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Pocket board building

Here you can exchange your experience and datas about your home build boards
Wilcos
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Re: Pocket board building

Postby Wilcos » Tue Sep 01, 2020 8:43 am

Okay I understand now, thanks for the advice 🤙

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Re: Pocket board building

Postby Johnnyrotten204 » Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:09 am

So, the theme of this thread seems to be that foam is the way to go if you're building... However, I find myself with a buddy that has a mill, and red cedar trees on his property, access to a wood working shop at work and time on my hands.

I'm thinking that it would be fun to mill out a couple cuts of wood and make some wood pocket boards at the shop for friends/family that foil. Would essentially be free besides the epoxy/sandpaper.

Worth giving it a shot? I've not got a ton of wood working experience, but doesn't seem that bad and I assume an epoxied red cedar will float with a moderately heavy foil setup (impulse-aluminum mast, carbon fiber wings/fuselage).

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downunder
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Re: Pocket board building

Postby downunder » Mon Nov 09, 2020 8:16 am

IMG_31102020_224334_(1080_x_1920_pixel).jpg
IMG_09112020_151458_(1280_x_720_pixel).jpg
Absolutely.

Cant be more 'greaner' than this...

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Re: Pocket board building

Postby leeoo » Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:52 pm

Here is a short documentation of my 3rd build. First two were with foam+wood+carbon fiber, this one uses paulownia wood only.
Setup:
3mm paulownia sheet (grain along board)
3mm paulownia sheet (grain perpendicular/across board)
~15mm inner 'skeleton' (2 stringers + frame)
3mm paulownia sheet (grain perpendicular/across board)
3mm paulownia sheet (grain along board)
Just for sealing i used some fine 110g/m2 glass on top&bottom.
Dimensions are ~115cm x 45cm, ~8cm rocker/nose. Weight ~2.6kg.
Unbenannt.jpg
Build:
Starting with 18mm plywood board --> cut & glued together 3 sheets (54mm then) --> cut in 3mm slices.
Here are the short ones with grain across the board.
1_IMG_1818.jpg
2_IMG_1819.jpg
All sheets are glued using PU glue, pressed on a rocker table using vacuum:
3_IMG_1814.jpg
4_IMG_1815.jpg
Details of the final board before glassing & finish:
5_IMG_1871.jpg
6_IMG_1875.jpg
Finish: 2 component PU finish (2-component can) on top of glass/epoxy layer.
Final board:
7_IMG_2004_.JPG
8_IMG_2014_.JPG
9_IMG_2015_.JPG
Since I prefer riding strapless now, I attached some clear deck pads from Decathlon.

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Re: Pocket board building

Postby thewindego » Wed Nov 25, 2020 6:50 pm

Nice work!

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Re: Pocket board building

Postby alpaia » Thu Nov 26, 2020 7:07 am

Hello, lovely board & original building technique, congratulations :thumb:

Did you consider building a thin surfboard this way also ? Looks light & strong,
and has no foam core (I build mine with wood skin over xps foam, not so green in the end)

Your way of laminating thin layers of wood in shape on a rocker table seems better than cutting a plywood skeleton,
because the wood fiber orientation is always optimal (your stringers are like a laminated wood bow, super strong & flexible)

Would you indicate where you found the wood ? here in France paulownia is difficult to find (some rare producers in spain).

cheers

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Re: Pocket board building

Postby leeoo » Thu Nov 26, 2020 1:28 pm

Thanks thewindego and alpaia for your appreciation!

Here in Germany you can simply buy paulownia wood boards (18mm thickness, up to 600x2200mm, https://www.bauhaus.info/leimholzplatte ... p/14084273) in a local hardware store chain called 'Bauhaus'. I always asked myself why they have it in their range, as I don't know any "common" applications for this wood. It's definitely way too soft for furniture as you an apply deep scratches with your fingernails only. OK, I just noticed they also have thicker paulownia rods (45x45mm) now and advertise it as furniture corpus construction wood... so maybe it is used in furniture after all.

I agree, this building method could be scaled to surfboards also, but it's rather complex. You need a rocker table first and then you need to match the stringers (more or less) to the shape of the rocker table. That's not trivial the more 3D the whole shape gets (but of course doable). I enjoy the process of working with wood, so I didn't mind the hours... but I think you can get a decent result in less time.

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Re: Pocket board building

Postby Pierrot » Fri Nov 27, 2020 4:36 pm

I'm back at it. :D
I eventually managed to find 2 pieces of Divinycell foam, 1 inch thick, so I'm planning to use the time this winter to build a couple more pocket boards! I should receive them in the next couple weeks.
I already built 2 pockets, using cheap polystiren foam, wood stringers and glass/carbon hand lay-up. Nice, strong, but not particularly light...

This time I want to try vaccum bagging (never used vacuum technics before...) to get the weigth down and hopefully nicer finish.
Would you mind sharing any good step by step tutorial - viceo or other... - for vacuum baging an HF pocket board?

I'm thinking:
- No significant "shaping" = cut the outline, round the rail and sand the nose a bit... then use the lay-up to give the rocker. Similar to what I did in the past but not sure if the divinicell will bend enough without breaking...
- No stringer since the divinycell foam is a lot stronger than what I used in the past... but UD carbon top and bottom
- Simple "through deck 4 screws" foil plate attachment.
- Lay-up in 2 steps:
1- deck first (while giving the rocker at the same time using my home made rocker table...)
2- then the hull

I'm especially worried about finding the right technic to wrap the rails nicely and create overlap with the different layers of carbon when doing the top and bottom.

Previous 2 build:
http://kitefoil.forumactif.org/t7787-no ... 2x45#64699
viewtopic.php?f=107&t=2401299&p=1047422 ... t#p1047422

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Re: Pocket board building

Postby merl » Fri Nov 27, 2020 7:22 pm

I don't think you can bend 1" hd foam. I did a similar build and used kerfing to make the rocker. Some say that you can use heat to bend it but I didn't feel confident to do that. Otherwise I used two layers of uni 250g at 70 and 40% of the length top and bottom plus one layer of 200g twill. Total weight 1.7kg 108x46

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Re: Pocket board building

Postby PrfctChaos » Fri Nov 27, 2020 10:21 pm

You are definately able to bend 25mm hd foam without heat / kerfing. Perriets description above is on the money:

Just setting the rocker when the first side laminate is curing.

Note: i usually will do the bottom surface first, because that pulls the fabric tight when bending in the rocker. On a previous build, did the topdeck first and ended up with creases in the laminate (since bending the rocker pushes the top laminate) yea, couldve done it better, but it foolproof doing the bottom surface first.


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