Good thread. Im glad you are useing grams imperial weights do my head in.
I’ve used a little basalt cloth in some boards it soaks resin like a sponge. But makes the decks very tough. I havnt tryed bagging it yet would probably be a lot better.
No. It was Thomas Edison.
These types of builds are certaimly interesting and all things tech abound at Sways (although most have been done before). Truth is that a board built like this would cost way more than the average surfer would ever pay. And generally it’s not any better or stronger etc. etc. Funny. Firewires sitting in the rack in San Clemete. Didn’t see any Alien Technology Coil type things though.
Ball park weights and vague scare tactic generalities regarding longevity. You haven’t been in Poly/Poly production in so long ; How the hell could you know from personal experience. Poly blank and an Epoxy lam is the new “norm” by the way. So NO , we haven’t gone back to the way we’ve always done them. There are other important changes as well, but honestly, You don’t need to know.
Speaking of done before, Bob Simmons pioneered sandwich construction, wood ply over styrene based foam core, epoxy and fibreglass, for surfboards in 1949. Sixtyfive years ago! Is that the ‘‘new tech’’ some folks are thumping their chest about? Just askin’.
Bill
" Truth is that a board built like this would cost way more than the average surfer would ever pay."
----Correct, it’s not built for surfers guys doing the following are willing to pay a bit extra to keep their foot from coming out of the bottom of the board.
“And generally it’s not any better or stronger etc. etc.” …What’s your reference for comparison? i.e. not stronger than what?,
The guys I ride with we’ve tried “surfboards”,… they didn’t last long …and most kiteboards are heavier than sin… this panel combination had real life impact toughness improvement for it’s weight compared to all other construction methods I tested.
Devils always in the details though, which is why I’m trying to post all the details of this build and maybe help someone figure out, what they can do better…whatever they are building…or better yet someone can see what I did and tell me how to do it better…
Isn’t that the point of this forum?
Had a pile of carbon scraps kicking around from previous parts I’ve made, so I foiled some scrap pieces of 1/8" D cell, covered them in about 17 layers of 6 oz carbon,. and shapened up the trailing edges…100% recycled fins…
Will cast the cant angle in a probox fin box by pouring in a mix of epoxy and glass powder for increased hardness.
most of the way through the rail shaping.
Hey thanks a lot, this gives me a good target. shootin for 6(ish) we’ll see how the glassing goes and how much weight finboxes are gunna add and how much fill I’m gunna have to add.
Hey thanks a lot, this gives me a good target. shootin for 6(ish) we’ll see how the glassing goes and how much weight finboxes are gunna add and how much fill I’m gunna have to add.
Sorry guys got caught up in the build trying to finish off the board and let this thread die.
Board was laminated long ago here are the details.
final shaped Core weight was 1450 grams this includes 1lb EPS core, 3/4" Dcell rails,(bonded with gorilla glue) Dcell fin box inserts, 2 skins of 6 oz fiberglass and a skin of 1/8" core cell top and bottom.
After filling the outer skin of Corecell with dry micro to decrease resin absorbtion the core weight was 1540g
I let this kick for an hour
I added 2 layers of 6 oz S glass at ±45 and 0/90 on the top sheet as well as a third ±45 under the front foot. I added 1 layer @ 0/90 on the bottom of the deck with a second patch covering the rear tail to add some extra stiffness and structure to the rear and the fin boxes. The top and bottom full layers wrapped overeach other with about an inch of overlap on the opposing deck.
Although high toughness, the system 3 epoxy is a little thicker than I would like to work with to get an optimized weight. Thin epoxy moves around better and allows me to get a better Vf and more of it gets sucked out into the breather. So I decided to heat the resin. SPEED of the lamination was going to key to getting light part without a crap load of dead weight epoxy.
I spray tacked the top and bottom glass lightly in place to get the rails right. I layed the top fiber glass on and cut it to perfect shape then gently removed it. Total glass weight was 675 g
I used loctite frekote mold release on my rocker table. (If you ever find yourself making molds use this)
I precut all my bagging materials (painters drop cloth) peforated release film,breather fabric.(2 layers) Using proper sealing tape I carefully stuck the tape to the bag so all is ready to go. .
I heated up the resin, nice and hot then laminated the board using the free flowing epoxy Laminated the board in probably less than 5 minutes using way more epoxy then needed and sending it flying with my squeegee. when it was wet out, I whipped it on my rocker table got it in place and bagged it.
Pulled a full 29mmHG and watched my breather soak up all that unnecessary weight. Then threw on my sandbags to get the concave and stuck the board out in the cold to slow the kick and pull out more resin.
Cured the board overnight at 25 degrees. and then finished it off at for 2 hours at 65 C to make sure it would hold it’s shape and would not warp in the heat all resin was fuly cured and crosslinked.
Laminated unfinished board weight 2495g…0 dry spots
By my calculations that’s a 50% Vf (autoclave grade) on a garage build…HELL YEAH!
Mistakes made …I should have tinted my filler…
Great weight yield so far, especially for such an over-built structure.
…hello, good efforts; now you need to redirect all that knowledge in to try to build the next board with a better pro quality finish.
Regarding weight, past week I used Arctic foam; and the STD density is for sure heavy; way heavier than the STD Surfblanks.
Regarding lightness, Firewires are not light…they are strong but not light; if you use the Premium density by Teccel/Surfblanks with 40z you obtain a board lighter than the Firewires or like that but less strong too; so the ONLY problem (as mentioned several years ago in other threads) with PU boards is the compromise between functionality and fatigue of the materials; you CAN do whatever you want with a PU board; you can go whatever part of the wave, etc. I never ever saw a PS board that rides better than a PU board in any design; also most quality PS boards ride very similar to PU boards; however, the Surftech (heavy too) and Firewires are like corks in the waves; very difficult to obtain rail modern Surfing, unless you are a pro surfer or a skiled waterman, etc.
The overall quality, art, look and finishes are poorer than a PU board mostly.
The MD boards look very cool, and I never saw one live; I really like his shapes designs; fine foiled and makes sense. In a couple of photos in the Coil thread I saw that the rails still have kind of a seam or like that where the layers meet, but seems that is under the resin…
It doesn’t seem overbuilt, just not disposable. Boards that last years rather than days is the future.
Thanks for the guidance reverb, not done yet though…doin the surface finish the hard way…
After scuff sanding and reshaping the rail to remove excess resin squished out on the bottom rail. (I did not sand into the glass at all as this would waken the sturcture, I taped off the board rails tinted some dry micro yellow and filled the top deck.
I tinted some dry micro black and filed the bottom with a light skim to fill in any pinholes or scratches left from my rocker table.
Then tinted the dry micro red and filled the rails.
And sanded it all flat.
Wanted to get maximum coverage at lowest density for the painting/hotcoat that I’m about to do. so tint matched the fill coat to the colour I’m about to apply. really should’ve not used that purple shit on the corecell. Gunna have to paint the yellow in the board as I will not be able to get coverage from yellow tint or hot coat. at a reasonable weight.
It was kind of an iterative process but added about 65g of fill once all sanding competed bottom needed nothing but the top needed a fair bit. .
Board weight 2560g
If you noticed the bottom prime coat was black, I ended up doing a high concentration graphite powder mixed with epoxy for the bottom coat. For a number of reasons.
First reason…voodoo shamanism, graphite is a “dry lubricant” when used in the presence of water it limits the surface tension between graphite and the material in contact. I’ve made some molds using graphite powder and it is slippery as all hell when wet. Some canoe builders, kayak builders and even drag boat racers swear by the stuff…I have also witnessed testing done on molybdenum disulfphide (another dry lubricant) in a fluid environment providing significant reduction in friction on oil film bearings.
Second reason If it does not provide any friction reduction in a fluid environement it certainly does with solids. Scratches are much harder to get when shit just slides off. it has been great for toughness and scratch resistance in the molds I’ve made. A grind over the reef, random driftwood or assohole windsurfers are common in our area…less scratches = Faster.
3rd reason, it’s a bitch to sand…cuz ANY defect is visible…meaning it’s easier to get PERFECT…which will be faster.
Epoxy and Filler is lower density than straight epoxy lighter than hot coat and better at filling defects…lighter and smoother … faster.
The faux red lap line is for visibility. In our area there is no line up, combination of kite rider and board can combine to make a wicked slingshot…Aimed directly at the rider…so leashes are just stupid…losing a board is a legit concern, losing a BLACK board is a bigger concern.
That stated I did add a leash plug in case the guy winds up somewhere there is a risk of smoking surfers or beach goer’s if unleashed.
3 coats of red tinted epoxy for the rails, 2 coats of epoxy and graphite powder for the bottom deck. Wet sanded together to make a seamless (fast) transition line.
not done sanding yet but weight gain around the 75g mark
with the bottom deck rough sanded, I routed out the probox fin boxes using the templates provided and according to my toe measurements established earlier. measured three times, cut once.
I went to fit the fins in place and had an OH SHIT moment…they were aligned perfectly, they fit perfectly, I was careful not to burn into the top deck…but get right to the inner glass layer for perfect structure
No the problem was that I have a gaping wound around my fin that needs to be filled with a shitload of epoxy to install these fins…by design… I can see the advantage to the probox system for flexibility, ease of install fin compatibility, and ease of casting and making your own fins… it’s why I chose it. But for weight, they suck. If mounted in EPS this added resin volume would be benficial, but to me with solid D cell fin box, the template cut was unnecessarily deep and wide. I filled my resin with Q cell and a bit of microballoon and graphite powder to make sure it would match the deck such that it was barely pourable.
Total weight gain was about 400g!!!..I nearly cried.
…nearly…
Those boxes themselves are somewhere over 50 grams each, if I remember correctly. I weighed one once and realized we’d never use them. Futures are 29g for the 3/4" depth and slightly less for the 1/2"; FCS Fusion were 26g each and FCS are about the same.
Good on you for iterating all the component/step weights, that is something most people don’t ever do. Hell, a shaped PU blank w/stringer would weigh 3 lbs or more, which is why most surfboards use tissue-paper “glass jobs”.
Wow. Shame on me for not looking at this thread sooner.
I’ve gotten in the habit of ignoring “New guy, first time build” threads just cause they generally go the same way. Not so this time, my friend. I’ve really enjoyed everything you’ve shared.
I have a couple questions, though these are more personal than technical, just because you’ve piqued my curiosity.
Where are you located? (It sounds like you’re in the states, but you write like a Brit.)
What is you’re composites background?
Looking forward to pics of the final product.
Good job! I did a few very similar builds, minus the bottom pvc, but 3/4" dcell rails and 1/8 dcell decks on rocker trays. “Berger ish” and they lasted FOREVER. One was for a very good friend, good surfer, and he would send me pics of the “ugly green board” from all over the world, mainly Mex, and I was always thinking I wish that ugly thing would DIE haha. I think you’re going to be very happy with this ride, and hopefully you’re hooked because I’d like to read more!
ps, for those noses I liked to trim with most of the rails clamped up all ready, leave one rail long in the nose, and while the gorilla glue was wet and all of the other clamps were in place I would trim that dcell to fit last second. I liked how the slice would come out stuck to my jap saw and the two rails would marry up perfectly. Still dried gg on my favorite saw. 
@Mike D thanks for the weights of FCS and futures, which ones you figure eat the least resin when installed? My guess would be the FCS non fusion, but likely the weakest and a little more fussy to install.
@Newschoolblue as to my origins.
The taboggan in the last picture didn’t give it away “eh?”…it also has a graphite bottom and has NEVER been defeated…
My house looks american, I surf with a kiteboard, I write like a brit, and I talk like a hoser…Canadian. 
As For composites, Have some formal schooling on structural things which makes reading material data sheets much easier. Spent some time on race car teams making horsepower while watching carefully and with envy as other really talented people designed and built really awesome things… helped out where I could, and where time allowed. asked why a lot, and absorbed a lot about mold making and various construction and prototyping techniques.
Have since moved on but haven’t stopped wanting to build stuff. I make the odd part for hobby racers and project cars. Have repaired some mountainbikes, surfboards, built a few wakestyle kiteboards, and a whole crap load of fins as I always break them…hobby builder, and build whatever I happen to be into at the tim or when I can do it to simultaneously save money and build something awesome. My wife wants to redo the kitchen…I’m trying to get her to let me infuse some carbon fiber kitchen cabinets…she’s just not into it…
@ drew
This build has gone well (so far) it was the best I could do with the knowledge I had…But now I can do better… I should have some interesting stuff coming…not cabinets…