Any American foam that is UV protected i.e. doesnt yellow?
I’ve had US Blanks and they yellow badly from sun exposure.
Some of the Australian foam ( Midgets Surfblanks) doesnt yellow at all.
You mentioned Midgets’ foam Surfblanks Aus. I have used fifteen or so of those blanks and still have two personal longboards that I shaped from Midgets’ foam. I won’t say they don’t yellow but pretty close to “not”. Surfblanks America is a franchise of the same foam. Get ahold of one of their dealers or buy direct at the warehouse in Oceanside. They have dialed everything in over the past three or four years. Plugs, molds, pouring; it is essentially the same foam. Bright white(and stays that way longer than anyone else), even density etc. They make a green now that is supposed to be a little easier to hand shape. I think mine were blues and reds. Harder foam, more effort to shape, but a great end product. Call Andrew or Marty. I’ll dig out their # and post it up for you later. Google their website. I think their foam is the best around right now. Lowel
Thanks McDing thats a start for my research. www.surfblanksamerica.com
Dont need the #.
I order my blanks through the ‘Cutting House’.
So if a cutting house already has an acct with these people and their experiences are good
then thats where it will lead me.
Thanks.
I use mostly US Blanks New Red Formula which are light and white. Plus the service is the best on this planet. I order on Monday and by Wednesday I have all my blanks with the correct deck rocker. It’s the whole package. Plus the Pro’s I shape for say to use only US! Once you have your service dial in what’s the point in changing? I have six boards from one of my team riders that are all white after 6 months. Plus the foam is easy to shape out.
There are some other good foams out there however without the service it’s a mute point!
Hey Otis-----------I wasn’t paying attention, didn’t realize that you were in SF. Try Matt Ambrose in Pacifica. He cuts blanks for alot of guys between Santa Cruz and the Bay Area. He uses Surfblanks. I’ve heard that he started by importing Midgets’ Surfblanks from Down Under, but has switched to Surfblanks America now that they have their process and distribution dialed in. Pm me if you want the names of a couple of shapers that use his services and blanks. Never met the man, but my sources in SC and Pacifica tell me they are very happy with him and the blanks. Lowel
How long are you looking for them to be Color Stable before yellowing? Are we talking about the raw blank sitting on the rack waiting to be cut/shaped? Or do you mean after it’s been shaped and ready to be glassed? Or… after it has been glassed?
Farrelly foam/ SurfBlanks America has been known not to yellow or resist yellowing better than most.
Generally the resin yellows first.
That would be after glassed, in the car or on the beach.
Thanks- So the idea is to keep the foam from yellowing before the resin yellows- right? How long does it take for the resin to yellow?
How long does it take for the Farrelly to yellow? Why not ask the Resin suppliers to make the resin more resistant to UV? That would help keep all the blanks whiter longer right?
Sounds like this is more of your problem than mine.
Resin Supplier??
**http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/any-success-white-airbrush
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I have personal boards I built from 3-4 different PU foam companies and two are from Surfblanks USA. The Surfblanks are still really white. Much whiter than the others and they are all glassed around the same time and by the same glasser. The difference is very noticeable and this has nothing to do with resin yellowing.
The question is about American foam companies…I wouldnt exactly confuse a Mexican and Austalian foam company as American.
Mexico IS part of America. North America to be exact. If Grubby Clark had done years ago what Surfblanks has done; We might still be able to buy low tolerance, soft, squishy foam to make surfboards that yellow on the Surf Shop floor. If the question had been; What foam made in the continental United States doesn’t yellow? The answer would have been NONE. Lowel---------Maui/Oregon
SD---------I haven’t shaped a “Red”. Only US Blanks from Fiberglass Hawaii, can’t remember probably blue or green. Shaped easy(similar to Clark). Sold 'em almost immediatly. Got no idea how yellow they are now. I have though got to watch blanks yellow on the Surf Shop rack/floor. It is true to assume that “most” Australian formulas do not yellow as quickly as “American” foam and are denser; Therefore more time consuming to shape. If I had a CNC the handshaping part of it wouldn’t matter as much to me. Since I have been using Aussie Foam I have changed my methods(power sanding). I like the way Surfblanks paint out too. Crisp and sharp. Sometimes it’s a matter of availability(sp). I can here on Maui or if I were in the SB/Ventura area walk into Fiberglass Hawaii and buy whatever US Blank I might need. Fiberglass Hawaii is a great company and they have the whole process down with regards to supply and distribution. I would be hard pressed though to say who is the smarter; Midget Farelly or Ted Wilson. So once US Blanks set up shop they had the distribution and supply part of it down. In other words US Blanks had a “leg up” with Fiberglass Hawaii. I still don’t understand why they closed the SC location. Probably a cost cutting measure. Rent, overhead and sales. I’m sure that guys up there still miss 'em though. I will not malign any foam that is in the marketplace. If you like it. Use it. Like you said “why switch”. If I have had a bad experience with a blank company I will however let people know. Surfblanks America is a “start-up”. They have gone thru a process and have made great progress on all fronts. Consistency of product, sizes and types of blanks available and now finally distribution. They have more “big names” coming on board to do plugs every week. I just heard yesterday that they are blown away by the demand for the new Maible Fish blanks. I don’t have the link handy but if you google Matt Ambrose or Ambrose Surfblanks I think you can see that between the Oceanside warehouse and Matt up in Pacifica; They’ve got Calif. distribution handled pretty well, Takes a start up a while. Haven’t heard much about Blair lately. Ice- Nine seems to be doing OK. I heard Just Foam is gone. Probably never really recovered from the fire. There’s an unlimited supply of EPS, but that’s not what I am addressing here. I will say this; All the competition is fantastic for shapers and glassers. It’s a good thing. My personal opinion is that in a year or two there will be THREE well know Poly Blank manufacturers or quite possibly only TWO. Lowel
Lowel;
I beg to differ with you as to US foams yellowing. I have used
a lot of Just Foam blanks (it will be too bad if they are out of business,
the website is still up but they are not answering the phone) and
their foam didn’t yellow after a year. The only other Made in USA
foam I know of is Ice-Nine. Everyone else is made in Mexico and
warehoused here.
I have used almost everybody since Clark went out of business and
here’s my 2c.
US FOAM is Clark, period. Grubby comes in the back door.
Moses Ice-Nine is Walker, he comes in the front door.
These foams yellowed with time back then, they have the same
characteristics today. People like them for the same reasons that
they were popular back in the day. They shape easy and US FOAM
Surfblanks America is poured in Mexico. It has that great Aussie
formula and is a great white foam. Like most people have found out
by now, I find it denser in cell structure and a little harder to shape but
paints out great. It has a different flex than Clark and will not snap
as easily but when it goes, it goes pop!! Bennett was even better IMO
but their glue-ups sucked and had other issues. I have a few I’m keeping
for myself. I can work around the glue-ups and they will be hand shaped.
I do agree with SD that US FOAM has great service and spot on rockers.
Great for machine use and have that old Clark spring when new!
Most guys will tell you that orders this year are mostly customs. I hope
we don’t get down to one foam again. All my customs get a white spray
regardless of the foam, I believe my customers deserve this as well as
a great glass job that lasts. Just my 2c!!
Matt Ambrose or Ambrose Surfblanks I think you can see that between the Oceanside warehouse and Matt up in Pacifica; They’ve got Calif. distribution handled pretty well, Takes a start up a while. Haven’t heard much about Blair lately. Ice- Nine seems to be doing OK. I heard Just Foam is gone. Probably never really recovered from the fire. There’s an unlimited supply of EPS, but that’s not what I am addressing here. I will say this; All the competition is fantastic for shapers and glassers. It’s a good thing. My personal opinion is that in a year or two there will be THREE well know Poly Blank manufacturers or quite possibly only TWO. Lowel
Matt Ambrose is a straight up guy! Andrew of Surf Balnks is a good guy as well. They do have good foam. At this point it’s just so easy to work with US Blanks. Like I said the new formula is pretty white. The blanks are hard to the core. Clarks had a soft center so the formula is different thanks to customer demand. Being soft on the inside wasn’t necessarily a bad thing the flex was unreal. It’s great the boards lost their life. Disposible boards is good for business. Concerning the Yellowing I like Surf Teach’s approche of painting them white. Midget Smith would do the same thing and always had white boards.
Ice 9 may be bettter now that Harold Walker has helped them. Never had a bad blank when I tried Surf Blanks America and have a few friends in the industry that like them. Blair? Who are they? Just Foam will mostly be made in Taiwain. So as we see fewer players in the Blank Business there will be more cheap imported foam available which will hurt the last players standing in the end. Ironically we will make boards with out sourced foam?
The saga continues!.
Matt Ambrose or Ambrose Surfblanks I think you can see that between the Oceanside warehouse and Matt up in Pacifica; They’ve got Calif. distribution handled pretty well, Takes a start up a while. Haven’t heard much about Blair lately. Ice- Nine seems to be doing OK. I heard Just Foam is gone. Probably never really recovered from the fire. There’s an unlimited supply of EPS, but that’s not what I am addressing here. I will say this; All the competition is fantastic for shapers and glassers. It’s a good thing. My personal opinion is that in a year or two there will be THREE well know Poly Blank manufacturers or quite possibly only TWO. Lowel
Matt Ambrose is a straight up guy! Andrew of Surf Balnks is a good guy as well. They do have good foam. At this point it’s just so easy to work with US Blanks. Like I said the new formula is pretty white. The blanks are hard to the core. Clarks had a soft center so the formula is different thanks to customer demand. Being soft on the inside wasn’t necessarily a bad thing the flex was unreal. It’s great the boards lost their life. Disposible boards is good for business. Concerning the Yellowing I like Surf Teach’s approche of painting them white. Midget Smith would do the same thing and always had white boards.
Ice 9 may be bettter now that Harold Walker has helped them. The last blanks from them were better than when they started their switch to TDI was a good move. Never had a bad blank when I tried Surf Blanks America and have a few friends in the industry that like them. Blair? Who are they? Just Foam will mostly be made in Taiwain. So as we see fewer players in the Blank Business there will be more cheap imported foam available which will hurt the last players standing in the end. Ironically we will make boards with out sourced foam?
The saga continues!.
I’m a little confused. You disagree with me about US foams not yellowing, but you admitt that US Blanks and Ice-Nine’s Moses have the same characteristics as Clark and Walker respectively. One of those characteristics being that both Clark and Walker yellowed. In my opinion Clark yellowed much faster than Walker. I have never shaped an Ice-nine Moses. so I will not comment on their blanks. I have shaped US Blanks and my opinion is that they are close to Clark but a tad harder. That is purly opinion from experience. I am a little confused by you terminology as you call Surfblanks America; “US Foam Surfblanks America” . You do however seem to agree with me that Austrailian Foams in general and Surfblanks specifically “has that great Aussie formula and is a great white foam. Denser in cell structure, harder to shape and paints out great”. I think we are in agreement here, not disagreement. Bennet and King-Mac were both in Baja for awhile but no more. Some shapers here on Maui used a few King-Macs. There was yellowing along and on bothsides of the stringer(glue?). Resulting in a finished blank that had to be painted white. An unessary step in the process in my opinion. Lowel Maui/Oregon
Sorry for th confusion. I disagreed with you on lumping foams poured in Mexico
(US FOAM & Surfblanks) with foams poured here in the States. There is a lot of
confusion with who is whom these days. It seems that
there is now only one manufacturer left who makes pu foam in the States.
Sadly, this is all part of the economic problem.
Bennetts/KingMacs still can be had, I don’t know about
custom orders. As far as I know they are also poured in Mex.
Also, the yellow stringer problem with caused by the heat
generated by the glue. Late production & KingMac did not
have that problem.
Anyway, I wanted to support the American manufacturers first, and the
Mexican worker second. As the economy stays in this downturn, I
hope we won’t end up with just one pu foam. As a small producer, I
don’t want to go down that road again!
I will agree completly with you that we are going to see an Asian influx of foam in 2009 and 2010. Hadn’t heard the Just Foam Taiwan connection. But I’ll buy Taiwan and Japan before I buy Chinese or Thai. Have seen a recently new add on the internet for Poly and EPS blanks out of China. One of the Aussie companies that folded in Baja is supposedly going to start up in Thailand. When I go into Longs here on Maui to buy a kitchen knife I always buy Taiwan or Japanese. Bought a cheap knife from China a few months back, about as sharp as a screwdriver. Lowel
Upon further thought and reflection, perhaps my one ’ US Foam’ that yellowed appreciably was from
keeping it in a car uncoverd, bottom side up. I’ve had other ‘US Foam’ boards without the significant sun exposure
of this one that didnt yellow at an accelerated rate.
Although that yellowing board was in the car last summer intermittently , the
car didnt have window tinting and I was perhaps a bit lazy in keeping it covered
by either a boardbag or a towel draped over it as much as I should have. . Most assuredly if I had window tinting
I probably wouldnt be having this problem, at least I dont think so. Further the yellowing pattern
is occuring in a band that coincides with the sun exposure of the board when its in the car.
Could it be the resin and not the blank?..highly unlikely…as I noted in this thread
or another, I have US Foam dust in a window sill in my shaping room and it yellows
like corn meal-- deep rich yellow!
I’m now figuring overall that perhaps my best strategy is to just get my windows tinted.