Carantoc said...

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/General/Wooden-windsurfer/?SearchTerms=SUP
dribble crap.

Sorry mate, but since we have termites in QLD wooden board is not not me
So maybe you have stainless steel or aluminium or made of recycled paper ?
Do you realize how time time-consuming is such construction ? At Aussie labour cost say $70 hour you could buy new shop full of new boards.
Time will come for brand new windsurfing boards at $500-700 as I strength requirements are not so extreme as you think.
If we send this project with body shape outline and no restriction what is inside to NASA engineers that are released from workload after grounding space shuttle - people that never saw windsurfer before - so don't have any inhibitions -
they will come with honeycomb pressurised construction,
Board will weight less then five kilo and will be stronger that you need.

Summary Of my understanding of previous 4 pages
Expensive ........ Something china built ......something......honeycomb.............somethingsomething............crazy dude........something......something. Whinge moan something something Cyber bullies - something something

Macroscien said...

<snippo>

If we send this project with body shape outline and no restriction what is inside to NASA engineers that are released from workload after grounding space shuttle - people that never saw windsurfer before - so don't have any inhibitions -
they will come with honeycomb pressurised construction,
Board will weight less then five kilo and will be stronger that you need.

As long as you don't get the NASA engineer in charge of gluing the tiles on the shuttle. Of course, the NASA version will be light, and super strong, but with a budget to match.

For what its worth, today's type of construction appears to be a good compromise. It's cheap, relatively strong, not too stiff, and easy to repair. Given all the variables, I am not sure you could do too much better.

Macroscien said...

FormulaNova said...
I am not sure you could do too much better.

Could be made much easier, faster and extremely cheaper.
Like Pepsicola plastic bottle. One mould , blow up to the shape, fill with super strong but cheap foam, pump some pressure and board done. This technology could provide board at $50 max and you still not be able to brake it. Read the space in 5 years and we will see who was right.
BTW I wonder if somebody did already poly carbon ( pepsi bottle) sheet reinforced with carbon nano tubes (not one of us but in right laboratory)?
For me such material looks indestructible in our conditions.

See, that's where you need to actually try these things. Some things sound good on paper, but in practice may not work so well. On the other hand sometimes things work better than expected.

If you are talking about PET in the above example, with just normal foam, I don't think it would be stiff enough.

For all the disadvantages, the current construction techniques are good.

With ASA(?) plastic boards, they still use fibreglass and carbon to add strength and stiffness, but otherwise, this is similar to what I think you are suggesting.

Blimey 5 pages! think its gone off track some...
Think what Macro started off saying us that $2500+ is pretty steep for a new board....tend to agree, but what he also is missing is how most retail business works in the world, there are layers of distribution, each having their own costs/margins/taxs that get passed on... if you work it backwards a board ex factory probably is only $500 or less...still I would think $1500 for mass produced and $2k custom is about right, unless factory's start retailing direct.

*Side note, BEST kites did exactly that when they launched years ago, smashed the market, 2 kites for the price of one deals!, even 3!...but once they got their foot in the door, they went back to tradtional distribution systems and prices to match...issue is no one really wants to deal with the end customer!...thats what stores are for!

Rather than OEM, as previously stated your better off getting 100+ people that all want the same board/model, work with a dealer to do a pre pay deposit bulk order, then you will get your price break, !

Everytime I walk into a Wind/Kite/Sup shop i cant fathom how they make a living, so many models choices...stock holdings, cash flow nighmare.

Here is my recent example of why we need stores/retailers...

I needed a new boom, so today I went in checked their 'special price' boom didnt like it, didn't like what else that was on offer, then spotted the boom of my dreams in the corner on its lonesome....just crying out for me, decent fair price, deal done.

Then for more service, they are happily shipping a 2nd Hand sail I sold on SB for me my customer in NSW, and will do for the next sail also....so then when cashed up I will get a new sail from them!

The 2nd Hand wave board I have just purchased from SB is also getting shipped via a shop in VIC, I'm sure those funds will get directed back in to the store, 2 x happy bargain hunters = 2 new store product sales.

The SUP i purchased this year, I did so after test riding several models FOC from local store.
The Kite I purchased last year was the same, several demo's/sizes before I was happy, then purchased from the store that I demo'd from.

I couldnt have done any of the above without my local store/s.

Personally , I cant wait to see the 'Macrosciencewindsurfer deluxe edition V3' sometime soon...he may be on to something with at least one of those fancy high tech thingy fibre gel pva air inplate super laminate cyber cell concepts....I bet 1$ one day there will be a different way to build boards,
let me know when its here,.....

Macroscien said...

FormulaNova said...
I am not sure you could do too much better.

Could be made much easier, faster and extremely cheaper.
Like Pepsicola plastic bottle. One mould , blow up to the shape, fill with super strong but cheap foam, pump some pressure and board done. This technology could provide board at $50 max and you still not be able to brake it. Read the space in 5 years and we will see who was right.
BTW I wonder if somebody did already poly carbon ( pepsi bottle) sheet reinforced with carbon nano tubes (not one of us but in right laboratory)?
For me such material looks indestructible in our conditions.

We wont need to wait 5 years. All production boards in the 80's were made this way.

This thread started with an obvious complete lack of knowledge in board construction and is now at a point where we are being "educated" on how it could be done better. Macro, if you want a blown plastic board go ****ing buy a second hand on from the 80s ( you'll pick on up for about $2 on eBay) waaaaaaaaaaay cheaper than the $ 500 your talking about.

I saw a Bombora 260??? (Long skinny one) last weekend and i know why we don,t still use them and build them that way. THEY WERE CRAP!. This one had 1000mm worth of neg tail rocker which would change as you steped on it. The nose rocker did the same. But!!! it was still bullet proof CRAP.

I like a board that is well designed and built and the shapper deserves to MAKE a living. The quickest way to kill any industry is to choose stuff on price alone, have a look, Macro at what goes into making your board and the time to do it.

Come on down and I,ll teach you how to shape, then have a look at how much you collect for your job.

Better still just buy a well built second hand board

This page has gone on for long enough

BIC Techno E-Large was plastic foam. Had one and it was bomb-proof, but heavy! Didn't go half bad either.

I do think that we have moved on from this though.

On a more positive note....

Have we really "moved on" from the heavy but tough plastic boards? Compared to other more popular consumer/sporting goods, aren't modern windsurfers quite light and pretty fragile for their size?

As a comparison, the vast majority of sailing dinghies, kayaks and bicycles are built from fibreglass, polyethylene and similar plastics, or alloy. Those sports are much more popular than windsurfing and have either declined much less or grown much more, so there's no evidence that windsurfing is doing it better.

OH GOD!!!!!!! Pleeeeeease make it stoppppp!!!!!

(.).)

Macroscien said...Before such prosaic critics are posted better to know some facts:

Tensile strength of material:

Epoxy adhesive 12-30MPa

Polyester Resin -50MPa

Polycarbonate (your ordinary pepsi bottle !) 75 Mpa

So polycarbonate or your plastic bottle material is actually much stronger then epoxy or polyester resin.

What give the board the real strength is embedded glass or carbon nano tube fibre.
Glass fibre -1500 MPa
Carbon fibre -1600 MPa
so resultant composite may reach tensile strength up to 1200 MPa

You claim that polycarbonate could not be used for board production is simply untrue. For nowadays practical reason is much easier to apply resin that form composite material based on other "plastics" .

Technology of other "plastics" is not yet on "home garage DIY" level.

By comparison you will not be able to create simple " stupid" Pepsi bottle in your garage but you still could do the best windsurfing board if you are lucky.

I was going to point out that 'stronger' and 'tensile strength' are not the same thing, boards used to be made from blow molded poly and they were crap, boards are not made from 'nano tubes', and this started off about making cheaper boards not using the latest materials from NASA which are made in 1 cm3 lots with a budget meausred in US billion $.

But then I realised so many people have already pointed this out yet the dribble continues to run, and thus I would only be demonstrating my own stupidity in continuing to page 6.

Macro, FFS.

What is a soft drink bottle made from?
Last time I looked it was HDPE, not polycarbonate.


Secondly, you can look at carbon nanotubes all you like but I don't think a new product like that, used in a totally new way, moulding with LDPE or HDPE or bloody melted candles for that matter, is so NEW that will not achieve your $500 board.

For a 10mil investment you MAY make a superior board with a faster process and cheaper materials but then you need to sell a load of boards to pay off that investment. Windsurfing is small, so in reality if your carbon nanotube infused moulded polycarbonate thing works you'd be better off moulding aircraft parts or bikes.

And whilst I typed this I see you are back to getting non-windsurfing materials people to design it. It has been done, Nomex and aluminium honeycombs have been around for ages. It is superior, but it costs too much, the process of laminating it into a sandwich structure is different and more labour intensive. Currently we have a perfect blend of lightness vs strength with relatively easy manufacture as PVC foams are easy to vacuum onto a styro core.
If you want a 4kg board with 10x the strength you go for it. It will be a $10K board.

Short version:
You can make a $500 board and it will be sh!t
You can make a much better board and it will cost too much.
Analogy: There is a reason we have an established method of construction and it is the same reason your house is not made of paper, and neither is it made from gold, platinum or carbon nanotubes.

Mark _australia said...
Macro, FFS.

What is a soft drink bottle made from?
Last time I looked it was HDPE, not polycarbonate.


Secondly, you can look at carbon nanotubes all you like but I don't think a new product like that, used in a totally new way, moulding with LDPE or HDPE or bloody melted candles for that matter, is so NEW that will not achieve your $500 board.

For a 10mil investment you MAY make a superior board with a faster process and cheaper materials but then you need to sell a load of boards to pay off that investment. Windsurfing is small, so in reality if your carbon nanotube infused moulded polycarbonate thing works you'd be better off moulding aircraft parts or bikes.

And whilst I typed this I see you are back to getting non-windsurfing materials people to design it. It has been done, Nomex and aluminium honeycombs have been around for ages. It is superior, but it costs too much, the process of laminating it into a sandwich structure is different and more labour intensive. Currently we have a perfect blend of lightness vs strength with relatively easy manufacture as PVC foams are easy to vacuum onto a styro core.
If you want a 4kg board with 10x the strength you go for it. It will be a $10K board.

Short version:
You can make a $500 board and it will be sh!t
You can make a much better board and it will cost too much.
Analogy: There is a reason we have an established method of construction and it is the same reason your house is not made of paper, and neither is it made from gold, platinum or carbon nanotubes.

There is one very interesting technological problem yet to be solved. I agree this is not for SB to resolve as NASA I am afraid is not ready either.

You have Mark two parallel surfaces made of composite (say poly carbon infused with nano tubes) - is extremal strong for linear breaking breaking - at least 3 times stronger then structural steel, but very fragile for lateral forces.
That is why my new structure comprise from two surfaces at distance , then connected by perpendicular bridges made or carbon nano tube again to keep surfaces at same distance , then gas at very high pressure (ie hellium) try to force the surfaces apart). Such a structure should be now very resistant to lateral forces .
You could build everything from that - from air plane and rockets, buildings to windsurfing boards.
I am not saying that is too expensive to build our boards because such technology doesn't exist beside my concept yet. But what eventually come to commercial reality materials and manufacturing could be very cheap.