I was watching Bali Strickland’s “A Free Ride” dvd on the flight back home and Rasta’s raving comments about his fiberglass/resin free EPS-Cedar/Redwood laminated surfboard from Chris Garrett sparked my interest so I went to his “new” site today:
a 2mm wood shell of cedar/redwood vacuum bagged over an EPS shaped just using PU and wood rails with not exterior glass or epoxy resin is beyond me… But I’m amped to give it a go.
looks like that’s about 3/32 of skin material that’s been made somehow to widthstand the rigors of surfing without and structural reinforcements of epoxy resin and or fiberglass…
How he does this is beyond me but the board are beautiful and I bet smell even better being handrubbed with cedar oil.
A new bar has been set in the compsand arena in my opinion…
this goes well beyond anything I’ve seen so far as an eco-friendly method.
I just finished a cedar deck and bottomed compsand. No photos here; don’t like the new size limitation and I’m not going to the effort of hosting them elsewhere. It’s got 2mm skins that I milled from hand selected boards. 1st thing; STIFF. Second, I did glass inside and out. What I can conclusively say is that I definitely didn’t need the outside glass. The wood is pretty burly on it’s own. Could just do the TomBloke and coat with epoxy; oils would work okay too I guess, though I’d be concerned about water intrusion.
Funny; I just looked through Garrett’s site the other day too and had a look at the boards. Some of them appear as though they have “built up” rails, just like we see on people’s boards here. The rails, for sure, are the hardest part, and I highly doubt he’s actually “wrapping” them a la surftech with their d-cell. They sure do look purdy though…Prolly just polyurethane glue on the inside, if they are actually “glass free”. It’d be an interesting project for sure, though without glass outside, I’d imagine you might have some durability issues; tread lightly, handle carefully…
Pierre, who posts here, and I built one resin-free fish as a trial. I’ll try to take some shots to show better what we were up to.
One thing that we learned is that it is much, much easier to do compsand style rails (glued with high-viscosity expansive PU glue) and then glue your deck/bottom skins with the same glue than to try and do a wrap around. Even with a thin veneer, the wrapping is difficult at best, at least with my limited technique. The skin/rail merger with a solid wood rail is relatively easy to feather in. The result is surprisingly rigid, and the glue layer/wood is quite strong, I don’t think durability is going to be a real issue with that type of construction.
Our results are not quite up to snuff yet. I imagine that there is a lot of trial and error to be gone through yet.
If there is enough interest here, I’ll rebuild one and take shots/document over the coming weeks. One great thing about my job is that my boss encourages me to take time for this type of R and D, as long as it’s not invasive and my regular work gets done. We still have an eight foot mini-gun precut out in my garage that is just waiting for rails to get started. Atuacores, are you interesting in doing this with us?
yeah One…beautiful to look at but I wouldnt want to RIDE one on a regular basis.
I’d say about 8+ pounds or more for shortie.
(No thanks…maybe when Im 55 y/o or something and want to reminisce)
And I havent even mentioned price…
but hey good art is not cheap right?
The hardest aspect of that build would be getting the skins to conform to deck contour…which could be achived using multiple thin layers or some wood softening technique.
don’t know if he’s doing the rails first then shaping the board before applying the deck and bottom skins or he does the skins first then builds out and shapes the rails.
With out glass, I don’t see how he’s getting the structural strength from just wood glued onto foam.
The other thing is whether the wood is impregnated with a plastizing curing solution prior to it attachment to the EPS via PU glue to make it more waterproof and resiliant and won’t soak up to much of the cedar oil finish rub out.
2mil is like 3/32" which is between 1/16" amd 1/8" and should bend fairly easy depending on the wood but you can soak it in softener as well. I noticed he’s using cedar and redwood which makes sense since those are typical boat and canoe materials. Obechi is for stiffening it’s really tough, CMP’s been using for a long time. He said they make police batons out of it. Paulownia would be another option for a skin and much lighter I presume… I don’t think something like balsa would work as it’s too soft and porous…
I’m guessing it’s slight of hand with a glass layer under the wood kind of how yater and ancell do their wood and shell lams boards over a finished surftech that’s been sanded down.
Needless to say a wood/eps fiberglass and resin free board that you oil every now and then really seems intriguing to me and yes dave, they have to be heavier than a typical compsand but I bet no heavier than CMP’s wood over shaped PU foam boards he’s been doing for over 10 years
I wonder why no one ever talks about this?
is it junk?
or just something else that get’s no exposure cause it’s a backyard guy like Bert was before he got bong’d.
Be nice if Chris Garrett or Rsata could fill us in…
Funny this should come up. I just emailed Tom Wegener asking about his Planktom models. A hollow wood board with no outer glass. Here’s what he sent me this morning.
Harry,
The plankton eggs are great little surfboards. They ride fast and have a lot more drive and inertia than foam boards of the same length. They are hollow and sealed only with oil and are a very “green” board. They take more care than a foam board, but they can last a very long time. The problem has been that they can get a crack of the wood dries out too much, so you have too oil it about four times a year, or after ever five or so surfs.
The board is very alive feeling. They are a very different surfing experience.
Beautiful for sure but I guess I’m a bit skeptical. 2mm redwood or cedar couldn’t be too strong. Those are pretty soft woods. And just over 1/16" thick? With nothing else, no glass? Maybe he’s using 3.5 pound EPS? He admits his boards are stiff. I can’t think of any other way to get strength and stiffness with a EPS and 2mm soft wood layup.
Also, he says he uses lacquer now (after having tried oils…I remember seeing his work on the net over a year ago and at that time he said his boards were oiled). The oil must not have worked too well. Now, lacquer can mean many things. I remember spraying some synthetic lacquers that were totally toxic and nauseating, definitley not “green.” So I don’t see what the advantage of lacquer over epoxy would be, either from a strength point of view or a green point of view.
Finally I’m kind of skeptical about that first board, the hi-perf swallow thruster shape. Could that be photoshop magic? I think it would be hard to get redwood in a 2mm veneer with that degree of separation between grain. I’ve seen it on 1x6 boards, but veneer? The teak is believable, but I think it’s hard to find any teak in the world that is harvested in a sustainable manner.
Of course I could be totally wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Can’t say that I really know Chris, but I have had telephone conversations with him and currently ride one of his boards. His craftsmanship is of a high level and he seems to be a sincere and thoughtful person. Have a look at Jack McCoy’s “Blue Horizon” and you’ll see plenty of examples of Chris’ handiwork under Rasta’s feet, including a couple of timber veneer boards. I think there may even be one of the short hybrid fish type boards in a thruster configuration. We spoke about design and techniques in a general sort of manner, but he assured me that durability hasn’t been an issue so far provided the creations were afforded the respect that one would provide for a living creature, eg. heat and sunlight issues.
I plan on having one made for a trip in June, so if anyone’s still interested, i’ll report back and let you know how it goes.
“The boards are a polystyrene shaped blank that are then veneered all over, rails included, with a 2mm timber veneer. This is simply glued down using a water catalyzed glue, sanded and then finished off using outdoor furniture lacquer. They contain NO fiberglass!! … We are currently testing out polyurethanes…”
(Whereupon certain compsando commandos react somewhat skeptically)
Maybe the adhesive is imparting some healthy degree of underlying structural integrity/cushion to the veneers, together with a dense EPS (he doesn’t say what weight he’s using).
Don’t careful/tight joins at the rails add skin tension/integrity too?
Does the webpage actually say “EPS” ? I only noted “polystyrene”… and as heresay, AFOAF has been building XPS/veneer boards (for at least a couple of years) with no glass, but with several coats of resin and he has enough confidence to carry a single board when traveling. As there is no glass, polyurethane could possible be substituted for the resin. Interesting
Funny, because I was just at my friends place making templates and milling stringers in his woodshop and I was talking to him about the compsand boards I have been seeing online and some ideas I have and we figured that using wood venneer, especially a mix of nice grained hardwoods, even at 1/32" thick (furniture veneering thickness, I believe) should still give you the strength of 1/16" balsa with glass under/over. Going through different ideas in my head, and now have some more.
I still wonder how he could get away without any glass at all. I’m thinking maybe with a layer under the veneer… curious.
I hate all the swaylocks speculation we come to know.
The post was an open call to someone who actually knew or was willing to find out for himself like yourself. I have no doubt that Chris is on to something just like Bert was and those flextails are, or Earl’s jet bottom and what Tom’s doing down there with wood.
The land down under is truly a home of open minds and spirits.
Look forward to your review once you get one.
That’s they only way to seperate reality from the sway-culation here…
Aloha…
I just picked up a new contraption(REX Manta) to report on myself…
And all you guys thought that Gem I brought over was a strange beast…
Yes they are truely unique boards and truely beautiful pieces of work.
Chris is a master craftsman and has spent years perfecting and evolving the way in which these boards are made. When you pick one up it is very hard to let it go. I’m sure that some of us could glean some information as to how they are made, but I’m not sure you’ll get the level of info similar to Burt Berger’s threads of a few years back.
The boards are EPS cores (not XPS as per a previous post)
The veneers are mostly 2mm Cedar with a few pieces of other types of wood for feature.
The wood is hand picked and each grain tends to work in with the grain of the other peices.
Each board has about 50 separate pieces of wood that makes up the veneer over the full board.
The boards turn out to be very light. Without glass, they are lighter than a glassed PU/PE board of the same dimensions. He does glass them on request if extra strength is required - this would of course add some extra weight.
Most importantly, they go great!
Hopefully Chris will make his way to the Fish Fry as it isn’t too far from his factory… if he is there, make sure you have a good look at his boards - very nice!
I guess I have to eat my words. I was skeptical about that redwood(?) veneer with the open grain. I didn’t look at the whole album earlier because it was loading so slow, but tonight I waited and my skepticism was laid to rest. Beautiful work! “Museum Quality” os the phrase that comes to mind. I used to work for a custom furniture maker wose work had ended up in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and he always strove for “museum quality” craftsmanship. Chris looks to be there.
Can I use it freely?
Can I use it freely?