This is my first post with much respect to the people who post here the wisdom and experience is priceless.
So just like HungryPete I am totally new to surfboard shaping and have only made one HomeDepot styrofoam with homedepot garage floor epoxy board(against much advise on Swaylocks). The board was only to be used in our river tied to a rope trying to surf a rapid. The river board was mainly to keep my real longboard from getting dinged up. It works just fine as a total beater in a rocky river and it was good experience with fiberglass and epoxy.
I totally understand I can buy a blank for less cost and hastle and have
a good start on a real board, but its more about the challange of
trying something new(a $70 blank costs $165 to ship to AZ, I can get the pour foam for about $50 and the
material to make the mold is $20 or less)
Anyway, I am a sprayfoam insulation contractor and have had the thought of building a molded foam blank. Our high heat sprayfoam expands way to fast for this application(see any youtube vid on sprayfoam insulation).
Like Hungry Pete I was thinking of using pourable foam in a mold. The plan is much like HungryPete’s, make a plaster mold of an old board and use pour foam(2 pound) the only difference is that I plan to make the mold in 2 halfs.
The mold will be built as if you took a real blank and cut right down the stringer and you had two vertical halfs, then you would pour the foam down into the mold from where the stringer was individually for each side.
My theory is this method does a couple things:
-It allows a you to mix up a smaller more manageable batch for each side.(downside is each side may be different?)
-It allows you to mold each side of the old board seperately so you dont have to worry about prying the mold off and damaging the old board.
-It allows room for the foam to expand up as it fills the cavity so there is a place for the extra expansion to excape
You could then trim the excess foam along the stringer line and have two halfs of a board.
You could then use epoxy to laminate the two halfs back together. (ie epoxy stringer)
Perhaps this experiment will be a total flop? It does seem like everyone thinks its a bad idea and wont work but everyone wants pics and vids.
If it works it could be a decent alternative for remote surf spots (like norway).
Its like my 2 1/2 yr old boy who thinks he can do something out of the norm and I always know it wont work but half the fun is the time spent trying.
HungryPete any more progress or Pics?
If I do my experiment I’ll post some pics or a video.