Is there anyone out there using stitched biaxial cloth? I've seen it used widly in the marine industry. I'm curious why I've never seen it used on surfboards. I figured with the wealth of knowledge here, it would be a good place to ask.
I’m not a top notch shaper but have built a few boards. I have used stiched biax (being a boatbuilder I use it for all sorts of stuff) for a board. I used epoxy and bagged the beast. The stitching needed a sand and a glosscoat finished it off nicely. Great stuff and goes around the rails better than woven glass.
Stitched biaxial meaning 2-ply nonwoven? It would def work better - why isn’t it used on surfboards? Why are the majority of surfboards still being built with tech from the 50’s? But even in the 50’s Simmons was experimenting with balsa sandwich composites with lightweight foam…
The new textreme carbon fiber is becomming popular now, it’s still a woven, but it’s large-tow CF and is basically non-crimp.
I wish there was a 45/45 or 60/60 large tow S-glass cloth, would be a step up…
Startup costs are lower for mills making the large tow because they require less threading heads, now that the composite industry is using this stuff more you might see some better stuff come online…
For now, yea I think the biaxial stitched would work well… what weight were you working with?
You mean like this?
http://www.shapers.com.au/products/Quad%252dAxel-Surfboard-Cloth-%252d-1M-Lengths.html
Thanks. I didn’t know that anyone was using it.
Years ago I saw some cloth that some Italian boat guys had. It was a finishing cloth and looked around 6 ounce or so. It had this weave where the glass would not unravel at the edges. I asked where I could get score some and they said it came from the Soviet Union.
Never could find a source. The Italians did say that American glass sucked and so did our resin. They build amazing boats. Company called Intermarine. I love the Italians.They do nice work.
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"You mean like this?
http://www.shapers.com.au/products/Quad%252dAxel-Surfboard-Cloth-%252d-1M-Lengths.html"
I’m not sure what the point would be.It is a really open and not uniform weave. That means it takes more resin to fill the voids, and fill in for the high spot where the tracers go. And what are you trying to accomplish by running the majority of the fibers at a 45 degree angle? Won’t do anything for impact, will give you more flex, but weaken against board snapping. In my humble opinion, there are better ways to manage flex
It’s not a weave at all. The glass strands all run parallel to each other in several layers(in this case four, but can be 1-n and have layers of mat too made of different types of material), the stitching is what holds it together. When bagged, it lays down flat and uses less resin than similar weight woven cloth (Note that it’s usually a VERY heavy cloth). Have an advantage when it comes to strength since every fiber is straight and doesn’t have to go over/under other fibers which creates stress points. According to aircraft spruce: “E-glass in woven goods normally has 22,000 psi tensile strength. Layered nonwoven goods give 27,000 psi which is about a 20% improvement.” Pretty much useless if you use traditional surfboard technique IMO and you can see the stiching in the finished product which rules it out cosmetically for surfboards, but the industry standard in skies and snowboards. The biaxial cloth is used to get less twist, more force to the rails in skies and snowboards and would probably have same effect on surfboards.
Something to consider when choosing cloth.
Tensile strength measures the point that the fiber snaps when stretched. Tensile strength is over rated, because your board is never torn appart nose from tail.
Having a totally flat fiber is actually weaker than a weave. Think about a corrugated cardboard box. It is the “up and down” that gives the strength. Think of it as a bunch of tiny little bridges.
Ballistic cloth is actually woven to add more of an arched effect.
If you want to keep weight down and maximize strength, use a tighter weave, wet out table, and vaccum it.
I have used quite a bit of biaxial cloth over the last few years, and it is a good thing. A guy from Boieng named Mike approached Hank at Graphite Masters a few years ago with a product he named “X-Cloth.” When Hank ordered the product it came in 50’’ wide rolls, and in an act of pure ignorance he split it into 25’’ rolls, which limits its use and completely misses the SUP market. Being on the heavy side of 6ozs. it never made any headway into the short board market, and because of this act of folly it sits collecting dust in his warehouse.
Biaxial cloth is a bit different to work with but isn’t as difficult as it looks. It holds a ton of promise, and a fair bit of resin too. Another source of contention with certain people in my world.
At any rate, it seems like it would be easier to do your own mult-axial layup by laying 2 layers of lighter cloth at a diagonally opposing bias.
On my last 2 boards I laid one layer of balanced weave at 0-180* and 2 layers at opposing 30* on each side, so I had a fibers going in 6 directions top and bottom and across the rails. I included 2 more diagonals at 40* for the deck patches. Because I was using 3.2oz cloth I ended up with the same weight as a 6+4 on both sides + another 6oz for the deckpatch. These are longboard layups so adding weight was part of the plan, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for lighter layups if using 2oz or 1.8oz.
Thayercraft sent out an e-mail last week offering 50yd rolls of a balanced 3oz crowfoot in the 60" width for $92 including shipping. At $1.84/yd for a 60" width it’s not expensive to play around with alternative layups.
Stitch cloth purpose is to avoid crimp caused by weave crossing patern of “classic” cloth. At same weight and fiber, no crimp and straight fiber allow an increase of 20 to 30% of stiffeness and tenacity. With an appropriat technic it use less resin (mainly for heavy cloth). Those close can be made with specific orientation of fiber at “low cost”. For all those qualities it became the standard in many industrial building and now in many sports equipements, included ski, windsurf… For surfboards you find it in slx tech, futureflex, ultraflex and others.
I my “epoflex” personal tech, i use it in bibiais (45°) pattern on deck, that allow to effectively add fiber without to much longitudinale stiffness, and in UD pattern.
Sorry for my english.
Hey Lemat could agree with you more, even your Frenglish.
I was under the impression that a woven cloth causes the resin to debond at the crossover points when in tension. This can be demonstrated in a simple tensile test. In unwoven cloth the tensile load is directly along the line of the fibres. The fibres take the load without distorting, less chance of micro delaminations. Should we beware the relationship between stiffness and strength?
…not too much use due to no premium quality and that s a no no for clear boards or super quality show boards.
That s no matter on boats, windsurf, etc
like everyone is saying, there really isn’t a surf specific biaxial, triaxial or quad axial (which is impossible if you know how cloth is woven) out there. We are working on some new materials to be woven with fiberglass so stay tuned and keep experimenting and asking questions. It’s the only way we can progress. 
You are right, don’t look very good, but some people find it’s look “hi Tech”.
I swear one of the luminaries here put up a link to that funky diamond pattern glass with a carbon stripe in it. Was the post taken down? I’m trying to find a supplier in the UK and need to send a picture. Anybody got one I could use?