Cement blocks … my favorite weight tool
Very insightful Mr. Barnfield.
Drew
There’s two out there in '85…
Don Vesco’s, my original plug, was mostly used on only the GP race bikes, was around 16" long, a curved butt pad usually 1.5" thick closed cell foam, around 11" wide, rounded squared corners with parallel slab sides. That was the shape that Don’s glasser used in over 50 production units.
There is another one out for RD’s of various vintages, because a royalty had to be paid for Don’s seat, and a smart person just farmed the job out to another glasser, and he (she?) made the plug, the female mold, and started making streamlined seats with a curved aero foil tail end.
Both had a closed tail end, which my plug didn’t, but that’s easy enough to do.
Harry originally had me copy the H1R slab sided fairing for TD-3’s, because they thought their (Yamaha’s) fairings had too much drag and no downforce at 150+ speeds.
That one never went anywhere, but was also given to DonVesco, the TeamYamaha financier and race team.
Took me well over 2 months to fit a fairing solidly to a watercooled chassis…not exactly a piece of cake for my low intelligence. Every different angle had to be modified on the actual fairing for a good fit…took foreever.
I have also been interested in this process for a while. I have researched and picked brains a lot and have come to the conclusion that the foam that us meer beach bums are allowed to set hands on without expensive licences, is the shitty brown stuff that they use in boat building (part A & B mix togethor)
Now although this isn’t ideal for high quality blanks, it could be used to make the much hated pop-out boards.
I am so interested in this process that i am going to give it a go. Flogging popouts in the summer can’t be that hard, not for incredible financial gain, more to just get a feel for the whole blowing process without delving too deep into my wallet. Besides, any mistakes are hidden deep under the cheap solid pigment gelcoat and chopped strand mat.
My old man used to work in the Bilbo surf factory back in the days, where he made two of these monstrosities every day. The mould was a typical gelcoat-chopped strand, but re-enforced with steel, and on a hinge. The boards were pigmented gelcoat, 1 layre 6oz chopped strand mat and the rest was foam (no stringer required and the finboxes would sit on an attachment before the gelcoat was applied). Once, in the middle of summer on a really hot day, the foam blew so fast that they couldn’t shut the mould in time. There was nothing they could do, so decided to skive off to go surfing. The next day, they had to hack their way into the room with a hammer and chizzle. After a whole day of chizzling, they managed to salvage the mould. The same cannot be said about the room.
So, with his help i am going to give it a go (not that i think of him as too much of an expert).
If all goes well, i might have a go with some epoxy resin and some decent cloth. This will create… a surftec??
I will post photos on here, expect it done some time within the next 3 months or so.
very excited about this project (fairly inexpensive aswell, popouts work out about £45 a board and the mould can be made out of my mountian of offcuts and glass on some scaffold poles)
wish me luck
good luck, i can’t wait to see pics of the project.
JUst to clear up something here
[quote] They don't sell TDI based foams in two pack. Surfboard style foam doesn't come in a A & B kit. So either cough up the bucks to get a formula written for you or take a number of college courses so you can do it yourself. [/quote]
well they do, they are several companys happy to sell you a formula. TDI based or MDI maybe I have jump in to this thread last but it is easy to make PU foam just have to follow a ideas that work Pete
one such company is Era Polymers….
see this data sheet http://www.erapol.com.au/assets/files/Datasheets/Foams/Rigid/SurfboardFoam/Greenlink%20SB401.pdf