Undecided about Paulownia or foam? Ideas?

[downunder]

Here we go again!

The new build is coming. Got the Paulownia wood to work with for the first time. A lot of it:)

My idea is to use it for the top layer only since this are 40x4mm strips. However, my closed cell foam is the same 4mm so:

a) shall I make strips of closed cell and use it with a wood strips as well, saving some weight?
b) shall I wrap the foam in Uni carbon + wood unwrapped?
c) shall I wrap wood + foam unwrapped?
d) only wood?

I do know that my boards with a closed cell when used with a Biaxl carbon on top makes an very strong not flexible board. Hm, decisions...But I have no idea how to make a foam strips with really straight cut needed for bonding.

Ideas?

[sijandy]

I've been thinking about doing a wood/foam combo recently, I have the palawnia which i'm familiar with and been using for a while but need to get some foam. Last foam i used was corex but it was pretty exspensive. Anyone using foam in the uk know of any cheaper stuff? I was gonna do the main board with palawnia prob 5mm down to 2/3mm tips with a 5mm foam foot base on the top. I figure the separate layer of foam on top will help stiffen the board up as this will be intended for wakestyle.

ps - using your thread from boardbuilders i built myself a degassing chamber but it doesn't seem to work very well. How long do you leave a batch of airated resin under vac to remove the bubbles? I stirred up a pot of epoxy (not mixed with catylyst) till it was full of air bubbles and stuck it in the chamber with 25mmhg of vac for around 5-10mins and was still full of air bubbles when i removed the pot. Any ideas?

[downunder]

Would the foam under footpads compress?

Duno about the vac, I do not bother degassing a PU any more since it's going to the pressure chamber.

It might be a moisture tho if is full of bubbles. Try this with a new epoxy batch and slightly pass a kitchen torch flame on your empty pot before pouring. Remove from a vac very slowly.
Hope this helps.

[tkettlepoint]

SI heat up the resin before you put the hardener in it the bubbles will rise to the top faster... even a hair blower will help them come out on the surface... then try degassing it after it is warm... I put resin in a cup and then boil water and put that in a dish , put the cup in the dish and let the water rise the resin temp.

will post a picture tomorrow of some cores we have foam/wood

Paulownia is hard to get here so we use white cedar that we can buy local. did some twintip cores in foam/cedar, cedar, pine, bamboo, corecell..

foam cedar core is crazy light and gives a great feel


terrie
www.jellyfishboards.com

[downunder]

Ah,

yes, that. Thanks for posting.

We do have a lot of cedar wood as well, love the smell of it:) I think cedar is a bit less strong on a compression side than P. But yes, definitely hard to find in here as well.

D.

[sijandy]

tkettlepoint - yeah nice one i'll give it a try. I've been reluctant to apply heat when using epoxy cos i've often got it wrong n a lost a batch but the water idea seems a lot more controlled so will try it.
I havn't done much with cores yet, i tend to keep it as simple as pos so have only been working with single one piece palawnia cores but find they are very flexi so thus why i've been toying with the idea of foam footbase.

[downunder]

I'm using only West S. ultra clear hardener. Not cheap tho...

About Paul. wood, 3 layers of 46x4mm wood strips (middle layer 90 degrees), will still produce a wobbly board core.

However, my plank made of 46x11mm strips (500x1500mm) is really rigid, can bend it only slightly. I guess the same would be with a cedar wood. A bit soft for the inserts maybe...?

I've made a profiling bed or a jig for thinning this strips as a top layer. Will try to plane both, wood and a foam. Can't wait. The idea is to have it thicker in the middle and thin on tips, as usual.

D.

[plummet]

The mind boggles man.

Carbon wrap foam aka bro kite is an idea i's like to try. the main disadvantage to full foamcore boards is that they are more easily damaged. Foam stringers will give you less change of damage. I like the idea.

Also do a tapered thickness, starting around 3mm total thickness at the tips to 8mm in the center section. No sharp thickness changes. Make it a seamless even taper.

[tkettlepoint]

Downunder

never really had any problems with the inserts pulling on cedar, but I always put glass patch around before pushing through the insert just to have alittle extra to bite too..

We really don't do a lot of twin tips anymore , hard to compete with the production boards. unless someone really wants a one off board.

surf , kite skates, kite skims , snowboards are more what we do.. But always adding different projects as we go.. Over the 12 years we have been building for other people we have done a lot of different things. Learning all the time from others along the way..

Downunder keep up the great work and keep posting your great boards

terrie
www.jellyfishboards.com

[sijandy]

The mind boggles man.

Carbon wrap foam aka bro kite is an idea i's like to try. the main disadvantage to full foamcore boards is that they are more easily damaged. Foam stringers will give you less change of damage. I like the idea.

Also do a tapered thickness, starting around 3mm total thickness at the tips to 8mm in the center section. No sharp thickness changes. Make it a seamless even taper.

I'm never keen to do wrapped cores or stringers as the palawnia i buy in is already in large 1500x500 sheets. Building a kiteboard is a long enough process as it is let alone starting off buy cutting up cores and going backwards ha. Will give it a go one day, i've still got plenty of other issues to iron out before i begin creating new ones. Yeh i always use seamless taper, built what i call my 'core profiler' - essentially a large mdf surface with tapered runners either side. A router tray runs along the runners powered by bike chains and window winders - works pretty well. Just time consuming as the widest router cutter i could get hold of was 2 1/2 in.

tkettlepoint, tried heating the epoxy before adding the hardener and stirring and made no difference. Was defo warm enough as it ended up going off after 10mins. The degassing chamber i've made is clear plastic so you can see whats going on and theres just no movement of the airbubbles in the liquid what so ever. Even the larger bubbles that accumalate on the surface don't pop or move?? i'm using west system slow. Is the size of the hole in the lid/connection point of any significance? Downunder had a very tiny pin sized hole in the one he made.

Was going to ask how you get on in terms of competeing with the big kiteboard production companies, it's a shame kiters arn't more keen to support the smaller custom builders over the big companies - especially when all they do is just churn out the same stuff year after year just changing the graphics, the write up on their website and the price tag. I really like Tona and what they're doing.