New stuff...

General Discussion
1

OK, so we’re all checking out options since the Clark operation shut down. Immediately available are EPS blanks/blocks and various brands of epoxy resins…

Bert Burger provides hints of his leading edge technology. Claims of strong, light, high performance have hit the newstands.

What happened to that AST resin? Sample boards I saw showed great promise. Local kids were jumping up and down on those in gravel parking lots with no ill effect. Who cares if they aren’t pretty? Does the AST resin work on EPS?

How about these guys (http://www.bufo-boards.com/) over in Europe? Reviews on these stringerless boards sound terrific and the trampoline jumping is unbelieveable! I contacted them about a longboard but shipping one board is pretty steep. I’m surprised nobody has brought over a shipping container full of these. Are they glassed with AST? From what I can see, we are still in the dark ages in USA. Anybody doing boards like these?

2

pardon my ignorance but …WHAT is “AST” resin ?

ben

3

wow

imppressive

what are they made of john??

4

AST …

whatever THAT is ???

5

i’ve broken three boards this week

out front

and I thought it was the saw horses fault.

gotta get some o’dat stuff

…ambrose

6

John,

Lift my veil of ignorance. What is AST resin? What are it’s properties? Compatable with poly gloss?

7

Hi Paul and Ben -

I honestly don’t know what the Bufo-Boards are made from. I was guessing maybe the AST urethane resin material? It looks like the AST website has been changed recently and that they are offering it to general public. Several informative video clips are on their site.

I’ve heard that it didn’t become popular in part due to the heat cure required and that the cosmetics might not have been as nice as poly. For my purposes, that kind of stuff doesn’t really matter. The thing that prevented me from trying it was lack of availability to guys at the hobbyist level.

I have an inquiry in regarding EPS compatability.

http://www.astsurf.com/

8

well , I may NEVER know what those initials stand for …but I won’t lose any sleep over it …

or ,

WILL I ???

heheh

ben

those “flash” websites which you have to “download macromedia player” to view ???

too “tech” for THIS lad …

I’m still coming to grips with "E-L-E-C-T-R-I-C-I-T-Y " [I think they call it ??]

9

Hey… I looked on the AST website and plus one is listed there… hey PlusOneShaper…

10

Thanks John

So after perusing through the sites again…

Question…

Why are these two small manufacturers basically doing the same thing Greg and Bert are doing able to produced such well thought out and informative websites explaining and demonstrating their products, while RR basically is a 1980s website and Bert has none?

Information Rules!

you don’t have to sell anything either… just explain what you are doing is enough…

or maybe it isn’t “core” to spend the time doing what Buffo and AST have already done…

I give them credit and wonder why their success hasn’t been greater…

AST’s product looks spooky for home use but great for a factory setup…(check that post cure oven…I wonder how much they charge for their prefab)

11

I agree about the website stuff. In the case of RR, they have the website, why not put up something better? If you get people going to these sites and getting information on the product, they will use it and/or request it from their shaper. Marketing is a huge part of the sale and the alternative materials guys haven’t done very much in that arena. A website is cheap and easy to do so why not?

12

ocean sports world in cocoa beach has a house brand called island surfboards , they use EPS and epoxy or AST.

13

Howzit John, I got the info package from AST a few years back and it seems it’s compatable with epoxy. The only thing about using it with epoxy is you have to keep it in the curing oven longer( about 36 hours ) at a lower temp due to styro will melt at a lower temp than polyurethane. Another reason I believe people were shying away was the price, $800 for 5 gallons is pretty steep. What ever happened to Rogers foam, I know they relocated to Texas but did they go out of business. I used their blanks back in the late sixties and found them to be a quality blank. Aloha,Kokua

14

Hi Kokua -

First, I’m not trying to sell anybody on this, or any other product. I really don’t know much about it. From what I’ve seen, it looks like another alternative though. Maybe the best yet? If that’s what is on the Bufo Boards, it must be incredible stuff.

The cure time you mention with EPS sounds about right. On the website they say:

  • 8-10 hours @ 150
  • 10-16 @130
  • 16-24 @110

Also, the pricing on their website indicates 10 gallons for 620.00. I don’t know if that’s current but the website is relatively new. Shipping on 10 gallons, especially if it’s a haz mat, would add up.

http://www.astsurf.com/pricing.pdf

Isn’t this guy getting tired yet?

15 
Howzit John, Different numbers than in my info but it's a few years old and they have probably worked out some bugs and it's nice to see they lowered the price. What I am going to do is write exactly what is in the info about curing schedule.

Time and Temp: It is best to have the temperature in the heat chamber to slowly ramp from room temp over a period of 4-8 hours. This will minimize any festering and shrinkage of the material. The temp should remain stable at 145 degrees to 150 degrees for 16-24 hours in order to get a full cure.

Foam Sensitivity: Standard polyurethane foam will start to destabilize a 165 degrees F. Styrene foams are very temperature sensitive, so you will need to contact the foam manufacturer for more info on that foam. Preliminary tests show that lowering the temp to 130 degree F and increasing the time to 36 hours with EPS gives good results.

Things have changed over the last couple of years.Aloha,Kokua

16

Hi Kokua -

So it is compatable with EPS. Temperatures of 110 degrees are actually within reach for most of us even if it means longer cure times. The new website offers video clips for each step of the process.

Do you think the Bufo boards are made with this type of urethane resin? Is that “trampoline” jumping clip for real?!

17

ok ihave been following ast since the company emerged the resin is dhp

ast stands for Alive Surfing Technology

the resin the make is DHP or Durable High Preformance. the bad thing is you have to bake this stuff, yes it is compadable with eps but it worked best on urathane go figure. check their site out www.astsurf.com

18

Hello,

I did some glassing for Plus One this year, we did have 4 boards glassed with AST and to be honest, it doesn’t appear to be very good. I haven’t surfed one of the boards but i can say that the glass is very soft. You can squeeze a board pretty good with your hands. I dont know why Plus One is listed on the website because they dont use AST. The word on the street this summer is that AST folded.

Yes, it seems as though AST are still in business. Dont believe the hype.

19
Quote:

So it is compatable with EPS?

John, I contacted AST last year about it being compatable with EPS and was told it is. Also from Terry Price at Cerritos College he told me to contact BJB in Irvine California about polyurethane resins. Turns out that they are actually the makers of this resin formula for AST. http://www.bjbenterprises.com/index.html

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20

ok i just spent an hour going through all those sites , when i should be making boards right now …

i believe there is some promise with the system , but way more R&D is needed to get it to a point where it could become a mainstream product …

the statistics were somewhat ambiguous , as there wasnt any information on what densities of eps or p/u were being used with what glassing schedules , so the statistics can be leaned in any direction by changing the arrangement of materials to suit the purpose , there was an interesting anomaly between the extra flex , the increased resistence to cracking and then it was also more resistant to denting ???..

in all cases , the other materials in the test piece , helped to carry the resin in one way or another …

but by there own admission in the statistics , epoxy over eps gave the strongest board overall …

also with so many brands and styles of epoxy on the market , its impossible to generalise epoxy , in every case where epoxy didnt perform well in there testing , you could easily put a different style of epoxy in to alter the results …

thats one of the reasons for having different hardnesses and different flex in epoxy , you put the flexy stuff where you need it and the hard stuff where you need it …

overall just laminating one layer over a substrate can only take you so far , you will always have a give or take , where gaining more of one characteristic will give you less of another …

in many areas where the results didnt come out as well , can be easily fixed by structure and a rearranging of the materials , so re-engineering surfboard construction will make a huge difference than just changing the resin and trying to do it the old fashioned way …

nowhere on the bufo site did i see any refernence to ast or dhp ??

back to the dhp , i noticed in one video clip the shot of the resin gelling , i thought hey , urethane resins do that …

then glenn shotwells link confirmed that … urethane resins have there own set of problems , but they do have real promise , once set they are incredibly hard to crack through , but do have a tendency to have low heat distortion temperatures , so become rubbery with heat and can assume new posistions , the polymer chains are way longer but have fewer cross links ,so become like a plate of spagetti held with cheese , when the cheese melts the spaggetti can move and repate and assume a new posistion then as the cheese cools the whole mass resets …

in general urethane resins have some great properties , and some not so great …

im sure in time some mad scientist will find a way to build different characteristics into it , to fix some of the negatives …

ive heard from crew in france recently who saw the bufos ,and talked to crew about them , that they use XTR core foam …

i was real impressed by the work the DHP guys were doing and there commitment to testing and R&D and gathering information …

while i dont think its the answer just yet , i believe these guys and there overall approach will lead them to great places and put them way out in front once they streamline and simplify the process and further develop the resins …

in answer to why i dont have a web site , my biggest problem to date is not being able to service demand , so any media just attracts more interest , media is only good if you want to commercialise a product …

as were now getting closer to a more commercial situation , you will probably see a web site appear in the future more specific to what were up to , for now there is a section on the nev site …

many more aspects i wanted to touch on , but time is an issue …

regards

BERT