Board building

[Surfdad]

Is there any interest in building boards? I did this HUGE step by step guide to building Poly U boards for Wakesurf.net - shoot 2 yaers ago, that got trashed, and I never redid it.

I am about to start vaccum bagging a few boards just to see how they come out. Any interest in me sharing the methodology? I was thinking step-by-step commentary and pictures. In particular I am interested in building sandwhich construction (EPS core, d-cell skin and POSSIBLY balsa rails). They may turn out to be junk, but maybe not. It's always good to get feedback from folks that have engineering or related backgrounds.

[evil0ne]

Can't hurt. I don't think I'd take it on but I always like to see how much effort goes into making things.

[Surfdad]

I guess I could always detail it for you evil

The OLD methodology for building surfboards was shaping a poly U blank, then glassing it. When Clark Blanks shut down unexpectedly the void in the surfboard market caused folks to look at alternatives for a core material. One of the alternatives was EPS foam. (Expanded Poly Styrene). The use of EPS, however, required new methods for glassing as the standard ployester resin destroyed EPS foam. If you ever had a toy surfboard as a kid and tried to spray paint it, you know the effect.

Epoxy was one method of bonding glass to EPS that didn't eat through the foam. As I work through this project that will what I attempt to use.

On this current project, I found a ready source of EPS foam, in the form of insulation sheets at Lowe's. It's is available in 1/2, 3/4 and 1 inch x 4 x 8 foot sheets at my local store.

This foam is incredibly light and I would estimate that the weight of the foam when shaped to a standard sized wakesurfer is less than a pound. The resultant board should weigh in at less than 3 pounds when finished.

The first issue when using this type of EPS foam is creating a rocker. The foam is flat, and some method must be used to create the rocker in the board while the epoxy cures. The most common method is to use a rocker table. Sometimes this is just a section of foam that has the attributes of the finished board, in my effort I wanted to be able to fiddle with the amount of rocker and so we created an adjustable rocker table.

The nose of the table has more adjustments to allow a tighter radius and more control of the start and end of the rocker.

Pictures of the table and detail of the adjustment points.

[dogbert]

Cool!

Not sure I'd use my roll-top on my pickup for a drop cloth, tho

[wannabewakeboarder]

Cool!

Not sure I'd use my roll-top on my pickup for a drop cloth, tho

At least it is a GM...Chevy or GMC

Nice truck Surfdad

[Surfdad]

It's a GMC Sierra, I have really been happy with the Sierra...I still have an '89 Sierra that just won't seem to die.

Dog, when I get into the final phase, the board will be placed in a large plastic bag and all of the air vaccumed out. Unless it develops a leak (never a good thing ) there isn't any mess. Getting the board INTO the bag tends to be messy as you might expect.

[NICKYPOO]

Hmm, crafty. Going off of those pics, I would be nervous about the amount of warp in the table surface from the mid to tail section. I would think you would need at least two, if not four more of those solid oak supports. What type of material are you using for the table suface? How much moisture is involved with the lay up of the board itself?

[Surfdad]

Hey Nick, it wouldn't surprize me that it gets messed up...I can't even tell you the number of "failures" I've created. The material is masonite, but won't come in contact with any moisture. There are two additional "layers", if you will, that come between the table and the board. The first is a plastic surface that will smooth the contours a bit more and "hopefully" give me a bit more rigidity.

If I bag directly to the table, then I can also insert bottom contour mats - for example a single to double concave that would get pressed into the EPS. Or if I choose to have a flat bottom, then the whole thing will slide into a bag and THAT unit placed on the table.

Inside the bag will be layers of peel ply, etc that will aide in absorbing the excess epoxy.

Anyway...we'll see

[Moki]

Surfdad,
I could see you replacing Orange County Choppers on the discovery channel. Only 3 lbs, that is amazingly light. Keep the pictures and process coming to us.

[Surfdad]

I need my own TV how!!!!!!!

For those wanting to see the details that I'll "hopefully" be following this link is mostly authored by Bert Burger, the shaper/builder behind Firewire surfboards in Oz.

http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforu...;guest=9528792

[Surfdad]

So I've had two failures so far. The vaccum bagging is much harder than I imagined.

The cores of the boards I'm making are EPS. That foam tends to chunk when shaping - think of a styrofoam cooler - it leaves voids when using a planer or surfoam. This also makes it really hard to shape sharp edges on the rails.

So the first thing I have learned is that the rails will have to be made from a different material, no doubt d-cell will provide the best combination of shaping and also rigidity for the rails in case of mishandling. I'll also have to have at least 2 bagging periods, one to epoxy the rails to the core and then the other to laminate the glass to the shaped board.

Due to the deck and bottom having voids, I attempted to fill them using a very thin layer of ultra light spackle. I smoothed a thin layer on and then sanded it to a point where it was ready to laminate. Apparently there are different types of spackle whatever I used simply didn't bond with the epoxy...after I popped it out of the bag, it separated from the glass in about 8 hours, which can't be good.

[NICKYPOO]

Bummer. Live and learn eh?

[wannabewakeboarder]

Dang, I had faith in ya, any pics of the process?

[Surfdad]

Yeah...I guess, I can see why folks don't do this in their garage that much. There is also so little information out there and I think the people that are successful HORDE the info Sort of a "No way I'm sharing this, YOU can struggle like I did!"

Hey Nick, while I have you...can I interest you in a couple of piles of foam with SOME epoxy and glass stuck to them? They make great discussion pieces? What do you say?

[Surfdad]

I have pic's of the junk!

I'm going back to it...hopefully I'll get one to actually work and then I'l post all the "correct" details.