Nice!!! I like them… Nice work…
Thanks, Bert. I’m a big fan. Next Expo, I won’t give up so easily and wait my turn to get a handshake. The Swaylocks contacts are amazing.
Actually, next time you’re in Florida, come shape one of these, take a fishing trip with my boy the next day, and we’ll have it finished on the third morning:)
hey, im happy to see some texalium up here! ive been playing with it for a while on skateboards and other little projects. its a pretty cool material…if youre looking for different texalium call fiberglass hawaii in santa cruz…we sell it for $8 a yard no matter the density. theres a cool 2 oz texalium that you could probably wrap a whole board in…its super light and pliable…id love to see the rail strength youd get with wrapped texalium.
theres even a bunch of different colors…ooooh! 
AWESOME boards
Drew,
Its a fact that Fla sure has had a lot of impact on the surfing world! What I like about EPS is (that check the attached pic) is that the chunk of foam pictured is worth about 8 6-8R Clarks last year when you could get them. How many 2 lb blanks out of this is ???
Dave_D
I know! I gotta get on that! The Dow is EXPENSIVE!! That’s why I quit it before. But, I always say “charge it to the game!!!”
Drew
Depends on which way you cut it, on the 40" side or the 48" side and whether you’re going close tolerance or big bloated machine billets… 
Looks like fun.
AKA,
Actually we split the big block into 2 chunks (2 pieces 24 x 39). From one of these we cut another to 24 x 30 from which we got 4 paddle board blanks with a piece leftover that will yield a 4" or less longboard. That still left another piece 12 x 24 for more regular short or longboards. And then there’s still the other piece that is 24 x 39. We used Masonite lap siding for straight templates and got cuts as straight or straighter than the original block. Had to make up an extra big hotwire bow and jack up the volts on the variac though. Also used lap siding as a template for the paddleboards. The lap siding we used comes in 16’ lengths and is 8" wide.
Dave_D
Sorry about the off topic post but I’d love to see one of your paddleboards.
Seems like you’re getting your moneys worth out of that chunk of foam…waste not want not, eh?
Does the wire burn into the masonite lap siding too badly?
I’ve been wrapping the rocker templates in thin metal but I know I’ll zap myself sooner or later, although I’m getting quite used to it after all of these years…
Thanks…
texalium is an aerospace fabric, not just cosmetics. im not sure what part of a plane its going on, but i can for sure tell you that ive never seen it on the outside just for cosmetics 
but…most people use it only for cosmetics, but it WAS developed for aerospace, and its much stiffer than regular fiberglass.
At the XTR website (www.epoxysurfboards.com ), there is mention of using high heat during the glassing process to help the resin adhere better… I wonder if this causes the cells near the surface to gas off and then draw epoxy into the void, or if it is a simple cure process.
" Of course, they’re still a relative nightmare to glass since extreme heat is needed for the epoxy resin to adhere. But Javier and the rest of the Epoxy pros are willing to overlook this minor inconvenience …"
Yep at Xtr we cook em at 450’ while they are kickin’. taste just like hot homemade ccokies. Keep Guessin’ …
Yeah, I wanna clear up real quick that I’m not building XTR surfboards. I am using a closed cell xtruded polystyrene, but what I’m doing isn’t anything like what those guys are. Although I think it’d be rad to be on the same page with those guys, I’m working in a different direction right now. I think that pre-gassing among other things may benefit these boards. I had planned on venting them using some tools and patterns I came up with, to “skirt” their pattent. It’s a bad move, and concience and ethics got the better of me, I won’t poke 'em out of respect for their patent. It’s much better that way. Hey, I don’t wanna see China boards coming in just like what I’m building either!!! All they can do is copy over there, right? That keeps new stuff to ourselves. On that same note, some of you who haven’t trademarked your logos and have thought about that, go to legalzoom.com, I did mine for $500. Pretty minor expense.
We’re not cooking them like that. We’re lamming with Resin Research just like most of you are. Just learning and re-learning, you know?
Hey, know what I really didn’t answer your question, and it was a good one. You know, they’re using a different resin, making their own blanks, it’s definitely different. At first when I finished my first shape, I was wondering about adhesion because the foam is different than it was 5 years ago. The finish feels very much like velvet, it’s wild. But I figured that the “busted” cells would adhere even better, and test pannels proved that, it held great. I’m also new to the RR epoxy, what I used was called Surf Systems Epoxy, but I really liked lamming with it, very similar. But I don’t think that heating the blank during lamming would draw extra resin into the cells, or that would even benefit the glass job. I thought about and quickly canned an idea of using some kind of roller to poke a pattern of holes to create a resin spike, I don’t know it might come back up later. I am stoked that so many of you have noticed this other stuff, there’s definitely no shortage of material variety! Just have to figure out what works best for you. Back on subject, heating the room and getting the blanks to correct temps definitely helps. It was pretty chilly (for us) and even at 50 deg. outside, I have a hotel room ac unit with high heat, and one of those radiator style heaters gets the lamming room up to 80 even with the bay door open and fan on. We were all stripped down like summertime, even busted a sweat. I put the kerosene heater on low just next to the drying racks so the blanks are warmed up too. I’m using the digital scale I got off ebay for cheap, and bought a new microwave just for the resin. I tried to use the beer cooler/heating pad, but the one I bought didn’t cut it, and had an automatic off function that seemed to go every 3 minutes, so I’ll nuke it. The additive f is amazing, using more than I thought. Glass on fins are sweet again, did 3 sets at once, got 'em on and had mixed too much resin so had to get a smoking bucket out of the shop. Stoked on that though, so much less resin to get them on, I’ll do way more glass ons. Plus, using glass ons and the board has 100% American Made Components. Foil my own and it’s all in-house!!
Hey, I put in a search for Doug Wright and your thread came up. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about his board or lead me to somewhere that I could find out more about it? It has the number “2036” on the bottom.
Thanks for any help!
–Brad
Funny story. Here in Oceanside, that XTR foam was once owned by a gut named Pedro Vasquez. Only it was called SVF Foam.
He was the first to bring that foam to the surfboard industry in Oceanside.
Javier was the glasser.
Right off, we realized it was very close-celled foam and would not aborb resin as Poly boards do.
Surface bond only.
We tried every way possible to get that glass to bond to the foam. Leaving the finish rough, making patterns in the foam, everything.
One thing Pedro taught me was to lam the decks while the air was cooling.
Caused the foam to draw inward.
On warm days, I would glass, then put the boards in my air-coditioned shaping room.
Kept them from out-gassing while drying.
Tricky stuff that foam.
I find it very brittle.
EPS seeme to have better flex.
Texalium is nothing new. Kilwell here in NZ has been making sports fishing rods out of it for decades. Funnily enough they have ditched this and are concentrating on elastic graphite/carbon with nano resin technologies. Which raises the question, has anyone used carbon rods as stringers. They have got carbon rods to weighing 4/5s of FeekAll. I know some from the body boarding feternity have been using carbon stringers for ions. You could taper them to tail and nose being girthiest inthe mid.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new board built from blue DOW foam that my good friend Rooster gave to me.
Really looking forward to getting my hands on some more of it.
FINGERS CROSSED