This is a mini mat I made I’ve been welding the beams and seams using a prolux iron. It’s all been going well but it’s a slow process. Was wondering if anyone knows how to make a straightedge welder for these materials? So an ibeam can be welded in one or 2 presses?
Can you describe how you sealed the boston valve to the mat? I’m planning out a build of my first mat. I see the “donut” of sealed material around the valve, but is the valve glued to the “donut” of fabric (if that makes sense)?
Hi Damien, there was an American guy, Dale Solomonson who posted a lot of pics using a series of soldering irons on angled metal and he clamped the fabric between 2 of these heated metal strips to seal the mat. Damn complex and slow but also limiting as he could only do straight lines and 90° curves.
You can find the pics of Dale and his mat making machines on the net.
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Hi mate yeah the Boston valve has a tpu base on the valve so it’s heatsealable also so just weld it in the same way I do the other welds
Cheers mate I’ll definitely look into this
You make a donut shape for the inside of the mat. It goes around the valve and welds/glues to the inside of the mat. You’ll see it through the outside of the mat exactly around the valve.
If you want a video let me know.
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Not sure why my pics aren’t uploading but yeah there’s 2 ways to weld in those valves I’ve got two different styles of Boston valve and both have a hard but flexible TPU base so I just cut a hole in my deck where I want the valve to go, nice and snug so it just slips through, then from the top side of the deck apply heat down onto that tpu ring and finish the weld moving around the valve. The other way is by adding another layer (donut) of the same material your using and placing that under your deck and sandwiching the valve between then also applying heat from above to make a bigger seal and locking the valve in place. I’ve done both ways and haven’t had any issues yet. Sorry I should’ve been more detailed the first time
(I don’t get notifications for this forum for some reason also sorry it took ages to get back to you)
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Thanks Damien! I was able to get the valve put onto my mat. I think I got the dimensions wrong but it holds air
That looks good mate well done, the coloured material isn’t as forgiving as the black ey! You can see internally a lot more of what’s going on
The clear TPU coating definitely shows a lot more, which has been helpful for me to see the weld contacts as I’m learning the process
I agree I use tape to mark my areas to be welded so after the weld I can remove it and if the materials transparent there’s no internal marking on the mat
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That looks great. I hope your seams hold. My first mat almost every seam popped the second I hit the water.
How did you make yours Marc? Weld or glue?
I made 2 full size mats and have a handful of sessions on each with no leaks whatsoever. You may have had issues with your material. I had to find higher quality material here in the US from Seattle Fabrics after getting some crappy material that was significantly cheaper.
Hello from Munich/Germany! I´m a 61 year old skateboarder and came across one of my old skate heroes (Henry Hester) to surf mats. I just started my first mat 200d/70d with TPU coated Nylon and will post the next days some pictures of that. I decided to heat-weld the seams with an iron, got some Boston valves too. The first glue, I bought failed and I will get a special glue here from Berlin, called 1K Fixid with cleaner in the next minutes to glue in the valve and seal the mat completely. I will start this weekend with another design with some rocker in front and back and 4 pontons. Must admit, that I adore the tapered designs of those surffoil-mats. Thinking about that as well. The first is a copy of a Krypt mt5, I ordered some weeks ago. We will test those, driving end of the month to Hossegor on the French atlantic coast. We will have as well an opening here in Munich next Sunday of O2 Surftown, a huge and beautiful new wavegarden. A big shout-out to the participants of this thread, as they saved me so much time. PS: To Surffoil: you stated, that it is a long and time consuming process to heat-weld the seams, which I agree. I did the first mat with an cheap amazon iron (I guess, that worked). Anyhow, there are heat-rollers for sealing truck planes around, that might do the job, as they are variable in temperature and just roll straight and curved. They charge around 300 € for those, maybe I get one of those. Thanks again for all the valuable input I got here.
update: The glue, I ordered, is incredible, so I decided to change lanes and glue the next mat comletely.
Turdlurker, what fabric did you end up choosing from Seattle fabrics? I couldn’t decide if I wanted the fabric to be ripstop. In my head, ripstop doesn’t seem like it should glide on a wave. I am still shopping around for any nylon that is 70d.
I used the TPU coated 70D taffeta for bottoms and internal I-beams. I’ve used the ripstop nylon 200d for upper, oxford 200d for uppers, and 400d packcloth for uppers. The 70d taffeta has worked well for me.
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what type of glue are you using? are you using any specific solvent as a primer?
Thanks for your response!
I fell in love with surf matting on a 4th gear flyer, which is two different materials like you’re talking about.
Do you (or others) believe in using two different materials or just 70D with adding grips. Thoughts?