I have been using a cork product for about 5 months now and I am really impressed with the stuff. I am a board builder and specifically a vacuum bagger. I have been doing it for 26 years making sail boards, surf boards, rescue sleds. I have been on the sup bandwagon since the beginning making and selling eps blanks in the early days when clark closed. I have always been vacuum bagging wood and other high density foams on foam for board manufacturers on Oahu.
As a disclaimer, I do not work for "Corecork" and I am not compensated in any way by the Corecork distrubutors.

The product I have been using is called "corecork". It is a engineered cork veneer that has different densities and thickness for different applications. I have used both the NL-20 and NL-10 densities. The rolls are 48 inches wide and 100 plus feet in length depending on the thickness. I have been using the 2mm thickness.

Intuitively I thought he lighter, less dense NL-10, would make the lightest product but it actually sucked up more resin and came out at similar weights as the NL-20 higher density cork(12 lb density I think).

I made 20 plus surfboards and 1 hybrid sup/longboard windsurfer. I did full rail wraps on all boards. The boards all came out super nice,strong and light.
I used 4oz cloth between the corecork and foam during the vacuum bagging and then glassed with 4 oz over the cork skinned board. I did two tow boards and I used 6oz instead of 4 oz cloth for desired added weight. I personally think this product will be the next new thing in composite SUP construction.
Advantages:
Wayyyyyyyy cheaper than carbon fiber, herex and divinyl cell high density foams.
less expensive than wood veneers and replaces any of those applications.
Build time to skin board is 1 day(bottom and top in 6-8 hours total time/2hrs actual work time) Full wrap wood veneer could take 3-4 days
Easy to wrap difficult contours/rails
Relief cuts sand to a seamless finish
Easy to store in 4 foot length rolls
Very environmentally sound product, made from tree bark
Waterproof, adds an extra layer of protection to your board
Disadvantages:
Looks- plain brown package is not very attractive. Can easily add color or brushed carbon look to boards.

I just wanted to share this information, because if you just go buy any cork off ebay or from a office supply store you might be getting an inappropriate density for what you need. Google Corecork and check out their composite website for more info.

warmest aloha,
Charlie

Loving this stuff! These are done using NL-20 with a 4/cork/6 oz sandwich on the decks. 2x2 carbon fiber rails and 4/4 oz bottoms. These are 8'6 and weigh 16 lbs.
The cork is not only cheap, readily available and easy to work but also has great dampening properties and is light and bullet proof. That and you can pin your grocery to it!

Amazing post, almost a little swaylock esque. Stoked.

Interesting about the porosity of the cork with density. Will check out the corecork availability in Aust.

Cool!

.... I can imagine a good handful of Pearl Fleck dust being thrown on that cork before the final top coat ....

Stundupper,
I totally agree with the aesthetics of this product. Unfortunately I am unskilled in the area of tints, colors and pin lining. Bulldogpup's suggestion with the pearl flecks makes great sense to me. I am just getting some experience with the product in the lay up recipes. The aesthetics I will leave to the pros. I was thinking the brushed carbon look might do ok with this. Brushed carbon is certainly functional but ugly as hell in my opinion It also lets everyone know you spent twice as much as everyone else on their SUP. I think if the right surfer used a full brown board and was ripping on it, brown might be the next cool thing. For me, cutting costs and time with a superior final product is my goal. Wish I could predict fads, coolness and other factors that have nothing to do with performance and quality.

Below is my feeble attempt to color my fully corecork wrapped SUP

warmest aloha,
Charlie

I made a test panel at work a few weeks ago with 5 cork panels, 3 Soric and 2 PVC cored panels all had different reinforcements (Carbon, Kevlar and Glass)but all were infused with VE resin supplied by Summit , All the Cork cored ones were S..T as the Cork inhibited the VE bonding. epoxy seems like the go !

The latest offering from Cabrinha in cork laminate construction.




Just a shame that they didn't have a clear coat on the deck so you could see the cork underneath - I'm kinda hooked on the look after recent posts