It begins... - Page 4

Nice! What kind of veneer is the top sheet?

I went back to the start of the build.... not bad, started in may with the press and made your first board in august. Way to go!

really nice work. Great Job!

Carbon reinforced rubber sounds bad to me as an edge gasket.

As I understand the rubber gives a semi flexible shear layer between two very hard things, edge and resin/glass.

I would think the carbon would make the rubber very ridged and eliminate the shear effect. Or lack of shear. dunno.

Am I off here?

Montucky - to be honest I'm not sure. I bought "vds" from a forum user here, and that's what I was sent in the mail (see pic). Maybe the VDS is the brown roll (also in the pic with the roll of carbon rubber) and I was confused - I've never seen VDS before so had nothing to compare against. I assumed the carbon reinforced rubber was a substitute or the same stuff.

It seems to have stuck alright, I may cut up the flash where it overhangs to see how strong the bond is.

Desmond - the veneer is Silky Oak. I'm thinking about experimenting with veneers a fair bit for top sheets, making designs out of different woods etc. I found a site on joining veneers here for those interested: http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/veneertaping.htm

Board has been cut out, routed (poorly, but sanded up ok) and sent for a base grind. My camera ran out of juice before I got a pic, but will post one up when it's all ground up.

Good news is, the blokes at the snowboard shop were all over it, I got flooded with questions. Had a couple asking to test prototypes in future, and the shop owner is keen to stock a couple boards if/when I move into production

thats awesome usually the shop dudes love that stuff.

The vds is definitely the tanish yellow roll. the carbon reinforced rubber, I have no idea, sounds awesome though. It just seemed a little counter intuitive. maybe I am over thinking it. Ride it, flex it hard and allot and see what happens.

So who did you get the carbon rubber from lets ask them?

Congrats on allot of hard wok done well.

There you go. I wonder if the carbon rubber I've used has contributed much to the stiffness of the board. Using only Paulownia and glass, I expected it to be fairly flexy, but it's nice and stiff.

I'll build my next few boards with the carbon in the same place, I need to for consistency in my thesis, but I may build a test board with the VDS as well to see the difference. I've got enough materials for 10 boards of this shape, so may as well use them.

> Alex13 wrote: I'm thinking about experimenting with veneers a fair bit for top sheets, making designs out of different woods etc. I found a site on joining veneers here for those interested: http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/veneertaping.htm

I had a similar thought about veneers. I'm saving the cutoffs from the veneers I have and will make like a patch work of different random patterns.

Take a look at www.scottybob.com for some real fancy veneer work. Looks like it's marquetry style.

Well I've figured out the mystery of the "carbon fibre rubber roll". It turns out it's uni directional carbon fibre, no rubber at all.

My confusion stems from the fact that it appears I was sent the carbon by accident, and on the box it says "carbon fibre rubber roll" which actually means "carbon fibre, rubber roll" as two separate items in the packaging.

In the fleecy stuff it's bound in, you can't see any individual fibres, it just looks like solid black stuff.

I'll need to redo my reference board, but should be an interesting test board nonetheless with super stiff edges and minimal torsional stiffness! Hahaha. I must admit I feel a little stupid not spotting the difference between uni directional carbon and rubber!

Alex, You're quite lucky. You bought uni-carbon for the price of rubber.

How much do you have?

1800' (550m) of 1" wide on the roll it appears. I contacted the bloke I bought it off and have arranged to pay for it, albeit at a reduced price.

Very cool, and still a sweet deal. You will find that adding unidirectional carbon fiber below (and above) the core really stiffens the flex. An effect as dramatic as varying the core thickness. Plus it adds "pop" to the ski or board, a lot of energy.

Keep up the good work.

Hi Alex,

You might already have these, but I came across them when doing a bit of research on vibration dampening.

http://www.wagnerskis.com/blog/2008/ene ... n-and-pop/

http://www.omaticsnowboards.com/wordpress/tech.html

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/OAS/ ... 98_101.pdf

I haven't seen those before Richuk, thanks for the info. The more the merrier!

Tomorrow - setting up the laser vibrometer for a test run on this board!

Better hurry with all that rain comming!!

I know. It sucks. Nothing I can do now though, still waiting on CNC.

So I've had a busy week, 3 boards out since yesterday morning.

Good thing is I'm getting better at bending edges by hand. They still aren't perfect but they are much better, especially on this 3rd board (in the press now).

The 3rd board should be interesting, it has VDS running in the direction of the 2nd torsional mode, which is basically from the widest part of the tip, through in a straight line to the centre of the board, then through to the widest part of the tail, on both sides. I'll put up a pic later. I put the VDS under the core. I'll be testing whether it has any discernable damping effect in the sub-100Hz range (which is the important range for undesirable vibrations).

The 2nd board is the same, but with carbon in those directions, and placed above the core. I did this to limit the effect the carbon would have, as I believe it will be fairly stiff.

The first is the reference board, which is just a straight glass layup, no unusual additions.

I'll be making another board tomorrow with both carbon and VDS (aside from just on the edges) in the layup.

That press looks super nice. I have a couple quesitons for you Alex. How big of a hoist did you need to put that press together and stand it up? About how much did you spend on all your press materials including: frame, bolts, hoses, mdf for top and bottom mold. I have been searching around the forum and am trying to get a ballpark price for a I-beam press. Thanks a bunch, happy building!

Thanks mate.

Not including the heat control, I would have spent around $3000 (Australian Dollars) on the press all up. However, I have access to a welder at home and I didn't pay for the MDF, uni supplied that for me. I also had a compressor already. This includes things you don't think about, like welding rods, glue, paint, castors, delivery fees, hose fittings, air line etc.

I found ringing around for steel prices made a big difference - I was quoted anywhere between $750 and $2000 for the steel.

For the hoist, I used a block and tackle attached to the roof of the shed. It's basically a chain and pulley hoist with a hook on one end. It worked fine, but it was pretty dangerous and you'd need to make sure your shed was built pretty strong.

Reworked the heat control system this week, the blankets are now controlled by two separate PID controllers & SSR's. Should give better control top & bottom, I was finding the top blanket was creeping in temp quite a lot with a single controller.

Also finished off my basic cassette today - will post up details soon.

2011 board coming in the next couple of weeks + some veneer experimentation

For now though, off to the snow! I still haven't ridden all the boards I made last year so will be doing so tomorrow.