Question for Benny

General Discussion
1

I am just wondering about the longboard you made with the 14 dollar blank. Do you still ride it and how durable it is. Please forgive me if its gone, I could only find the thread about the original process of you making that board.

Thanks, Mark

2

Hi Mark - sorry I didn’t see this before. I’m on vacation and not spending much computer time. :slight_smile: I still have it, but don’t ride it much anymore. It got quite soft.

What I’ve actually learned since then, though, indicates that the softness was not due to materials choices or failures. I had intuited that letting ‘excess’ resin soak into the light EPS would give a stronger board, at the sacrifice of lightweight. But actually, the strongest composites can also be the lightest, when you observe proper glass/resin ratios. I totally overdid the resin - using something like 32 oz on the deck for 3 layers of 6 oz glass! The glassing schedule should be plenty, and lots of people have used 1# EPS… Now I’d use about 15 oz of resin after sealing the blank and get a much firmer, more durable, lighter board that I’d probably still be surfing. With good laminating, I only use 2 layers of 4 oz glass on 2# EPS - so 3 layers of 6 oz on 1# is fine, with good technique.

I’m still not sold on spackle (the creeping evil), so I seal with an epoxy/microballoon slurry. It only takes the smallest amount and you can laminate quite soon afterwards - maybe 45 minutes.

Hope that’s the kind of info you’re looking for. Good luck

Ben

3

I’m doing a Benny style Balsa Compsandl. I finally cut the outline last night, been slow to get to it.

I was actually thinking of probond for a sealer Benny.

There was that thread around here 3 weeks back or so where someone mentioned doing some strength tests. They found that probond gave the best flex?

So what do you think about the probond + glass on the inside layer of the balsa as a sealer/resin Benny?

4

Thanks Benny. I am about to attempt to make a similar board/blank and was interested in how yours had held up since you built it. Thanks for getting back to me about it and enjoy your vacation,

Mark

5

Kai - I haven’t sealed any compsands. I put the glass on the inside of the balsa skin to wet it out (or wet it out separately altogether on a table, or in a cup) and then put the blank onto the wet glass & balsa & them pull vac. Even with the absoultely minimal bonding layer I probably get with the EPS to epoxy like this, I have not had separation issues at all.

Sealing is for plain glassing, IMO, and skins are a different animal altogether…

6

More sanding for me then.

My wirecutting and glue up caused some low spots which I had hoped to skip sanding down to with the expanding glue.