Doesn't this just beg to be done with a wakesurf board?

[Surfdad]

That's such a cool idea! From what I understand and you probably know more than I do, it thermoforms at a pretty low temp, like the 150 degree area, but it also cools down and becomes rigid almost immediately, so the heat has to be applied while the bending is tacking place or over the mold.

That's a killer idea! Boiling water or at least heating the water through pipes.

I wonder what the temperature of steam is as it rises from boiling water? I'd think it shouldn't be too hard to build an oven that would get up to 150 degrees, also.

[Timmy!]

I don't know anything about thermoforming, just saw it 20 years ago...LOL!
You're right, it would be really easy to create an oven now that I think about it. Just use bricks or cinder blocks and a propane heat source of some sort (heater, camp stove, bbq grill burner, etc). We can just work it all out in this thread!

[Surfdad]

LOL Group shape!

Doing some minor checking it looks like it's possible to do some drape forming. Where you heat it up and just let it sag under it's own weight. I guess that in order to retain the clarity we'd need to use a pretty highly polished mold, anything it touches will impart that texture to the melted Lexan. So a mold would seem to be out for this deal.

So, imagine a 2 step forming process. One where the bottom concave is set by letting it sag after heating, then flipping that over after it's cooled off and JUST heating the nose area to bend in a bit of nose rocker.

After it's all cooled down, then cutting out the shape.

What do you think?

[joe blow]

this is how they make cockpic covers for planes,, i saw one time on tv. may need to get a bronze mould made.

[Surfdad]

That's cool Joe!

It doesn't look like the stuff will float! It has a higher density than water! It would be a good test to demonstrate that FLOAT doesn't exist in wakesurf boards. But it's going to require attacing balloons or empty plastic bottles, so it doesn't sink. I don't know, does that change this project? OR it requires doing like Timmy suggested, some form of hollow chamber with air trapped inside.

[duffymahoney]

Clear and hollow? I'm sure you could figure it out!!

[Timmy!]

That's what I was afraid of. I had a feeling that it was too dense to float.

[Surfdad]

Well a few options here. One is just to NOT worry about it, attach a leash and once it's up on plane it doesn't need to float. But MAN is that going to be a pain holding it in place while getting started. I do like the idea of proving once and for all that float isn't needed to wakesurf.

The other thing is to attach something that will float it, like a hollow plastic ball just so it comes to the surface. Maybe off the tail so you can't really see it in the pictures?

[dingleberry]

The other thing is to attach something that will float it, like a hollow plastic ball just so it comes to the surface. Maybe off the tail so you can't really see it in the pictures?

There goes Surfdad with one of his newfangled contraptions again...

[Timmy!]

[Surfdad]

LOL both of those pictures rock! I think a small sealed cylinder glued on between the feet would do the trick and would probably not be noticeable in pictures as it would mostly be obscured by the front foot.

[Surfdad]

Back to Timmy's idea. Hollow! If I can figure out out to glue the stuff up. 3 layers, but the middle layer is basically a cut out so that air is trapped inside. Sort of like this incredible piece of artwork

They would have to be sealed around the edges to prevent water from entering. But I could skip the thermoforming and just gle the pieces together and that would hold the rocker in place.

[Timmy!]

Helium filled fins! yeah, that's the ticket!

[Timmy!]

I used super glue for this piece that I made:

[Surfdad]

Helium - can you imagine taking a tank out on the boat and filling the board up? We'd all be talking like chipmunks. The super glue, did it dry really quickly? I don't do ANYTHING quickly anymore. I'd like to have some working time to align the parts. If I could find a slower curing glue, I could use my standard vacuum bag approach and it would have the same basic shape as the flyboy, only 27 pounds heavier