I've ripped apart an old tyronsea slalom board with the intention of making a smaller surfboard out of the blank. it has no stringer, and appears to be that kind of foam made up of small spheres (styrofoam?polystyrene? ) . the board was a tyronsea flyer ,SP115 epoxy laminating system, 'hydrofoam' . two questions :will it work as a surfboard with no stringer, and is this foam suitable for use with polyester resin. the blank is in good nick and has come away from the glass cleanly .

No and no

Poly will melt styro and to make a surfboard with no stringer you need some epoxy, some carbon, some hi density foam and a vacum bagging machine.
Sorry to burst your bubble mate but its cheaper and less of a head f#$k to go and buy a brand new board from a surf shop...

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stribo said...

No and no

Poly will melt styro and to make a surfboard with no stringer you need some epoxy, some carbon, some hi density foam and a vacum bagging machine.
Sorry to burst your bubble mate but its cheaper and less of a head f#$k to go and buy a brand new board from a surf shop...

But undoubtedly less fun...

oh! ,would it be possible to use epoxy resin , and glue in a stringer?. like the mini stringers you fit in when fixing a snapped board.

time , difficulty and to a lesser extent money aren't a problem , but i dont want to invest any more effort if it's straight out not possible. seemed like a low risk first shaping project.

It is possible, but I would suggest using normal surfboard foam blank as a first shaping exercise. It is much nicer to shape than the polystyrene foam, you can use cheap polyester resin, and it will come with a stringer built in.

Polystyrene by itself is too weak in surfboard sized shapes - it would need some other layers (like divinycell) laminated onto it which is tricky, and not something you'd want to do by yourself first time around. It's also soft, and more likely to dent and snap without the stronger outer layers.

If you really want to shape a board and want best 'bang for buck', go to your local surfboard shaper and see if you can buy a blank off them..

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crazy4waves said...

oh! ,would it be possible to use epoxy resin , and glue in a stringer?. like the mini stringers you fit in when fixing a snapped board.

Forget about stringers, that's very old fashioned technology, (Midget Farraley dispensed with it back in the mid 1960s). As said if you want to use that polystyrene blank, you might as well put the extra strength where it's really needed, on the surface.
A high density foam/fiber glass sandwich is the answer, for a surfboard you don't need carbon.
Or you could use balsa in the sandwich instead of high density foam.

3mm 80Kg/m3 foam or balsa, with a layer of 4oz cloth each side of the foam/balsa should be fine, maybe an extra layer where your feet go.

I reshaped and glassed an old timber bottom Wind Energy wave board into a 6'8" x 21" nugget for my daughter to learn to surf on.

Turned out OK and only had to re glass the deck and take 1& 1/2 an inch of foam off the deck.

Cut a template off a mates nugget

Looks a bit rough on the deck because of the pigment job I did - but it's stable, turns and my 12 yo has learnt to paddle into green waves and surf it.

Board was free - Cost abot $150 with fibrglass supplies and FCS fin plugs - had the fins already.

I've surfed it and the only problem is rails on the tail are a little hard and it doesn't like turning quickly off the top of a wave - but it's as loose as anything.

With the price of old fibreglass boards it's a good fun project.

your better off buying a blank from collin earl for around $100 and using polyester resin.

while we are on the subject i got plans on the table of shaping/creating another board. Polystyrene core using satin (5 1/2oz) glass cloth. two layers bottom, 3 or 4 layers top, with carbon/Aramid reinforcements where applicable (fin, mast, footstraps, nose)

hoping to use a 0.6mm or 1.2 mm veneer as reinforcement across deck and bottom instead of high density foam or other such layer. will this work as a strength/dent resistant/stiffening layer? (vac bagged obviously)

read a little bit on it, talked to the local surfboard guru, seems to work for starboard (though they use some hardcore bullet proof riot gear stuff as well), any one tried or heard of it working?

by the way:
i'd go for it, shape away then epoxy it, dont worry about the stringer. but you can cut the board in half and glue one in if you feel that way inclined
theres lots of good info on the net, google will get you started, here are some links i found useful
www.ecboards.co.uk/
http://www.surfboardbuilding.com/Building/building.html
go for it!

That's a lot of glass, it might come out heavy, I only use 3 layers of 4oz, with 3mm herex on top and 5mm herex on the bottom. Depending on what timber you use as veneer, it could be just as heavy as 80Kg herex.

I think stiffness varies with the square of thickness, so .6mm might not be enough in the impact areas.

What is your objection to high density foam??

after you've shaped and glassed the first hundred.........they'll start to look and perform acceptably.

no objection to high density foam, just have some veneers lying around, thought it would be worth a shot.

would be a long grained veneer. (blackwoord probably)

satin cloth absorbs/requires less resin aiding a lot with the weight.

think ill give it a try and see how it comes out, might laminate up a few scraps and do some brutal testing. bring the engineer in me out!

thanks everyone for the help. think i'll have a go , using epoxy, 2 layers of 4oz 's' cloth top and bottom as per instructions at (www.surfersteve.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi) .

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Nickuman said...

while we are on the subject i got plans on the table of shaping/creating another board. Polystyrene core using satin (5 1/2oz) glass cloth. two layers bottom, 3 or 4 layers top, with carbon/Aramid reinforcements where applicable (fin, mast, footstraps, nose)

hoping to use a 0.6mm or 1.2 mm veneer as reinforcement across deck and bottom instead of high density foam or other such layer. will this work as a strength/dent resistant/stiffening layer? (vac bagged obviously)

remember satin is a strong tight woven cloth designed for areospace and is expensive, it is great for wrapping around corners such as rails, finbox & mast base my opinion is if your going to all the trouble and expence you need to keep the weight down, so try laminate entire board with 200gr uni carbon(uni isnt all that expensive) with a layer of 3oz satin with extra satin on stress area's and remember satin is like kevlar its extreamly hard to sand
what are you going to use on the rails as a laminate,contured divinicell is worth considering it has 1oz glass backing and it will wrap around any bend, if you want to have a look at it, its in keefs pics