XPS "roll call" - What have you experienced?

General Discussion
1

Finished my first XPS - against the suggestions of some, but, from the archives, I read that some have had fine experiences. I used the Dow blue 2" with two 4" stips of 4.5oz uni-directional carbon fiber full length laminated to the deck - which I had “skinned” - under pressure on a rocker table to put in the rocker. 2x4oz bottom w/6oz tail patch and one full length strip of the same carbon fiber, and 2x6oz deck w/4oz tail patch. (Sorry to recap - just incase you wanted to know)

The question is: For those of you who have taken on this venture - How has it been? How long have you had your board? What kind of conditions do you use it in? What kind of glassing schedule did you use? And the dreaded - how has your lam held up? Any other news to share?

Thanks for sharing - I’ll try to provide a report at the end of the summer if it seems anyone is interested. Thanks to all for all the info - Long live Sway’s - TaylorO

2

not sure …i have seen the board and its sweet…

seems light and flexy but strong…have you had it in the water yet+?

sea bass and lingcod for dinner tonight cought off the point…hungry?

3

A couple of XPS boards I made for myself in 1996 were so rad to ride, Light as fuck with all 6oz glass. The stuff is so nice to shape that its such a shame it has downsides.

Mine lasted for a couple of years before the glass started delaminating in foot square patches…

We want an industrial chemist to come up with a foam that has the best properties of EPS and XPS


4

the best board your gonna get from it ,is building it like a conventional board but with epoxy …

maybe i was a slow learner or just tried way more variations , but i built over 100 boards with the stuff …

its great !!! for insulating my factory …

ive seen businesses collapse because of that stuff …

at first so much potential , but then so much pain …

it doesnt like glass and resin sticking to it , but try and bag something on it and its even worse …

it is possible to use it , but so far the only application ive heard of working was in bluejuices sailboards , which have no flex …

as soon as you start bending the stuff , it fails miserably as it just shears internally …

its got the worst shear strength of any foam …

and shear is the key …

everyone who discovers it , thinks they have found the holy grail of foam … only to find they really found a plastic cup in disguise…

it still may work one day , because theres new systems and concepts coming out all the time …

one interesting thing there doing with polyethylene now is adding titanium , it lengthens the polymer chains by binding to the ends of chains and joining them but also creates another link by which other materials can be attached to polyethylene …

interesting part is that polyethylene is non stick and its the reason why XTR has so many problems …

they use p/e in the extrusion process so it doesnt gum up the nozzles as its coming out …

so one day , it may be workable …

regards

BERT

5

Yep Bert,

I’m glad that the couple of XPS boards I made never got into the hands of a customer!

I spent some time working with the Bamboo guys in Byron:-

Watching them trying to shape boards from flat sheets of pink XPS flopping around between the stands.

The rocker was then added in a rocker table as the bamboo skin was bagged onto the deck.

It all looked so dicey and unpredictable that I was put off Vaccing until now.

But I never found out for sure what the pink foam was? Have you come across it?

6

its XPS …

it comes in blue,white,yellow,green and pink …

ive seen those colours , there could be more …

the bulk of the ones i did were light green , a few blue and a few yellow …

i remember when a retailer i was dealing with , was telling me about the bamboos and how they use this new wonder water proof polystyrene and these things are bullet proof …

i cautioned him and explained what will go wrong , a few years later , im talking with him and he tells me , that everything i said would happen eventually did …

they were another victim of xps ,

i really wondered when salomon would stop pouring money into the hole …

coz there whole look is based on the foam ,i figured they would either have to change there look or change foam and paint it blue …

i never actually sold one , mine and team guys , and i gave a lot away …

ive seen it happen time and again , where a product is released before a thorough test has been done …

its fine to say it goes ok and has lasted me 6 or 12 months , but what happens after 2 years , or in cars , or cold , or if you leave it leaning on something with weigh against it …

theres so many things that can happen to a board in the market place …

quite often i would give boards to crew who couldnt surf , as they would be treating it more like the average surfer , falling off , shore break poundings , thrown in with the dog , its only then that you get a truer indication of what a product will handle …

regards

BERT

7

Taylor O:

The failures are well documented on a commercial level and for this reason XPS is at this point not viable for production boards. As a backyard guy you might get away with using it if you can live with the potential delams and blowouts XPS is known for. Understand that the foam was engineered for the building trades. Great water repellent nature, low absorption due to closed cell nature. This is the very reason it gasses when used for board building, trapped gasses in the cells heats up and the structure ruptures. The blanks are cheap, easy to come by and you can make a decent shape from them. Most any Dow foam distributor in a mid-size U.S. market carries 4" x 2lb. billets @ 24" x96" or thicker used for commercial roof panels. I paid about $25.00 each. You can get some good experience with templating, hotwire (watch the fumes!) and stringer glueups with this foam. Shapes OK and epoxy friendly. For the backyarder I’d say go for it, just understand the limitations. BTW, I still ride a 5’8" fish made 3 years ago as my first epoxy project, no blow outs yet. Good luck

Tom S.

8

What if before you glassed it you stuck the blank in some sort of oven for a while to sorta “de-gas” it then, and then after that glass it somewhere significantly cooler with cooler glass and resin? That way if it’s cooled slowly, the gas in it will slowly contract and suck back in, and so if you coud finish the hotcoat before this happens completley, wouldn’t the board last much longer?

9

Im guessing Bert has done these boards in a cure box under vaccum so I don’t think it solves the problem. If you jsut want to make one go for it its pretty cheap too and it’s awesome to work with it sucks that it has that one problem… I think if you just made some “vents” in the board it might help. Maybe some pinholes through out the board.

10

Whats the word on waterproof EPS? Surely its the fundamental development we want…

The foamy I learned how to surf on never got any heavier:- maybe theres an agent added for allowing molded EPS to be removed from mold, similarly as the extruded stuff needs a release agent?

?

I watched glassers at Bennett smearing Araldite all over life saving/racing paddleboards shaped in EPS. As I have subsequently repaired many such paddleboards I’ve seen why theres a need for waterproof EPS.

While Corecell balsa sandwich encasing the EPS goes a long way to protecting it, there’s people out there who will find ways to ding through into the absorbent core!

11

the core is the weakest link in surfboards at the moment …

and yes , crew still do find ways of getting to the absorbent layer …

a guy can go years without a ding , then they get that one ding that goes that bit to far and its el soako spongo …

i dont know many people who have ever done it twice …

once you feel the pain once , you learn to be vigilant …

xps , gases and delams …

p/u dents , goes brown and disolves over time …

eps sucks water when holed …

the foamies we used as kids , did get heavy , but because the foam was open , it evaporated by the next day …

also the density effects how much water it will hold …

the lighter foam holds more water , the higher density holds less …

the foamies were high density eps , so the weight that was added was minimal …

a core can be wet and you can leave it to dry naturally and it will take years , then there is the artificial way , vacuum or pressurising , still takes some time …

but if left completly open , like if you could unzip your board around the rail line …

the stuff dries out in a day because it can equalise with the surrounding enviroment way quicker …

it doesnt really bother me that eps sucks water …

because in sandwich form , it takes serious effort to ding , so it obvious youve done some damage when you drop your board over a cliff or it blows off your roof or whatever …

you need a serious situation for decent damage …

where as a normal p/u p/e will crack and get water in the foam just from normal use …

if you build them right then its no issue …

plus its got all the properties to make it perform and its extremley stable and resistant to uv and it can last 20 or 30 years being exposed to the elements …

it has many positives and one negative …

concentrate on dealing with that one negative aspect , and you find it becomes less of an issue …

sealing eps , is one way to make it less resistent to water …

if you allow your resin to penetrate a little further , it seals it deeper …

i wanted to know , how far the resin soaked in , so i pigmented the resin so when i cut the foam open i could see the cross section and see …

depending on how viscous the resin is and the gel times , its possible that the resin will drain right through the foam … but if you set your pot life and viscosity , you can control how far the resin will penetrate the foam …

so now you can seal it 10mm below the outer laminate 20 , 30 or all the way through …

obviously if it goes all the way through , you have weight , but then there is no room for the water …

so it becomes a trade off , performance versus long term reliability and durability …

isnt that where were at with conventional p/u p/e ??

difference is , if you head for performance youll get better results and if you lean towards durability youll do better also …

sealing the eps comes at a price …

but so does building a superlight disposable urethane board …

regards

BERT

12

Would’nt mind seeing some of those foamies under grommet feet again!

josh

13

you know what I’m going to ask , of course …

Taylor, do you have any p…s of that ?

“shutterbug chipper”

14

This is pic of the deck near the nose that tj took just after I painted on the bottom - so he was looking up from the ground.

15

Over the last year or two here and on SurferMag BB the gassing and subsequent delamination of XPS (extruded) foamboards has been well documented including these recents posts above from Bert and other Australians. No argument here from me…

What I can’t reconcile is how Patagonia Point Blanks surfboards, which are shaped from XPS (extruded) are still in business? The science points to eventual delams on their boards. The same with the XTR EpoxyPro boards, aside from the vent holes (or are these vent holes the holy grail)?

Most non-PU foam boards seem to be shaped from EPS these days and Greg Loehr, Steve Forstall and others say EPS wins over XPS for all the reasons covered above and in past posts.

I just don’t see how Patagonia’s continue to hold up at all…

For the USA guys with PB boards - what has been your experiences?

John

16

These posts cover pretty much all the aspects you can expect from XPS. I’d like to make a couple points.

I’ve built thousands of XPS boards. IMHO you can’t base a production on XPS. The failure rate is too high. And worse if you live in a warm climate. (Patagonia boards are generally sold in cooler climates)

Fine for the backyard guy who just wants something easy and quick that comes out light and reasonably strong.

Patagonia has success because they don’t make the boards light, they are going for durability in their production. As Bert said above, shear is the issue with XPS (and heat too is an issue). Reduce the flex (by glassing heavy), you reduce the shear, you reduce the problems.

EPS leaks less at higher densities. 3/4 # will take on water rather quickly while 2# is about like a light urethane. And this technology is getting better all the time. Just recently we’ve seen another improvment in EPS which will probably bring it closer in water absorbsion to XPS and may bring it past todays urethane even at lighter weights (from what we’ve seen, probably).

XPS is great for water absorbsion but IMHO, in comparison to a higher density EPS, doesn’t do enough better to justify the negitives at this point in time.

There are some people who are sold on the development of XPS. You never know what kinds of successes they may eventually come up with (are the vents actually working?)

As Bert says above, the foam is the weak point right now. Urethane is probably done advancing and moving to lighter weights will simply make weaker boards. XPS has the issues stated above and unless they can remove the PE from the extrusion process and come up with a better blowing agent, or unless someone comes up with a solution we haven’t thought of yet, the problems will remain.

IMHO, EPS is probably now the best overall and continues to improve. I used plenty of all three and I steaked my business on the future of EPS long ago. I still think I backed the right horse.

The other foams available today are either very expensive or aren’t available to us in useful form so these are the three we have to offer. Take your pick based on knowlegable opinion of each.

17

I probably shouldn’t be poking my head in here, but having watched the composites industry grow into other industries than surfing, solutions are often in the combinations that combine the best properties of dissimilar materials to produce desired results. Are we through with urethanes just cause the shear aspect is dismal in a solid rigid foam? Polyurethane is one of the premier glues on the planet. What if the matrix in between the expanded polystyrene beads was a just slightly more flexible polyurethane foam? Hmmm…

xps, in its present form, is best suited to the current building industry.

18

How much longer do you you think we’ll even need foam in surfboards?? I know Solomon was a failure, but if I saw a pic of a cross section earlier…I could of told you it would it wouldn’t last. I think there are definatley ways where you can create a shell strong enough that you don’t need anyhitng inside? What do you think, better panel flex Greg? I can think of a few ways to make a hollow now, I hope I can get enough money and ahve enough time soon to try it out…

Bert or Greg or any guys with experience in alternative materials, do you think there is something out there that could hold it’s shape enough under load to be feasible with out using a bunch of suppourts on the insde of the board? I know you say your boards are practically bullet proof, but we’re probably talking alot of stress here under load on a big wave… I know from limited experience how strong a composite can be…are the materials properties multiplied or something, is there a science to explain this yet? There was a quote I remember reading on a thread at one time that the ideal board would be weigthless because it would be like walking on water…(or soemthign along those lines) Is the future more reliant on using variables of different materials (sailboard thread) or maybe using as little materials as possible…something to think about…

19

Ooh, sick idea…blow the beads in a thin soup of light PU foaming agent, steam blows the beads and kicks the PU and waa-lah, superfoam!

Anyway, my backyard gave birth to a Dow Styrofoam fish/hybrid about two years ago, and my observations are pretty in line with most opinions of those in the know here.

Board was stringerless, a bit thick (i’m 200lb) and skinned with 3x4oz s-glass top and bottom, with 6 oz deck and stomp patches.

I did my research and peel tests, and deduced that scoring the foam in single lines from nose to tail, every 1/8 in. or so, about 1/16 deep, and squeegeeing in (hard) a cheater coat of epoxy about an hour prior to glassing, would be the best I could come up with to ward off the delams…

(made the board look like a pinstripe oxford…)

back foot area delammed within six months, both side fins had to be posted through to deck, and a buckle under the front foot a year later…squirted PU expanding foam under the stomp delam, and fixed the front buckle with injected epoxy.

On the good side, it’s pretty bombproof to impacts, and the buckle was put in with the force that prolly would have broken a normal stick…I was riding it in 10-12 foot surf, to see what kind of size it could handle…Even after the buckle,before i fixed it, I could support the board nose and tail and bob up and down on it…

so as greg says, if you are a backyard builder and don’t mind dealing with that kind of s#!t, it’s prolly fine.

From what i’ve seen with this board, even if you attach the skin really well to the surface foam, the flexing that goes on will just rip it deeper down…the sections that I peeled up had chunks of foam stuck all over the skin and between the razor cuts, but the foam sheared anyway.

I still ride that board, though, it’s one of my favorites. I recently took it to el salvador, and had a frikken blast, it just works for me…the delams have seemed to have stabilized somewhat…

I won’t be doing another though…

pics are me at fort point in SF, first day on the little bugger…

wells

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20

Many years ago we made an EPS/epoxy foam using foaming epoxy and loose EPS beads. The foam wasn’t particularly light but VERY strong and easy to mold since there was very little expansion. I’ve often thought that this could possibly work but just never got around to building all the molds and finishing all the leg work to develop it to the finished product. We also used this same method to tie an EPS core to the interior of molded sailboards. The core didn’t have to fit real close and it still came out resonably light. Lighter than using just foaming epoxy.