yeah this is really cool. i like how quick you could get a shaped blank in the water. maybe you could key the inside surface of the plastic sheet and layup 1 layer of 2oz or 4 oz on it before you heat it up, then vac form it. so you have some fiber/resin in there - at least underfoot?
Hey guys
I`m a landlocked engineering student from germany and really loving this idea! The cutlap sounds pretty straight forward but how would you do the fin plugs or legrope plug? You could just vac form over the plugs and cut them out but I think you would somehow have to seal them!?
Any ideas?
I was thinking along the same lines, there are 2 options, both for eps and epoxy:
- coat the blank with epoxy using a foam roller, lay on your glass, roll again to complete the soak trying not to over do it so the blank doesn’t soak it all up.
Let this set a bit and repeat on the other side then vac it with the Polycarbonate.
Optionally you could use a light coat of spray glue to fix your lam then roller on the epoxy, you could do this all in one go and the vac would smooth oput all laps etc - no sanding 
Of course this all depends on the epoxy going off in a sealed environment??
- glass and plug the board as normal without filler coat, touch up the laps with the sander then vac it.
To me, sanding and polishing is the hardest part and takes the most time, especially with epoxy. A well shaped blank and a neat and light lam job should come up ok with this technique I reckon.
You have the advantage of the light epoxy lam for strength, you save time on filler coats, sanding and polishing and you have a nicely finished board that should be quicker and cheaper…perhaps
http://foamez.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/poly-carbonate-shrink-wrap-future-of.html
It looks like they vacced the deck first ..
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Initially I was intrigued by this construction. It looks too good to be true…
The more I looked at the boards , the more they looked like the shrink formed packaging you get on the outside of a toothbrush or some earbud headphones etc.etc. Sure…Only a cosmetic dislike on my part , but something I don’t really like about the look.
Read this crucial statement in the initial report from Matt B.
“The material lacks the tensile snap and rigid lively pop of a board with fiberglass fibers, but there are many ideas on how to recreate the feel of a glassed blank that will be played with moving forward.”
Obviously this skin material is not where it needs to be, yet.
I’m not instantly drooling and going ga-ga over this stuff yet. Time will tell.
VH.
Fiber must be involved or you have a noodle. Fiber controls the flex and gives you the flex return you have to have. This kind of product has been tryed lots of times through the decades with polycarbonate, polyethylene, polyproylene, ABS, etc. Makes a nice looking product that is cheap and for the consumer market it may be great. But it isn’t gonna perform as well, just can’t. Numerous other issues may come up too like delamination, gassing, UV breakdown of the blank, etc. All these may be sussed in time. Simply, this does have potential for a portion of the marketplace.
But IMHO the real future is in resin infusion. There are many youtubes on this subject to watch. It’s really pretty simple and doesn’t require expensive equipment to pull off. I’ve done a number of small projects just to test and it’s very doable for boards, EPS or urethane. All the materials for board building are available and worked out. The basic process is as well. Think about this, no sandpaper, no wasted resin, no fumes, no acetone, etc. Can be done custom. Instead of changing the entire game, as this new process does, infusion just takes what we do to a new level.
greg could you post a youtube it sounds very interesting.
Not to change the direction of the thread, but I watched http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VodfQcrXpxc after Mr. Loehr’s comments (a true legend!).
So, for resin infusion, the sequence would be:
foam
glass (dry)
peel ply
infusion mesh
infuser tubes
vacuum bag
Is that correct? It still seems fairly labor intensive, but I bet the finished product would be worth it. The polycarbonate wrap looks to be a faster, easier process, but as mentioned before, there will need to be a lot of added blank components/reinforcements to add to the ride.
good idea greg, aha… theres a good thing about resin infusion…lots of resin! about 1kg on the board and 2 kg in the transport medium…
@ feraldave.
While it is possible to waste epoxy if done incorrectly there is no reason for 1kg. of resin being left on the board using infusion.
Unless you were using 1kg of fiberglass.
The professional people who do this regularily get very close to 70% / 30 % fiber to infusion resin composite laminates. Quite often more likely 60 to 65% fabric.
You can mix resin for a one to one ratio and add more if needed, not really any more than a wet layup if you’re good at it.
I’ve done a few test samples now and I feel confident in infusion.
The peel ply does completely wet out so, yes there’s some loss there. If you keep your transport tubing short and draw from the feed container making sure no bubbles get into the lines, there should be very little wasted epoxy imho… As soon as you see all of the the peel ply covered part change from a dry to a wet color / state, you pinch off the supply tubing and your done.
You’re also pulling a vacuum on the glass stack for 20min to 1/2hr. prior to introducing the resin to the part. This pre vacuum of the dry fiberglass compresses the cloth down to it’s thinnest layer which reduces the amout of resin needed to wet out the area. When compared to a thicker air filled fabric stack when doing a hand layup, the thinner pre compressed laminate should hold less trapped epoxy and air because of this.
The pre pull of the dry laminate also lets you insure there are no bag leaks and it also is said to draw out any excess moisture that might be in the fiberglass from when in storage.
Sorry for adding to the hyjack, now back to bubble pack boards.
VH.
The draw for me to this method is that it is a complete game changer, starting with the health, volatility and environmental problems associated with working with resin, so any process that cuts that out will make for a faster quieter and healthier board shop. Beyond the physical use of resin theres the design possibilities for all surfcraft with this 'new' tech. And then theres the commercial aspect of faster production bringing quicker profits.
I see all the infusion and bagging techniques as variations on a theme but they offer no evolution of the surfboard as an entity, so sticking with resin ( no pun intended) doesnt offer different interpretations or future advances of the surfboard as a product. Glass it by hand, bag it or infuse it, change the glass/mat/fabric, its still a product that cant further itself beyond the physical properties of the ingredients. It takes it closer to the limits of what the ingredients can do, ( were prolly almost there now) but theres no where to go after that. Board design has stalled for years, riders are complete masters of the craft and theres no envelope to push anymore.
With thermoforming theres a window to recreate the beast, take a step into unknown, move forward in design and performance. Despite pop-outs being crucified by the industry, their sales have grown and prospered and are seen as an affordable alternative by most of the board buying public. Why fight it when people are willing to pay for it?
Maybe this is an opportunity for some manufacturers to take a slice of affordable 'plastic' technology and embrace the paying public who are happy to ride plastic. Priced accordingly they could be the mainstay of a business leaving time to focus on the bespoke boards without the hassles of P & L guiding every decision.
If Slater rode one, it'd be in every factory by Xmas. But some cant see beyond resin.
post---------cure---------resins
They need a suspension system… Something like Carbon rails or a Parabolic stringer would add a lot of dimension to this type of board.
As qouted by Matt B. in his assesment of the polycarb. boards. They lack the tensile pop or lively feel of high performance fiberglass construction.
Sounds like they’re not a high performance surfboard, yet…
Why would anyone really want that , less than high performance?. And how can a noodle- like board be a step in the right direction?
Perhaps the addition of a Carbon inner spring system ( like that found in Dan Mann’s Incide tech ) would liven things up?
But then you’re introducing resin and fibers again which is kind of getting away from the simplicity of polycarb. intent. I presume.
As far as environmental issues associated with resin systems. One of the main attributes of infusion technology is the safety it brings to those working with it.
These are just my opinions based on what I’ve read about these polycarb. boards. Maybe I’m totally wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.
VH.
Infusion doesn’t need to be at all wasteful, although it used to be. Done right you don’t need peel ply or flow media. it’s also as healthy as any tech with vitually zero vapor. Right now industries are doing 60 foot boat hulls in one shot. This is doable and is being done on boards right now. Start looking around. This is sways. You guys can figure this out. Go to youtube and punch in “resin infusion” and begin. All the materials are available even for DIY. A noodle isn’t the future.
Kayu, you mean latent cure? Expensive process. Resins aren’t there for board building. Problems with resin ratios, especially with low density foams. I used to think that was gonna be the thing too.
i dont think people should knock this process out yet. It is still a new process for surfboard making and it going to require alot of R&D before it be ready for the general market. Like from poly to epoxy, it took many years of R&D to get the process down. maybe like firewire with carbon rods on the rail can bring some snap to the board. I think the new lib-tech board use infusion process but most infusion is done on a hard mold and it will be quite different in a surfboard with softer eps foam(can’t take high vacuum) unless you cover the outside of the foam with some hd foam.
Not true. 2# density EPS will take a full pull. Hard molding is RTM or RTM light which I’m not advocating. Your all talking about this polycarbonate tech, about adding carbon stiffeners for snap which adds cost and more important weight. This has a achilles heel, it’s not high performance, it’s not gonna be. This tech and many like it has been done for decades. Like I said above, nice for a low performance consumer product, not high performance. Polycarbonate isn’t winning yacht races, or Nascar, it’s not used in aerospace composites or any other high performance application other than windows. Epoxy composites are.
Infusion process can reduce weights while increasing fiber to resin ratios. Improved performance. Just an observation.
That depends where you look, Greg, and how much looking your prepared to do…weve had a great deal of flow-through from boat building technology for years…but it trickles through slowly…all compsand and vacuuming on boards is from boat tech…boat companies are using “transfer specific” resins, laminating large hulls and structures , with time to double check everything , then closing all the doors of the sealed shed, and turning up the heat to set off the resin. Resins are fed in and computer-mixed for exact ratios…the one determining factor in setting up a similar process for surfboards is the order book…if you had 1000 board orders,regularly, you wouldn’t think twice about investing…only problem then , is being superceded by another new tech…keep your eye on Hybrid Inorganic Polymers
Well not now, but Matt Biolas has seen fit to spend time on the idea so its heading somewhere…
And how much money does Surftech make from “low performance” boards? Any hard working small or medium manufacturers want a slice of that action ??
If you invest in this technology it doesnt mean you are banned from turning out your normal range of high performance poly/epoxy boards… its not “one or the other”, its about creating an income stream ( a.k.a -…putting food on the plate) from different technologies rather than insisting that the public buy what youre making,just because youve been making it for so long…
Do we have to wait for permission from other industries or can we make our own decisions ?
Years ago… I was in an industry where the established kings of expertise said they would rather stand on the street corner selling their wares than accept a paradigm shift to their established techniques and beliefs…
You can guess where they are now …
** **Not on the street corner…
but they are working out of the industry
, or at Maccas
or retired
or just angry old men proclaming the injustices of change.
Change is inevitable, this might be a change for the better, but it needs an open mind to start it off.