Hey Cam,

LSD board has done as much work as most boards would do in 5 years laughs.

If you saw th lizards vagina it still looks aweome, sure you can see where it has been repaired but its rock solid from what I have seen.

I would hardly call it trashed.

Phill.

Cam Gillies said...

I'm guessing you're still using SL grade EPS for your new board? What sort of life are you expecting to get out of it? You're last 8'2 looked pretty messed up

I'm hoping Dean will bring his boys (and boards) to the Mambo this year.

Dean might even find himself winning King Mambo from what I've heard of his windsurfing/kite surfing skills.

DJ

Bit of a worry when rock solid has to be repaired, I'm only going off the pics and comments from dean himself, there is no denying that the board is a bit knocked around. Maybe messed up was a bit over the top? Good to hear everyone is loving Deans boards, love the way everyone defends them flat out like they on 'team snow', don't really care about all that, I was more interested in Deans thoughts on whether using SL grade EPS was a long term thing or whether you need to be handy at board repairs if you are going to build boards from it.
Cam

OG SUP said...

Hey Cam,

LSD board has done as much work as most boards would do in 5 years laughs.

If you saw th lizards vagina it still looks aweome, sure you can see where it has been repaired but its rock solid from what I have seen.

I would hardly call it trashed.

Phill.

Cam Gillies said...

I'm guessing you're still using SL grade EPS for your new board? What sort of life are you expecting to get out of it? You're last 8'2 looked pretty messed up

Obviously I'm no expert on board construction.... but it's a big call to say there's no strength difference between SL or H grade EPS? Maybe someone who is an expert on it can shed some light! I'm nearly finished my next board using M grade EPS so I will be interested to see for myself how it holds up compared to H grade, I'm not worried..........

JonathanC said...

"Bit of a worry" for whom??? I'm thinking it's not Deans board that is a bit of a worry...

Geese Cam, lump of frozen water sank the Titanic. Run anything into a rock and it will need repairing. Foam holds the glass on the top and bottom of the board apart - it gives very little strength whether it's SL or H.

Bnaccas said...

Cam Gillies said...

Obviously I'm no expert on board construction.... but it's a big call to say there's no strength difference between SL or H grade EPS? Maybe someone who is an expert on it can shed some light! I'm nearly finished my next board using M grade EPS so I will be interested to see for myself how it holds up compared to H grade, I'm not worried..........

All good Cam, I used "H" grade and it seems fine although my board hasn't come in as light as Dean's. But to be honest at Foamex I had a really close look at SL, M and H grade foams. They all seemed to dint as easy as each other, the density and size of the balls was very close if not the same and weight marginal.

The next blanks I order will definately be M or SL rather than H. Like Jonathan said the foam is just there to hold the top and bottom glass apart.

Make sure you post some pix of your new board when finished

I'm not an 'expert' but made epoxy goats for 15 years and M grade is definately the best strength/weight combo IMHO. You don't need the heavier grade for strength, wack some more layers on instead.

Hey LSD, nice looking board. Those boards definately go well in the waves you guys ride down there, from watching the vids.

Urgent email for lsd....

Im in nz

Just to try to put a little science into the foam thing.

The Foamex EPS foams have the following characteristics -

SL M H
Compressive Strength (kPa) 70 105 135
Cross Breaking Strength (kPa) 135 260
Density (approx) (kg/m cubed) 12 30
lb/foot cubed 1 2

So it looks like the H is twice as strong as the SL and twice as heavy, it is but it is still so weak that it doesn't help your board survive rocks at all.

Lets try to put that into something that makes sense, 1 kPa = 0.145 psi pounds per square inch, so the H foam can withstand about 20 pounds per square inch. Press it with your thumb ( less than half a square inch?) with a force of 3 or 4kg and it dents, all of these foams are so soft that you only have to look sideways at them and they dent. The softest Western Red Cedar (which is stupid soft) has a compressive strength of 29 mpa or 4200 psi, that's 200 times the compressive strength of H grade foam!

The foam gives the board almost no effective strength, it simply creates space between the layers of glass on the top and bottom of the board. This forms a beam where the glass layers can do what they do best - resist tension or pulling.

Fibreglass or even carbon isn't very good at compression, that is why boards buckle. When a board flexes with your weight on it the top surface goes into compression and the bottom surface goes into tension. The foam just goes along for the ride with way more ability to compress and extend than the glass, in fact in the middle (the neutral axis) it doesn't do anything, just bends a little. You intuitively know that - but to prove it just pick up a slab of 100mm thick eps foam, it bends like a banana.

The reason you can get away with one layer on the bottom of the board is that even that one layer of glass is very very strong in tension, you need the two on top to try to resist compressing or buckling. The one layer or even two layers aren't very strong in compression which simply means that you can ding it easily. To get ding strength you need composite layers like glass-divinycell-glass to make a mini beam on the surface on the board.

Hollow boards work fine, they just require more complex manufacturing techniques. The density of the foam is all about striking a balance between light weight and having something that is actually strong and rigid enough to work with.

People put stringers in EPS Epoxy boards to actually help them maintain the shape of the blank while they are making the board (unless they don't understand that a stringer actually adds virtually no strength compared to the fibreglass/epoxy skin!)

Hope that makes some sense!

Hey ...thanks for doing the home work Jonathan...with a bit of luck the turkey brains have a better idea how weak eps is

JonathanC said...


The foam gives the board almost no effective strength, it simply creates space between the layers of glass on the top and bottom of the board. This forms a beam where the glass layers can do what they do best - resist tension or pulling.

I saw this website in a post on the surfing forum

http://www.sheldrake.net/cardboards/index.xhtml

The cores are only a matrix of cardboard, with my non-existent knowledge in surfboard building I wondered about the strength, but this comment clears it up for me.

Green flame board was tried in 2' wind swell & windy 15 to 20knt side off conditions.
I thought the tail may have been a bit thin when I shaped it, making the board a little pitch unstable, but it was fine.
The tail thinness, I think has improved the directional stability when paddling. I tend to stand on these small boards with the tail submerged, now with this smaller volume tail, I stand further forward to achieve the board trim I like, my feet being further away from the fin the board yaws a tad less...didnt antisipate that one!
The overall stability is very similar to the last board, important to maintain for the rough days like today.
In Surfing, the turns were more fluent & continuous, linking manuvers seemed to happen with ease.
The increased concave under the nose has added more lift/support when standing on it, & speed feels similar.
So alls good a slightly improved board. Looks like a windy onshore week so not much chance a finding any real waves to explore the board

If you had two similar boards, one at 6 kg and one at 8kg, take them surfing and work out if you can actually notice the difference on the water, not on the beach.

35% is across the whole board, not all on the nose.........

You had to put a 2kg repair on the tail?

LSD was so good to send me dimentions for a custom, But sad to say shapers here are to scared to do it.

To big/ To much hassel/ No blanks wide enough/ Bay not larg enough

My god, What the hell is wrong with the world