Can this be wakesurfed?

[Surfdad]

Gen 2 is getting closer! Deck skin attached and it stiffened up enough to hold rocker and concave. The concave is exaggerated because I haven't trimmed it to the outline yet. BUT, shows that the structure is holding in place. This is crazy thin though, feels "too" thin, but the proof will be in the riding. It's just under 2 pounds at this stage and there is probably 4 ounces of excess material to be trimmed away. So figure 1 lb 12 oz.

[jbort]

Holy cow thats light. Liked the posting on Flyboy wakesurfing today too. Good luck.

[Surfdad]

Thanks jbort!

[Surfdad]

All trimmed and ready for a layer of Carbon Fiber. It's looks so normal from on top, but the thickness tells a different story!

[NICKYPOO]

Ha! It looks like a piece of cardboard.

[Surfdad]

It does, doesn't it?! Sort of the same principle. I'm laminating the bottom Carbon Fiber tonight. I was hoping to have it ready to ride this weekend, but that's sketchy at this point. Wish me luck!

[Timmy!]

Off topic...sort of! Check out Kelly Slaters boards for the contest in Hawaii, all but 1 have 5 fin configurations:
http://cisurfboards.com/blog/2011/ke...r-hawaii-2011/

The one has some interesting channels in it.

[Surfdad]

I saw Slater's 5 fin nubster setup, even test one behind the boat...well as a thruster'ish setup. Man did that have some drag. He does know how to ride and pick a wave!

Mine is getting closer!

[skippabcool]

That is thin and light. Can't wait to see you ride it.

[Surfdad]

Thanks for following along skippabcool. I think we've tripped over something in building this "board". Light weight is easy enough, but required the board be pretty thick to get adgequate stiffness to ride. You can make thin stuff pretty stiff. 1/8" of carbon fiber is really stiff, but it's something crazy like 30 plies and so weighs 15 pounds If this doesn't snap in two, I'll be very happy with the way this came together to be both light and thin.

[Timmy!]

How are the skimboards built compared to something like this?

[Surfdad]

Thanks for following along Timmy! Excluding the stuff that Liquid Force is producing for Dom and Tommy, most skimers are a high density foam core. Most often I've seen Divinycell. It's readily available, bends to the rocker easily and is closed cell. It's also pretty heavy. The average density is around 7 PCF. Then 3 layers of 6 oz eglass top and bottom.

The Walzer that Nick rides uses a low density EPS core, in lieu of that high density foam core. Substantially lighter, with some longevity issues. Especially along the seam at the bottom. MAN those were light years ahead of anything else.

The LF stuff is a stringered surfboard blank shaped into a skimboard. I think most skimboard companies started with that tech 15 years ago and shifted to the high density foam.

What we tripped over on this was the through thickness stiffening. I've been messing around with a concept referred to as Z pinning. Where Carbon Fiber pins are inserted through the composite sandwich on an angle to increase compressive strength and prevent delamination. It's also been the bain of my exesitence as I cut little pieces of carbon rod and jam them through a board. There is a machine that does it for companies like Boeing, but I can't get access to one.

Anyway, the concept being through thickness reinforcement, which no board does currently. The honeycomb offers that, even though we've filled it with foam...no that's not accurate BECAUSE we filled it with foam.

Conceptually all wakesurf boards are reinforced ONLY on 2 dimensions - length and width. When we went with the through thickness it created a reinforcement on a third dimension, that being depth or thickness. The stiffness was pretty remarkable considering how light and thin it is.

We'll see how it does in a real world test. I'm still concerned it'll snap like a twig, it's so light. Regardless, I'm obsessed with 3 dimensional reinforcement now.

[jbort]

obsessed?? naaahh

[Surfdad]

LOL. You're too kind jbort!

[Timmy!]

Your build threads have me thinking...it might be time for me to start building one of my own...