Framed 1" thick surfstyle build.

I was intrigued by my hollow framed build and I remembered seeing a blank at Vernor or maybe it was Palindrini. Anyway, it was this eliptical stringer blank. It think it's a cool look, even if it's non-functional.

So my design is to use the eliptical with a perimeter frame and then make the board as thin as I can possibly get away with. The rough mock-up

I intend to laminate 6 layers of 6oz carbon as the various stringers, so a total of 24 strips. I will cut the eliptical sections out first and then glue up the carbon and sides.

Then I'll go back and do the same along the rails.

Boy SD you just never stop

It's true!

I knew you had something else cooking

Always something going on in my shop!

I cut the ellipsis this evening, next is the Carbon layup.

"Always something going on in my shop! :-)"
Isn't that the truth.
So SD I am planning on a bamboo veneer. When I bag it I am going to use the nylon bag from ACP Do you use peel ply or release film?

Timberflex! Very cool. That construction is similar to how Inland Surfer makes their boards, also.

Are you talking about bagging the external layer or just the veneer? You'll mostly likely need to do separate pulls for the veneer and the final lamination. For the veneer, you don't need anything but the bag. Blank/laminate layer/veneer you might get some resin on the bag along the seam, but it won't hurt anything and most likely you'll get a pinhole from handling before the resin causes an issue.

Peel Ply and Release film do the same basic thing (prevent breather from sticking to the cured laminate), but often Peel Ply is woven and will leave a texture on the surface of your laminate for subsequent bonding/lamination. The Perforated Peel Ply's are sometimes plastic to give a smooth finished except for the raised dots. I mostly use a perforated polyethelene peel ply with breather backing and do both a hotcoat and "gloss" coat by hand.

I hope I addressed your question!

Thanks SD

You bet Kona.

All four of the stringers will be 6 layers of 6 oz carbon. If my calculations are accurate, they should wind up around 1/16" thick. Possibly less after consolidation from the vacuum.

Two piles of 6 strips. Each strip is 3" x 42" x 6oz.

I used a make-shift wetout table and did 6 strips of CF at a time. Once they were fully wet, I picked each one up separately and aligned it at the front of the "off cut" and smoothed it back to the tail. I was careful to align the CF along the bottom edge. I'll shape in a concave in the bottom, so I didn't need to extend the CF out of the bottom.

6 x 6 oz:

Once all of the laminates were stacked, placed the center section on the wet CF.

Lather, rinse repeat. I repeated the procedure above on the remaining offcut and carefully placed that into the cradle of the center section. I taped the sections together to make sure it stayed together when I slipped it into the bag.

In the bag cooking.

Out of the bag and ready for the rocker to be shaped in.

A quick hit with the planer cleans up the surface of the deck.

I redraw my centerline, making sure that it is equi-distant between the elliptical stringers. This allows me to be a little sloppy in the construction!

I will be adding HD foam rails and an additional 6 layers of 6oz carbon as perimeter stringers. I have a template that I use to mark the outline for the perimeter stringer cut. I lay that up on the CL and mark the outline.

Just to make sure that I have everything marked up correctly, I lay a finished board over the CL and mark the nose and tail. This gives me a quick visual that everything is close.

I will use the rail material to mark the rocker on the blank. I lay out my rocker template on the rail material, which is 1/2" divinycell H80.
I make a 2" wide strip. In this way the top from the first cut, becomes the bottom for the next cut.

I wrap the rail material around my cut blank and mark the rocker.

Hit it with the planer and my rocker is done. I have some additional CF on order, but I was late in placing the order, so I "stocked out"! until Thursday. Not quite "just-in-time" inventory.

I don't know that it's a useful design, but the look, at this point, is sure cool.

Finally got my CF, rails glued up and cooking.

Out of the bag, ready for some final shaping. The vertical orientation of the CF is proving an interesting exercise. The EPS in the blank is 1 pound. Unlaminated the tail of this board is as stiff as some "contest-weight" boards with 1/8" basswood stringers. The tail thickness is still around 1.5". My plan is to thin that down to about .5".

I think all of my recent builds are inspired by 80's skateboard decks. Do any of the skaters remember the Uncle Wiggly decks? They manufactured some decks with vertical CF stringers back when 8 track tapes were popular.
This is a Blockhead deck, I was hoping someone might know of a picture of the CF V stringer deck.

I had an Alva

Does anyone remember electric scissors as a kid? Blunt nose and they would vibrate until the paper would rip? I have the grownup version!!!!

It cuts Kevlar AND Zylon!

Looking really cool Jeff.

Uncle wiggly?!! I haven't heard that name in ages! LOL. I used to ride a Powell Peralta Lance Mountain (still have one that is about 20 yrs old that I get out on the driveway to play with my 3 yr old).

Those scissors look very cool. Molded CF? Electricity? What is this?! And I thought you cut everything with a bowie knife! My respect has just dropped couple of notches.... LOL!!

SURFDAD
I think someone makes CF that does not fray when cut , not sure it the CF runs in the warp direction.

Quick study

Smed - you are so funny - Bowie knife's are for wimps, I used to GNAW through all the fabric, like a REAL man - now I'm high tech. Didn't Uncle Wiggly make a composite deck with foam that when you drug the tail, it eventually wore through to expose the CF stringers?

JL - those are the puppies! Dennis turned me on to them - shoot, almost a year ago, and then I think I remember seeing your picture of the Ghetto House shop. They are amazing in how easily they cut difficult fabrics.

brewkettle - thanks for the insight. On this layup, I actually am doing some bias. I have most running 0, but I had to squeeze some length out of an odd shape so I have, I think 2, running at 45 or technically 1 at 45 and 1 at 90 - those are creating the mess! I am going to layup the bottom sandwich layer using 1 layer of 4 oz Zylon and 1 layer of 6 oz CF. It'll be crazy stiff when I am done.

Unidirectional Carbon, 8.85 oz
24" wide, Tacky Thread, 1-9 ft.
0.022" thick, Price per foot when ordering 1-9 ft. Woven cross fiber is bound to the carbon fibers with a heat sensitive adhesive. Fabric can be cut into any shape without seperation.

Where are you finding that brewkettle?

My "plan" is to have the tail thin down to 1/4". In my tests, that thin is very floppy! So to counter that, I am loading the sandwich layer with 1 layer of 4 oz Zylon and 1 layer of 6 oz CF. CF is very good in tension, and very poor in compression. Typically CF is coupled with Kevlar or Fiberglass. Kevlar is good in compression and fiberglass isn't really good at anything, but it has no glaring mistakes either.

Zylon is good all around, but is super hard to work with. So for this side of the board, I am putting the Zylon under the CF and keeping it inside the rail line.

I always paint a little epoxy along the edges of the skin to make sure it sticks to the rails.

Then, I lay that on the fabric and bag it all down.

Thinned and the deck and rails shaped, ready for the deck to be attached. It currently weighs 1.75 pounds. I'll add about 20 oz with the deck and sandwich layer.

Thinned and the deck and rails shaped, ready for the deck to be attached. It currently weighs 1.75 pounds. I'll add about 20 oz with the deck and sandwich layer.

funny I was recently hunting for cheap EC1 cutter on ebay last weeks but they dont want to sell it for cheap. Clean cut is very important for good results.

Also remember old Kryptonics foam decks cca 1979 with p-tex bottom
my last board is Ed Templeton New Deal with wood core same as in skis or in snowboard, still have it (mine is red)
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o244/trolly69skateboards/nineties/ednewdeal.jpg

(Message edited by hawaj on March 08, 2009)

Surfdad
you can get the CF at CST

Thanks brewkettle!

Petr, those scissors are pricey! Those old skate decks are so funny to look at now. Thanks for sharing that picture.

Back to this build, flip hen lather, rinse repeat. I chaged the laminate stack, to place the carbon under the Zylon. In my experience, CF is brittle and needs some protection from compression where it's crappy.

In the bag cooking:

Every good shop needs a faithful shop dog! Woofie, vacuum bag assistant.

Fits in my rack, although traction will be an issue.

Stregnth and stiffness before external lamination is sound.

Nice look, (he's got the look). you dont think the board will be too stiff with no the right flex.??

Good question brewkettle. It's not really flex, but the flex return that I consider. The tail on the board is super thin and it snaps back - at least as it is. The proof will be in the pudding, though. If it does wind up too stiff, or without any pop, it'll be easy enough to fix on the next go round.

There's those shoes

60k to rework tooling for .5 futures boxes or fins to work for your thin tail boards

Kona! Those are the best shoes EVER! Another GREAT thing about those shoes is that I NEVER and I mean NEVER get panhandled!

Brewkettle, I think I'll just grind my fins down.

Top laminated:

shoes!!

Petr!!!! Those shoes are Nirvana in footwear.

Bottom lammed, getting close!

I've already done the bottom hotcoat, this is the top hotcoat.

Does the EPA know about all the foam in your back yard?

After a discussion with Dennis, I decided to shape a concave on the deck. The minimum thickness on this board, down the centerline at the max thickness on the rail is around 5/8". This board has a concave on both the bottom and deck. This concept, I think, was first used in the late model Greenough spoons.

In theory, the main advantage of a concave deck is that for a given volume, it makes the board thinner in the riding area, this lowers the center of gravity and the center of effort of the surfboard and rider, and keeps the riders feet closer to the bottom area, which improves handling and control.

It's a little hard to see, but if you look closely, you can see the concave on the deck.

Show, that's not foam, it's white and soft gravel on the driveway to the shop!

Rail boxes curing. I think it's principally done.

How deep are the fin boxes, 3/4?

Yes, those are the standard rail boxes. However, I did route through the deck skin on both sides to the deck lamination. I just barely got the boxes to fit.

I thought that I could simply grind the bottom of a 3/4" rail fin, so that it would fit in a 1/2" box, but the notch for the set screw is different on the two style fins. Grinding the base of a rail fin leaves the bas about 1/8" too short and with nothing for the set screw to grab on to.

You didn't comment on my lovely note? I'm heartborken, Ed.

Ohhh, I called the EPA, look out your window, see a line up of black Chevy Suburbans, G-men. run Jeff, run!

No wait, the Suburbans are sinking in to the driveway, the G-men too. SD once again survives to shape another day.

Jeff, how much do you think you have spent in all the boards that you have made? I am just guessing about 3K. I hope one day I can get motivated enough to try building some, but my time is not enough in a day. Love reading your builds and trials and errors. Huge learning curve I'm sure.

Hey David, thanks for the props. I just counted and I think that I have built 19 boards over the last 3 years. I limit myself to $700 a year for my supplies, so I've got 2,100 into those 19 boards.

The composite sandwich builds are the most expensive by an order of two. I keep pretty meticulous records, but that's mostly on the materials, construction, weight and ride notes. On the cost, I recycle the fin boxes and high density foam, when I can, as well as the traction. I'd guess if you were buying at retail and not recycling it could easily go to 3K.

The time requirement is something I hear now and again, but if you look at the start date and end date, it took me about a month from planning to traction. It's probably an average of 30 minutes a day. I spend a good hour creating my build plan and I lay out the steps from start to finish, I'm sure that organization allows me to complete it with such a minimal daily time committment.

The route through the deck skin!

With traction and fins, the board weighs around 5.5 pounds. It's heavier than most of the other composite sandwich, builds, but still respectable.

So the rail thickness is good. The concave deck felt no different than flat or slightly domed. This board was just too heavy.