First vacuum project guide

[Matthijs94]

Recently I made my first wooden pocket foil board. Very heavy, barely floats (also have a heavy slingshot foil), 45x90x2cm. Really overbuild the whole project, result is a unbreakable board but the waterstart is a challange.

I am thinking about making another one but from foam and CF. I watched many YT video's and read almost this whole forum to learn as much as possible.
The only thing I still have some question marks about is the vacuum bagging process.

Can someone explain me the steps to follow in detail, to have the outcome succesfull?
I live in the Netherlands so any advice on material is also very welcome.

[downunder]

Hi,

This is a big topic man. But, there is some flaw here since my Paulownia + bamboo + fg+ cf + 15 inserts is under 2kg. 12mm tick, 90x41.

If only used Paulownia it would be 1.5kg I guess. This is based on my TT which is 120x41cm 1.8kg.

So, get Paulovnia. As your first vac project I would not use a foam. Maybe after 5th project tho.

And many will have different views on vac process. For this application, trust me, you do not need it. The board can be almost flat. The better we get, flatter it can be.

BR

[merl]

Advice on materials: easycomposites (before brexit)

[tmcfarla]

You can use a household vacuum cleaner to hold carbon onto the board while it cures, but you'd need something stronger if you plan on actually using vacuum to bend the foam. There are a few ways of getting rocker in the foam (glued while bent, thermo-form, or shape from a block).

1.) Shape your blank (I like divinycell for easy thermo-forming, maybe 1 inch thick in total)

2.) Put a few layers of unidirectional carbon along deck, cure under household vacuum. It doesn't need to cover whole deck, maybe 8 inches across or so. It will provide strength along rocker, which is where you need it for foil board. Maybe a bit extra reinforcement where your feet go.

3.) Repeat to get carbon on bottom of board. Plenty of extra carbon where the foil mounts on.

4.) Cover deck with a layer or two of fiberglass,wrapping rails without vacuum (wrapping rails much easier with fiberglass).

I'm not saying this is the best way to do you 10th board, but it is good for your first few. Wrapping rails under vacuum is really hard. Wrapping rails with carbon is tricky. This skips both, and puts the stiffness of carbon where you need it, which is between your feet. You could actually just skip the vacuum altogether, but it does lead to stronger results.