Hello there!After a few months of no-shaping i decided to try to shape something new for very mushy surf.In italy it's very hard to find blanks, and even so I can never find something wide enough, thick enough to make my ideas come true.So i decided to make my own blanks.I don't have problems to make moulds but the thing i don't understand is how to produce a foam that looks so white and hard enough.Only thing i can find on the net is that bi-component polyurethane to spray, but it looks to yellow and it is too soft (the one that stinks of fish when you start working it).Do any of yo know how to make something that is approximately like the modern surf blanks?Thanks
You could hotwire your own blanks from a block of EPS… Any size/shape you want.
You’d need to glass the board with Epoxy rather than “normal” polyester resin though.
If you’re interested, search the archives for “hotwire”… Lot’s of good stuff
Thanks I already knew that, but i still want to use poly for glassing.And anyway eps blocks are pretty impossible to be found over here.
What city are you in?
Why not buy a blank from FRANCE?
Making a blank is a nasty job.
Kind regards,
surfding
We have a dealer of burford foam,which is quite expensive and hasn't got a big choice of blanks available.Shipping costs from France are very high, because of the dimensions of blanks.Surfriding it sounds like you know a lot about making a blank.Could you help me in some how please?
If i understand this correctly, the density of the foam that you see in the blanks is the result of keeping the foam under pressure as it expands. This is a feat. I think the moulds to do this require hydraulics to open and close the lids.
There is and add in the industry section, selling the "Ice 9" (a now out of business blank manufacturer) moulds.....it says they are built from 600-900 (270-400kg) lbs of airplane grade aluminium.
The cost of building that would surpass the shipping costs pretty rapidly id say.
There were other DIY blank threads on Sways. I dont know how they ended.
Not certain however the molds that ICE 9 had built were originally $40,000?
You can make a cement mold as long as you have a plug to start with.
It will cost you at least $3,000 to make a crude one.
It sounds like a hobby not worth the effort in ITALY.
Unless you just hotwire eps to make your blank and use epoxy resin.
I asked what city you lived in because my sister lives in Taraquinna.
Kind regards,
surfding
http://brown-fish.blogspot.com/2008/01/ice-9-foam-works.html
The site above has an embedded youtube link with the ICE9 production bay for creating blanks.
Short video but very eye opening.
I think you could use cement to create the to halves of your mold, but then you need to build the system of counter weights to oepn and close it. Ther’es only so much time before the mix goes off and you need to have the mold securely set or it’s abig mess.
That’s the easy part. I think the actual mixing and pouring of the mix is the key to getting a workable blank.
There’s some funny clips from an old Bruce Brown surf movie showing a guy making a mess in the Walker blank factory. There’s also several clips on youtube showing other companies blowing blanks. Sorry no links for you.
I can’t imagine italy has now eps. It’s used in road building lots. Maybe another kind of insulation foam like xps? Making pu blanks is no realistic option IMO. Get them from france is- either that or EPS is the way to go. If you can get your hands on a 30kg3 block you can hotwire several blanks for under 30€. If you need help with rocker templates I be glad to send you some via post. You can tranfer them to thin mdf and hotwire away.
That … or print em yourself… my advice- print em on one piece paper… oke back to molds en yellow pu
I’ll leave the idea about making blanks by myself.I didn’t know there was so much under blanks processing procedure.I’ll try to find some factory that produces high density eps.Do any of you know what kind of density would be perfect for shaping surfboards?Thanks
30 kg 3 is good for normal hand lay up lamination. A common dimension is 4m x 1.2m x .50m (aprox. 13' x 4' x 19.75"). You should be able to squeeze out 20 6'4" surfboards out of that block easy. Very cheap!