with your technique and who now started up
a business selling EPS foam blanks. Pierrek and I live not far from
each other and are good friends
PierreK did not participate at the Eurosima event. This is
another company named KS that came up with the same idea
as him and won the 1st prize !!!
I had the chance to meet Nev at the Eurosima and got to see
the boards he had taken to France. Needless to say the boards
are very impressive : ultra light, strong (amazing to see Nev
throwing them on the floor and jumping up and down on them),
interesting flex/spring, beautiful looking … I wish I had had the
opportunity to test ride one …
ahhh …
sorry for the confusion …
i went back to my email box and just presumed you were one in the same as i have emails passed on to me from nev …
yes i was examining some boards in the dispatch area today , that nev had brought back …
was he the only one throwing them around and jumping on them ???
theres about 4 boards that look like they have been trampled by a heard of buffalo …
still in one piece and straight , but so many scratches that tell me they got some serious punishment …all the little pieces of blue metal carpark gravel embeded in the decks gives me a bit of idea what happened to them …
hopefully it wont be to long before you get a chance to try one …
once we sort out who will be selling them …
question ?/
how long have you been doing xps with veneer over the top ???
ive had some interesting experiences with sandwich over xps , just wondered how you got around the problems , or are they still to surface ???
i could probably guess , that because you arent using resin or glass , you would have a decent thickness veneer which would add the needed stiffness to stop the xps failing in shear loads …
we probably meet up in the future …
well done on the second prize …
we reckon it was rigged all you french guys winning a contest run by french guys …
next time we will have the contest in oz ???
just fun …
nev reckons he had a ball over there and the general local industry seemed to be more progressive than what were used to over here …
maybe moulded epoxy imports have hit your side harder , plus there is bic on your side to , which would mean a higher percentage of epoxy boards in the general market place , giving wider exposure to more people showing the differences in epoxy against traditional polyester boards …
ok cya …
regards
BERT