What’s up?
is this some kind of sways joke or scam…
Leave it to ebay
Interesting none the least…
woooohoooooooo
I want one , so I can create interesting colours on cliffs in the background , like that cool duuude is doing ![…“wildy” ??? is that YOU ?]
just call it the Jesus board. you can also claim 30 second nose rides the judges wont know the difference.
No, it ain’t me.
Cool looking board, but no internal structure? Not too sure about that one.
Weight? That plastic stuff is pretty heavy.
And would you buy a board in Colorado Springs? Snowboard maybe, but surfboard!!
Well…USAF Academy is in Colo Springs…they might know a few tricks.
But the ‘filled with helium’ bit makes me think its a joke.
Joke or not- there is a patent for that idea. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=3&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=150&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=surfboard&OS=surfboard&RS=surfboard
-Carl
Hi Guys -
I just got off the phone with Brian Flemin. It is not a joke. He said he is in Colorado by way of Texas and Hawaii. NXXT WAVE Surfboard Company is the name of his company. I haven’t seen one in person but a durable clear board sounds kind of cool to me.
Without getting too specfic, after designing the prototype plug, a mold is taken. The Lexan is thermo molded and welded… a very expensive and time consuming process he assured me.
The boards can be pressurized with any gas but he prefers helium for it’s clarity and weight savings. He said room air might condense and fog up when the board gets cold. A pressure relief valve is also installed.
I asked for one of his brochures and will update if there’s anything I missed here.
Lexan is permeable to helium, hydrogen, and a lot of other diatomic gasses. So they could fill the board with helium but after a short period of time it would be replaced by oxygen, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, ect. Similar to those foil type helium balloons that eventually loose their buoyancy even though they remain inflated.
i have seen clear kayaks around hawaii that look like they are made of the the same materia/ same processl… colorado, kayaks, bet it is the same company…
i would like a clear 10’6" so on the tinny beautiful summer days i can chill and look at the fish and search for a mermaid…
the helium thing is sooooo dam funny… the reason this guy gave makes sense this time though, an inert gass that won’t condense… same idea used in double pain glass windows…
Sounds pretty fishy.
Density of Air = 1.2g/L
Density of Helium = 0.18g/L
For a 9’1"Y at ~98L of volume this is a savings of only 100g or 3.5oz. Given that the the low MW of helium leads to really fast diffusion, it will leak like crazy when that valve is opened and be replaced by air in no time. i believe that polycarb (Lexan) is somewhat permeable to Helium, so you would have to charge up your board periodically to keep the weight savings/ Why bother?
This sounds a lot like the boards these guys are trying to sell: http://www.oceanxtechnology.com/info.htm with the added touch of adding helium.
Here is an older thread on the subject: http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=198629;search_string=polycarbonate;#198629
Matt
Now, all we have to do is invent clear wax… Or maybe wear succion-cups booties?
the osmosis problem seems like a simple one to fix.
with a proper valve attachment you could go down to any store and buy one of those refillable helium balloon cannisters and use it to refill you board whenever you lost most of your helium. in with the good stuff out with the bad.
Some type of coloring in the gas would be helpful or a sensor strip to tell you of the make up of the gases in the board to give you an indicator as to when you need a refill.
Without an internal support structure I wonder how well these welded plastic seems would hold up and what about expanding gases in the hot tropical sun? Way worse than some delammed skin off a 1lb that wasn;t heat cured…
The board is 12lbs unfilled and 7lbs filled so they aren’t exactly lightweights.
This would make a neat movie is someone could get one…
Under the right lighting it would look like from afar someone was surfing a wave without a board under them…
Here’s a interesting take…
There’s a special clear plastic film being sold here to hurricane and bomb proof windows…
If you line the inside or outside of the clear lexan board with the film you might bea ble to seal the lexan to prevent helium leakage while making the board just a tad more “bullet proof” .
I wouldn’t mind getting one of these to play around with for $79… (latest bid)
All in all pretty funny stuff
would take someone in colorado with the tech savy and gumption to try and pull this off…
Just imagine being able to see all the shallow water coral reef heads and sharks swimming below you as a distraction.
Hi Tigermeat -
OceanXtechnology… that was the company I was trying to think of when I spoke to Brian. He said there are a couple of guys working on hollow Lexan technology - one in the sailboard industry.
OceanXtechnology is using foam internally to support the Lexan. I don’t know a thing about the support required in a hollow Lexan board but I like the idea of being able to see through it.
FWIW, the reserve is quite a bit higher than the 79.00 current bid. Contract molding and Lexan welding are expensive propositions.
interestingly enough if you read what serf has to say in his reply to the poster, it makes you wonder about the true origins of this board…
was it made?
or
was it bought from serf?
http://forum.surfermag.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=1012120&an=0&page=0#Post1012120
Be interesting to hear what the literature says when you get it John…
No “buy it now” pricing either…
Hi Oneula -
As far as I know the one on eBay is brand new with others currently in production.
Can it be fitted with a special valve so I can take a big hit of Helium and scream,“Going right” like Donald Duck? Sorry for being so cynical. mike
The air pressure would help with the lack of internal structure.
You probably wouldn’t want to release the pressure when the board was sitting in the heat and then go in the cold water and have the air contract though. I guess you could always open the vent again though to let some air back in.
But doing it with helium seems unrealistic.
Maybe you could get him to give one of his creations to a Swaylockian for an online review like Mark Price did with the Firewire?
Also, maybe if Bert works with the helium (or an even lighter gas?) idea he could eventually get his boards down to lighter than air! Think of the possibilities!!! Aeriels? Floaters? How about instead of “tombstoning” you see boards “balooning”- floating in the air with their riders panicking somewhere below the surface.
not to be a party pooper…
but in all honesty I really really hate super light as air boards.
I’m not interested in as much boosting some big air as I’m trying to make a 10’ drop in strong offshores or sideshores without going over the falls. And if I do make the drop I don’t want my board to come to dead stop as soon as I get up to the lip or after turning off the shoulder back to the foamball.
Don’t get me wrong for popping and hopping like a junior bunny rabbit they are a godsend. But when the sh*t hits the fan and you need some gears to get out of a jam they kind of go limp on me every single time. You need a little weight every now and then not alot but some…
I kind of see these as the ultimate lighter than air super stiffy surftech el’supremo…
could be wrong but that’s what they sound like…
A stiff plastic outer shell exoskeleton made even stiffer with a high pressured gaseous core…
poop out…
Quote:
Now, all we have to do is invent clear wax… Or maybe wear succion-cups booties?
Beat me to it… Without clear wax it’ll look like your riding a worn out dirty carpet with sand and hair stuck in it…