Carbon supplemented perimeter stringer blank.

Tim Bessell surfboards uses a piece of carbon tape along the outside of the wood stringers in his "Reflex" board, a description is here. A picture:

I started with my normal perimeter blank build, saving the offcuts to glue back up. I have already glued the stringer material to the core EPS.

What the pieces look like stacked up:

I cute two strips of 6 oz carbon that will sandwich between the stringers and the exterior EPS offcuts. I know that to the unintiated this will look like a garage floor with some polyethelene sheeting, but in fact it's a wet out table. I mixed up about 6 oz of epoxy and poured enough on each carbon strip to fully wet it out, reserving some to paint onto the blank.

Using the stack sequence in the first picture, I laid down the first offcut and layered down the first wet carbon strip.

Using some of the reserved epoxy, I painted one side of the blank - the wood stringer in this instance and placed that into the offcut. Next, I laid the other carbon strip onto the opposite stringer.

Using the last bit of reserved epoxy, I painted that on the EPS offcut and placed that on top of the stack. Then using a highly sophisticated press system I clamped the stack together.

I'm impressed by the press. (and of course the expandable wet table)

Is this going to have the same affect as the Inland Surfer carbon rail system?

I knew someone would appreciate my fine array of tools used in this build. Thanks Art, you are gentleman and a scholar (for not calling me on my BS )

The theory behind carbon on the rails, as implemented by IS is that it adds stiffness around the perimeter. The IS boards have no stringer, instead gaining stiffness by the two plys of wood laminate that sandwich the core, and of course the extra helpings of resin on the exterior that create that gorgeous shine.

I'm not looking for extra stiffness, perse. I've reduced the thickness of my stringers here and will also reduce the glassing schedule for the final lamination. My intent is to increase flex return and also to help reduce breakage...typically when boards break, it starts at the rail and goes across.

Wood has great properties for flex and flex return, but two issues are:

1) Inconsistency between pieces and even within the same piece of wood - or e.wood, and

2) With repeated flex cycles it breaks down and loses responsiveness.

Hopefully, the carbon will extend the life and add some consistency to the amount of flex and flex return.

(Message edited by surfdad on November 18, 2008)

First things first, when working with this sort of blank is you have to knock down the carbon that is left proud. The carbon is STIFF and the peaks are sharp.

I've roughed in the bottom rocker, the carbon shaped off pretty easily. Crappy picture, but it gives an idea.

Another crappy picture, but a hand plane trims the wood and carbon pretty well.

The carbon shapes easy enough, but it also makes a mess. When it's sanded it creates a dust which tends to starkly contrast against the white EPS.

First layer of 4 oz S-2 glass on the deck - I think that, pinline from the carbon, looks kind of cool.

that sweet, looking nice Jeff

looks good , will you try just carbon next time??

I am fascinated by the hollow carbon boards as done my the defunct Hydroepic and the current Aviso. I attempted a lost foam hollow carbon last year, but it came out at 7 pounds before hotcoat. It was a slug. I'd like to pursue that again, but I can't seem to find a way that makes the board light enough...the little bit of foam we have in the core maybe weighs 12 oz, but reinforcing the skin enough to eliminate that 12 oz takes pounds of resin!

I was talking about , just the carbon tape less the wood stringer

I've done carbon tape around the rails. IMO, it takes about 2 layers of 6 oz CF to equal the same "ridgity" of an interior wood. I also found it exceptionally hard to work with over the rails. It's so stiff it wants to delaminate while the epoxy is geling. When I would bag it, which gave me a nice tight lamination, and I attepted a cut lap, the resin would penetrate the masking tape and created a mess. As I noted somewhere above, sanding the carbon also left me a dust mess on the white foam.

I think that over the years, the formula for surfboards has been perimeter weighting. We see this with rail laps - when there are 3 layers of glass over the rails, that becomes the heaviest part of the board. When I tried to balance the use of carbon on the rails, with the glass elsewhere, I wound up actually reducing weight on the rails.

There was an interesting advertisement not too long ago. Firewire, before they started offering the Suspension System of Carbon rods, used carbon wrapped rails, then when they started offering the SS their ad's talked disparagingly about those carbon wraps as just cosmetics.

I guess that I'm not a big fan of carbon mostly because I don't like working with it on any curved surface

Speaking of Firewire, I guess that Lost is offering a few of their shapes in the Firewire build technology, but from what I can tell it's just in Japan at the moment.

This site seems to have the boards for sale.

It looks like the decks are the Corecell and Balsa rails, but I can't quite tell what the black line under that balsa rail cap. It looks like it's maybe just paint, to hide the transition of the corecell to the balsa, but why not go all the way around the tail?

Dang, another board? and another type of construction? Dude, your always onto new contibutions to the sport. Go Jeff,go.
I recently had considered the effects of carbon rails, so it will be interesting to hear your feedback on this project. Look forward to seeing another fine product.

Hey Dimitri,

We have a full load for testing this weekend, the folks from Inland Surfer shipped us down a Sweet Spot, plus we have the Flamed Surftech and then this one. I just finished the last lamination on this one...actually it was this morning I'm interested to see if the little bit of carbon is noticeable. I'll keep ya posted and thanks for the prop's!