Well, Sven at Bufo was kind enough to respond… seems like they’ve been working hard at R&D after winning an international design award which led to some financial support from universities and Volkswagon.
I also received a video clip that showed a 2.1 kg board supported on each end with 4 people standing on it and gently bouncing. The board was flexing like mad but didn’t break.
Here’s a slightly edited version of what Sven had to say.
(posted with his permission)
i checked the post on the swaylocks site. very interesting what the people
think about our technology and the way we reach the strength of the boards.
to make a long story short:
we dont use ast resin because it is too complicated to handle, too expensive
and from our point of view too toxic.
we dont use xtr blanks. it is good stuff but it does not really work in our
system. all components we use have been modified for the usage in our system.
we really tried a lot in the past and tested a lot in france but we had
really hard problems to combine all the components. in the beginning
we tried to make little holes in the blank but bert burger is right it
causes a lot of problems in the construction so we stopped doing it.
we tested over 100 different resin systems from all over the world but we
didnt found a solution which works in every detail.
we also had no money for r&d because we are a small company. we won an
international design award in the beginning of 2005 for the bionic
construction concept. the most important thing in our concept is that the
construction is designed by nature. we copied the construction of a special
plant which is very robust and transformed it to our surfboards. because of
this we were able to work together with universities and the volkswagen
network in germany. they paid the r&d costs and we could modify the resin
and the foam for our special needs. the aim was to build a better, stronger,
lighter and flexible surfboard production process which is environmentally
friendly and can still build full custom-made.
i am not surpised about the clark foam story because the components they use
are the most toxic components when it comes to cancer and we found out that
they will be forbidden in all countries which care about nature and the health
of workmen. the same with other very toxic things like polyester and some
epoxy resins. i also think that we all have to change in future because the
common way of producing surfboards has claimed a lot of victims. many people
in the surfboard industry are sick from the toxic shit. it is not a solution
to stop the production of blanks in us because it is too toxic for americans
and to start it in poorer country without environmental laws. we really
have to stop poisoning people who build surfboards.
we are relaxed now because we know there is no need to let the custom
surfboard die. it was our biggest nightmare to see all the shapers closing
their factories and surfshops where you just can buy pop out shit in.
if you have any question please contact me. but sometimes it takes a few
days because of the clark story we are very busy at the moment.
you can post my answer in the swaylocks forum if you want.
sorry for my english.
best regards
sven