Wakesurf board components

We’ve been thinking about our composite sandwich structures and we really love the durability, lightness and strength and we’ve been playing around with different techniques and modifications to the methodology and to be truthful, we lost sight of the benefit of the construction. Not only is it light, strong, durable and stiff but it can also afford a componentization of the elements that make up the wakesurf board. Namely, the deck, bottom, rails and interior.

As we contemplated this construction we asked ourselves what does the deck side of the wakesurf board need? Obviously stiffness, but it mostly has impact concerns when a rider lands from an aerial, it is mostly in compression, but briefly in tension upon landing and it needs to be able to manage some rough handling. Wakesurf racks and the like tend to cause abrasion on the surface of the wakesurf board. Carbon is very stiff and we love the stuff, but the color is brutal out behind boat in the heat, but also Carbon doesn’t fair that well in impacts. If you’ve followed us for a period you know that we’ve worked with a Carbon Fiber and Kevlar hybrid. Nasty stuff to cut, but it offers a great blend of light, stiff and impact resistance.

Now normally we would match that to the bottom, but as part of our “soul” searching we thought: why? There simply isn’t a need to duplicate the same material for the deck and bottom lamination and that opened the door for us. If we optimized the deck surface for stiffness, compression forces and impact then the bottom could be free to manage the specific forces that are apparent on the bottom of the wakesurf board. MOSTLY the bottom of the wakesurf board faces tension forces, with some compressive forces when landing from aerials, but landing on the lip of a wake isn’t really the sort of impact we have on the top where the riders heels are denting and slamming into the surface. We also want stiffness on the bottom to help us derive as much pop as possible. Carbon fiber is good in tension and offers great stiffness, but the normal 2 x 2 twill weave takes a ton of resin to get a smooth surface.

The issue is that a 3 k tow overlapping another 3 k tow creates a pretty large depression and in order to get a smooth surface liked we’d want on the bottom of a wakesurf board. The net result is that plain weave Carbon Fiber, sucks up a bunch of resin creating a brittle surface and also adding much more weight that is needed. So for the bottom we opted to try a spread tow carbon fiber. You may have heard it referred to as a fat or phat weave. Which isn’t really accurate. The process of spread tow weaving takes individual filaments and creates a tape rather than a bundle that has height and width. The tape is more flat and also wider, hence that “fat” moniker. This tape, however, has almost no height and as such doesn’t create the same depressions as a normal 2 x 2 weave. The end result is a slightly thinner fabric, with less depressions in the weave and therefore will wet out easier and more fully, along with requiring less resin for a smooth finish.

Internally we want to do a few things to aid performance and durability. We don’t duck dive so we don’t have much need for reinforcement where the riders hands or knees would be, but heel dents are a know issue. Further, there is lost energy there everytime there is a dent or possibly some compression of the underlying foam, there is engery that should have gone to going higher or turning sharper that, instead, has gone to compressing foam. We’ve liked the use of bamboo as a way to deal with compressive forces and impacts, but the vast majority of it is simply for cosmetics, when two small bits under the riders feet would be just perfect! Saves a ton of weight and also provides the needed reinforcements. So, under foot, two small’ish sections of bamboo and underlying carbon fiber. The placement of these reinforcement panels will be a little tough, but you get the idea.

we KNOW we have downward forces from the rider landing from aerials, it’s plain stupid to not have reinforced these areas with something other than fiberglass, which has proven to be inadequate for 60 some odd years. The only reason this isn’t being done, well a few reasons one being cost and the other being aesthetics. If you stepped out of your front door and promptly broke a wood step on your porch, what would you do? Buy another wooden step that was exactly the same as the one you broke? No, you’d use something else, like concrete or steel and chuck the wood that didn’t work BEFORE! So, we intend to fix that broken step! Or is that the idea? Don’t manufacture the board so that it can stand up to the abuses we know exist, so that well you have to buy another board? Planned obscelesence? We’re not sure, but we don’t like it, so fix it we shall!

While we are breaking out the carbon fiber and bamboo, we think we’ll reinforce the fin boxes with a little molded carbon fiber forced into the fin box cut outs to give us a tad more stiffness to prevent the fins and boxes from twisting under torsional loads.

This might seem odd, wakesurf boards and wakesurfing really is ridiculously homogenous. Skim style boards are almost identical, save for length, but all noses are the same and only recently has there been even a slight difference in tail shapes. Even down to the construction of the boards, unless there was some deviation for appearances, we’re thinking we need to break out of that rut. We have enough material and supply on order to build two boards. The first will probably not be optimal, but hopefully the second will be on target!

Technorati Tags: composite sandwich, wakesurf board

7 comments

1 ping

koteg

January 13, 2012 at 10:22 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

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