Always had me thinking(and yes i do think occasionally) about how boards are constructed and if there are any other alternatives out there that could be used
Wouldn't it be great if you could just pop boards out of a mold that need virtually no labour to build are reasonably light and stiff and will outlast anything out there today.
I wonder how Nylon 6 would fo as a board material? i know the small nylon gears made out of it are extremely light.
Nylon 6 is the most common commercial grade of molded nylon. Nylon is available in glass-filled variants which increase structural and impact strength.

The gears might be light, but would the same volume of a board be lighter than what we have now?

You could always weigh those gears and work out their volume and compare.

Styrofoam is incredibly light, so I think it would take something special to beat the weight and strength of current boards.

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FormulaNova said...

The gears might be light, but would the same volume of a board be lighter than what we have now?

You could always weigh those gears and work out their volume and compare.

Styrofoam is incredibly light, so I think it would take something special to beat the weight and strength of current boards.

That's the point current materials are light but they have just as many flaws as well eg labour intensive being one of them.

First google result shows me it is a bit over 1 gram per cubic centimetre - same as water.

So an 80L board would weigh 80kg if it was solid.

If moulded, like old polyethylene boards, it would be pretty much the same weight as them - and weight is why they faded away.

Also, regardless of glass filling it would be more flexible than sandwich laminates .... that is simple engineering - a laminated structure is stiffer.

So yes you could use it, but you'd have something that was basically a Bombora Trifin but made out of recycled VCR gears.

Apparently there's not much wind in SA at the moment, ey Choc

Airbus A380 light and strong

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sailpilot said...

Apparently there's not much wind in SA at the moment, ey Choc

that obvious is it

Nylon absorbs water

Why not look for a nature product that is renewable. The way BP is wasting oil at the moment composite are going to get very rare and expensive.

There is a lot of interesting stuff being done with plant based epoxy and nature fibres to replace glass.