i just trekked down to the local home depot and found there stash of polystyrene. it seems really soft, like atleast twice as soft as clark foam. is this the stuff you guys have been using for $14 blanks? do you just load a bunch of glass on it?
yep, thats the stuff. It is very soft. Recommended glassing for 1# EPS is (2)6oz bottom and (3)6 oz deck per the archives.
Yes. I did the 6x6x6 deck on one and a 10x10 + 10 patch (all volan) on the other. The triple-6 feels a little soft, like the old rail-squeeze test on a Stewart or a Pearson. The Volan board feels like any poly/poly board you’d get from a pro.
I also did 6x6 bottom on the first, 10x10 on the second. I think the 10x10 is excessive. Maybe 6+10 or 8x8 would be fine for the bottom. Even a 10x6 + 10 patch for the deck would probably be sufficient. Or a triple 8…or 8+8 + a patch…you get the idea.
benny, what did the volan board weigh like compared to poly of a lighter schedule? i know epoxy uses more resin, so would a 3x10oz deck feel like a 2x6 deck in poly?
you got it wrong. epoxy uses less resin. read the “epoxy construction primer” in the resources…
yeah yeah, i know. i made a quik typo.
I don’t have much to compare it to and I haven’t weighed it. I made an 8’0" single fin egg with nose & tail blocks, 1" redwood stringer, and all that volan. The only other similarly-sized board is a traditional poly 8’2" egg with just a basic stringer and 3 fin boxes. I’d say the volan one weighs 3-4 lb more, but if the poly/poly board had just one wood-core glass on, it might be 4.5 lb lighter. I think a lot of that weight - more than half, certainly - is in the wood. I’d estimate it weighs about 15-16 lb.
But I wanted a board for windy days, so weight & stiffness, as well as riding a little low in the water (displacement via belly-roll, rather than planing through hardrails & flat bottom) was the goal. It works great frontside & is a pain to try to surf backside. It would go well backside, I think, as a 2+1, but its a single (for now).
The 10’1" longboard with 6x6x6 deck weighs about 14 lb. It could gain 3-4 lb and still have awesome ‘handling’.