This video shows how KT and Goya boards are made. Very cool video.
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Nice, this process looks so much better and consistent than the other video that was shared a few months ago where boards were shaped from blanks instead of using the moulds as seen in this video. Very cool!

16:12 marks the historic/culinary transition from sandwiches to loaves.

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Doggerland said..
16:12 marks the historic/culinary transition from sandwiches to loaves.

I was interested to see that part of the video where they show the moulded EPS core with higher density near the edge than in the middle. If you zoom in on the picture above, you can see the much smaller beads starting about 1cm from the edge.
Duotone also just posted a factory tour video...see Windsurfing.TV on YouTube.

Yeah, that Duotone is a repost of the video that was shared a few months ago as mentioned above. The Goya/Quatro process is completely different. Watching that Duotone process does not give me much confidence in the building process while Goya/Quatro seems to be super solid.

Interesting two month ago duotone, that were all made at cobra before, show us how there custom like serie boards are better than everything... now cobra show how there tech is far better than everything...
Two molds for each sizes of each boards need to sell many and/or expensive to make money.

Molds only good for 500 boards...

Masts being made,

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Silly question (regarding 1st video): can you reverse the process of the blanks ?. Turn them back into popcorn ?

Yes, I send all mine for recycling. once it's torn down it can be reused as the beads are just stuck together with hot air

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Mark _australia said..
Yes, I send all mine for recycling. once it's torn down it can be reused as the beads are just stuck together with hot air

As long as no salt water got in. Otherwise they must be individually hand washed.Then they are handed out to spiders who can't have families.

to add to this the recyclers need to bake the reconstituted blocks afterwards to remove any excess water if they are to be used for boards

The process is : first expansion of balls then second expansion in mold, where hot balls glue each others while they expand. Virgin eps is only new first expand ball that mold so all ball expand twice same time. Recyle eps is a mix of new balls and recovered one's, only new ball expand when molded gluing recovered and everything else foget with. A nightmare to cut when hotwire find a piece of wood or hard plastic.
An other way to recycle is to warm under pressure old eps, extract pentane to make new ps material.

09:00 in the Reglass video: Pineapple - the ultimate pizza ingredient Finally an Italian who understands pizza, hallelujah!

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jdfoils said..
Molds only good for 500 boards...

Yep, that was one thing I noted. Imagine how much the development cost for each size of board averages out when you presumably have to build and develop a prototype or several, then a mould, and then normally probably expect to build less than 500 before throwing more money at the process.

I know in cycling, where volumes are vastly higher, it's considered a major expense to have to make half a dozen sizes of each bike, and I assume they are amortising costs over far more bikes.

Surely the Protos are all done "normal" custom, then when ready go to production molds? Highly unlikely they make molds for the Protos? Or did I miss that?

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sheddweller said..
Surely the Protos are all done "normal" custom, then when ready go to production molds? Highly unlikely they make molds for the Protos? Or did I miss that?

Yes, they're custom - but surely they must still build a few of them to get the shape right for each length, and that's still R&D cost that normally has to be absorbed within a production run of a few hundred boards.

I wonder how long they have made boards that way, a mould for the EPS before glassing it.
For the dual density core, they must blast the smaller beads in first, hoping they all go to the correct place evenly, then fill the middle with the larger beads. How do you check after. I guess after several test runs and cutting the blanks up, they can see how it usually goes.
There do seem a lot of gaps near the edges.

Only get 500 boards per mould you say.
I've recorded the serial numbers of my Exocet boards over the years in case of theft. They ended 46, 138, 48, 71, 4, 25, 54.
Exocet arent the highest volume brand, and they dont have a large number of sizes in a range.

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Chris 249 said..
Yes, they're custom - but surely they must still build a few of them to get the shape right for each length, and that's still R&D cost that normally has to be absorbed within a production run of a few hundred boards.

Nope they don't build Protoss for each size. far from it - and very obvious when the sweet spot in each range is the mid size.
Easily seen in wave boards where the normal folks love the 80 to 90L but heavy guys hate the 110L and chicks or kids don't like the small one.
hallelujah for customs. or things like Patrik's micro wave and micro move and the JP young gun. hard in a diminishing market I guess.. But they never did make a prototype of each size

OK, thanks for the correction. I remember reading and talking to guys in the industry many years ago who said they made a prototype in each size, but that was back in prehistoric times when ranges were far smaller and production runs were much longer.

If manufacturers only test the middle size and guess the rest it would lead to potential issues.