Molding as a tool success!

[Surfdad]

I wanted to share with you guys a recent success. Most folks associate molded boards with increased weight, well because it's true Molded boards, even well done pop-outs have been heavier than those done by hand in these small sizes.

So I have been messing with the process for the better part of a year and FINALLY got an encouraging result.

So, first up, this is the deck side of the mold that I made I guess last year around May or so.

[Surfdad]

Nice waxed up tooling gel coat. From that I formed and pulled out the deck skin. It's some 4 oz fabric and 3mm Corecell A550. Now, it did have one defect, I didn't get the Corecell at the tail to make the right angle, but the rest of the curves were fine. I'll need to thermo-form that area.

In the pictures you can see what the skin looks like and the defect at the tail.

[Surfdad]

Now comes the part that I'm pleased with. The deck skin weighs 14 oz with the flashing. I'm guessing there is 2 oz that can be trimmed away, leaving a 12 oz deck skin. Projecting that out, based upon my other work, should render a 3 pound production board. That's fully 33.3% lighter than what the current production boards weigh.

All well and good and producing a 3 pound board in volume is interesting, but what it leads me to believe is that using the mold as a tool and NOT the process, it's possible to make a hollow carbon wakesurfer in the 4.5 pound range. We use foam as the internals of boards because it's light and keeps the skins of the boards separated. However, foam also dampens response. It absorbs energy, vibration, sound, etc. I'm ITCHING to develop a hollow carbon that isn't 7 pounds heavy!

Thanks for letting me share!

[Timmy!]

That is slick! Thanks for posting the pics!