Where are my chemical engineers?

[da.bell]

Saw your write up on WW. Interesting that you are telling them what you are doing. However, it is only small ideas but not the whole picture. It will be interesting on the end result. Do you plan to make these boards eventually or is this just going to be a one time shot???? The amount of work that you are doing, you will eventually find a nice even median.

[Surfdad]

The midwest vs west is just for fun. What I enjoy about that is how it causes folks from different backgrounds to think about how traditional surfboard manufacture can be altered.

I'll never sell any boards, the quality of my finish pretty much sucks. However, if I successfully bag an EPS board with a skin, my guess is that some of the decent shapers will look into it. That would be cool

[da.bell]

Trademark it now... You might be able to make millions of $$$'s....

[dogbert]

Trademark it now... You might be able to make millions of $$$'s....

Unfortunately my friend, there's very little money in the sport right now. Most shapers believe it's an art form and, while they all like to make a decent living, most will shy away from mega-success. Since we're early on in this sport, I think it's good to share ideas, but the big guys are watching and, unfortunately, once they get involved, you tend to see a slow down in the rate of innovation as the innovators are squeezed out.

BTW, I got to meet up with Billy and that dude can shape some boards! I was really surprised how light they are.

[sagmanaur]

Surfdad,

With your name on it, you may be surprised on how many boards you could sell.... Of course the name on the board would have to SURFDAD.

Good luck with the shaping, I was watching a Big Wave show last night and they were interviewing a Surf board shaper, that is some pretty wild stuff.

[Surfdad]

That's too funny Sag...I've met people at various contests and they almost never ask if I'm Jeff it's always: Are you Surfdad?

I've done some preliminary testing of the composite structure. 1 pound density foam, 1/16" balsa top and bottom and 1.2 oz glass connecting it all together.

There is some formula that determines the increase in strength of a composite and interestingly enough, the one variable that significatly increases strength is the distance between the skins - like an I-beam.

I'm not a master, but I know really good laminators can get a ratio of resin to glass in the 6:1 range. The last time I tried with epoxy I was at 10:1...not my best work.

Anyway...with vacuum bagging and the composite, theoretically you can lower the ratio to 1:1, I've been reading composite structures books where in the aerospace industry using resin infusion and bagging they can bring the ratio of resin to glass below 1:1. The reduction in weight is pretty amazing.

Something else that I am finding intriguging with the bagging is that you can use it to shape also. For example, if you wanted a board with a single concave through the middle, my creating a matt that is of heavier density than the 1 pound foam, you can press that into the bottom of your board under vacuum pressure. Not that I would want to mass produce these things, but say for someone like Billy that has a few "stock" boards that he then customizes for individual customers, if they have a single or a single to double concave, he shaps the matt once and then each time he goes to make the board for someone else, he gets the EXACT same concave.

Interesting stuff, I'll have to see how the final board turns out.