Vacuum Bagging

Well with vacuum bagging yu glass on skins like balsa or other thin woods that yu wouldnt be able to clamp or do a hand layup on say like the firewires and sunovas

 

Aussies have been doing corecork decks over eps cores and exposed cork decks for years

 

Bagging makes more sense for epoxy, because the resin is more viscus and harder to get the optimum amount of resin in the cloth. And if your using over EPS... particularly lighter EPS or billet foam instead of pressure molded... the shaped blank needs to be sealed properly before glassing, or it will soak in more resin than necessary when hand lamming.

However... I believe a good hand lamination is every bit as strong and light as a vac bagged lamination, and here's why: No matter what you method you use you want the cloth fully saturated, and enough resin to penetrate the surface of the shaped blank to create a good mechanical bond between the two. Too little resin weakens the "tooth" created when resin fills the microscopic pores and grooves in the foam. Too little resin can also leave the fibers of cloth slightly dry... not fully saturated... so you won't get the full benefit of the structural integrity of the resin/glass composite matrix. What I'm saying is there's an ideal amount of resin needed to maximize the strength of the laminate, and the bond between the skin and blank. You can get that either by hand or bag.

A good hand laminator vs an inexperienced vac bagger? No comparison.
An experienced vac bagger vs a lousy hand laminator? No comparison.

Also... it takes a lot of trial and error to dial in your pressure, amount of resin, weight of foam, duration of vac, etc., not to mention other variables like ambient air temperature, resin formula, types of peel ply/breather material, etc. So you're going to put out some pretty crappy laminations before you start getting it right.

 

Scott and Curtis have been doing it for years In The Eye Surfboards Cape Hatteras

 

Yes in the eye thats scott busby and crew i had one of his fish boards when he was doin boards for natural art ,and an early in the eye quad fish they make great boards

 

Oh yes then the vacuum bagging ive used them to put balsa skins on but then finished with hand lay up so to me if your just doin a few boards a vacuum bagging set up with resin infusion fo da house is really cool and all but damn $$$$$ so for now i just use the homemade bag for clampin skins on

 

Some Buxton love goin on

 

he's the guy from Santa Clarita Diet? right

 

If you really want to learn about it do a search in the archives on Swaylocks for a thread by Burt Berger. He basically gives up the whole process that was in use for the early Firewire boards. You could build super light and practically bulletproof boards with his method.

Here is a great link to the process: https://www.swaylocks.com/sites/def...m Forming & Sandwich Construction Thesisl.pdf

 

Greg Lohr did a good thread on Sways a while beck, too... on timberflex construction. I think it's brilliant.

 

^^^That's the perfect application for the technology. Garage hacks like me use paint cans!

 

I was just never all that into really light surfboards. I had a couple of Surftechs and didn't really like them. I'm intrigued by the sandwich methods but I just prefer riding PU/PE boards.

 

So send him a cookie.....
But....if I were into making boards, I probably would have liked it as well. But....I rather ride them than make them....mo' fun!

 

I surfed a few Lost C4 carbon/cork boards shaped by Drew Baggett in FL. I really, really liked them. Dope, super light, ultra responsive and never need wax. Inspired me to play around with vacuum bagging some of my own boards. I took like 10 different veneers and randomly put them on the deck of a 6'6" fish shape, turned out cool but was really heavy, I used like oak, maple, rosewood, teak, basically any kind of samples that I could get. It ended up looking like some crazy 70's flooring LOL

 

There is a fair amount of vacuum bagging in the other board sports--kite boarding, skim, skate, paipo, SUP, etc.--a lot more widespread innovation in materials and bonding techniques. And drawing from boating world. That also goes for fins (skegs). A lot of folks vacuum bagging are DIW wave riding boards.

 

Swaylocks has an achive too lots of good stuff