mucking around with bamboo woven and xps

General Discussion
1

Hey there 

 

Long time reader first time writer!

 

I have jumped on the bamboo bandwagan… love it so far, using bamboo woven fabric and not having any issues so far… doing 2nd board now… (loving the no itching sanding!!)

There was a lot of hype around the bamboo fabric in older threads, but not much mentioned anymore. Does it have problems?

 

Just want some thoughts before I order more fabric!!

Cheers

 

 

2

Bamboo is good stuff, however you have to paint the board like firewire does, because it does not come out white and looks like a 30 year old board. You can not bleach the fabric because it weakens it immensely. Check out the inlays the firewire has been doing since the paired up with Arbor. They look really nice. If you are looking for bamboo stuff give bryan a call at greenlight surf supply.

3

been there

done that

almost over it

 

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/IMG00003-1.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/IMG00002-1.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/P1010707-2.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/BAQuiver3d.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/PICT0493.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/PICT0528.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/PICT0554.jpghttp://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/PICT0554.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/PICT0590.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/PICT0603.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/PICT0809.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/BA1E.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/P1010663-1.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u38/oneula/P1010673-1.jpg

 

4

Thanks Bplante26

I do paint it already as I use a ultra light weight filler for my final coat. which is tan in colour (so mixed with the rtmx blue xps and bamboo it does look very “earthy” unless I paint it!!)

 

I already have a great supplier of the fabric, as its very different in what greenlight supplies (greenlight is a knitted fabric and has 5% lycra… or it was last time I checked their website). 100% bamboo woven fabric no lycra and only a little stretch… works more like fiberglass (140gsm or 3oz.) Dont have to do the tape thing… they even can supply blue fabric or reddie plum colour… so instead of resin tints, the glass (fabric) has the colour.

Finding one layer of the fabric is enough and not even doing laps on the rails! so strong but flexy and the blank has no stringer. 

Hence why I was asking the question… seems to be to good to be true?? I read about greenlight fabric cracking do you think it might be because of the lycra? Been riding this board about 4 days a week for 4 months and no signs of delam or dents in the deck? 

I’ll post a pic of this board and the new one i’m doing now.

 

Onella thanks for the pics! 

Sick concept!! Are they heavy?

Are they hard to sand?

Are you going to try bamboo inlays next seeing that you are over the your woven strands? 

 

 

 

 

5

Somewhere on this site I think maybe benthompson talks about using natural resin with natural fibers otherwise if you mix them-natural fiber with regular resin it will cause cracks. Even if you cannot see them it will cause the board to suck in water. One of the reasons for using the lycra is that you can stretch the material ultra thin and it doesn’t hold as much resin. If you just use bamboo you will have a real heavy board. I’ve been down that road.

 

 

6

Hey Oneula, nice job!  I like your quad fin v-hull. I am interested in hearing(and seeing) more about it. Definitely outta the box thinking.

7

Thanks Bplante

 

Thanks for the advice! I think I have got around that, RTMX foam doesnt take in water and the board is so,so much  lighter than the 5’8 CI biscuit i picked up the other day!

so maybe its a different bamboo fabric than you used before?

 

Anyway sounds like i’m on the right track!

Heres some pics of the board

first 3 are the 5’8 thats 4 months old

and the last 2 are the new 6’0 with the lightweight filler ready to sand.

 

 

 



8

sorry last 2 pics didnt come up here they are of the 6’0 im working on. Going out to sand it now should be painted by the end of the weekend


9

Whats RTMX foam?

10

Yeah it could be a different weave or something too.  Those boards look really good. Keep up the good work!

11

Hey Marsh

A bit of detail on the foam

Dow Styrofoam™ RTM-X has been specifically designed to
withstand severe dynamic loads and stresses which may eventually lead
to fatigue and failure. It is specially designed to resist such force
and in tests has been shown to perform extremely well under dynamic
load cycling.

High resistance to water penetration and high compressive strength.

 Technical Data 
****

Dow Styrofoam™ RTM-X

                400 kPa

                40 kg/m<span class="style9">³</span>

                25, 50, 75, 

                100, 120 mm

                600 mm

                2500 mm

                0.5 %

                0.028 W/mK

                AS 1530

 

This was the foam that the S-cores were going to use in developing their updated model… before everyone worked out how bad the construction of the boards were and they pulled the plug… cant blame the foam… Less gassing issues also than other styrofoam.

 

Aslo Bpante… thanks! if you want to check out the bamboo go to bamboofabricstore.com.au and go to the woven fabric page… WF001 is what i’m using and WF007 is the blue fabric, which would be cool if you did a resin finishing coat instead of the light weight filler.