Ski Builders Forum

Haven't built anything for five years or so.

My awesome 2.5 yr old wants to build skateboards and snowboards. He thinks it's super cool that dad rides a snowboard that he built himself.

Little dude rips on skate and snow.

I doubt we will make much progress until spring, but I will probably occasionally update this thread as we figure out what style of press we are going to build and what materials we are going to use.

Goal is to be as non toxic as possible. If anybody has any tips on this I would love to hear them.

Nice, mine is now 6 months so no complements yet!

No toxics, look at bcomp, they got cores, flax and carbon. Seems what you are looking for.

I assume you know about entropy resin?
Been around long time now.

Maybe you can get your hands on the recyclable resin made by entropy in cooperation with connoratech. It's called Re-Rez. There seem to be a few surf companies and even some prototype snowboards that use it. From the little info I have, it seems that it simply dissloves in some heated vinegar acid.

That would be something I'd love seeing used on here.

Thanks guys.

I really want to stay away from resins entirely. I'm thinking way outside of the box here, maybe too far?

Pre cured fiberglass/carbon sheets. Cut to shape, pre layup (water jet?)

Horizontally laminated multi species cores. Cut to shape, pre layup and then stacked for proper core profile. Possibly with honeycomb reinforcements.

Hardwood sidewalls.

Everything glued together with low/no voc liquid nails alternative.

I will look closer at entropy and bcomp

Here's the website for the recyclable resin systems: http://connoracomposites.com/

Welcome back. Check out Bcomp for cores and flax instead of fiberglass. Entropy for resin. Prepreg has resin in it that gets activated when heated. You’d need to know what’s in the prepreg, gases will be given off when heated. Entrpoy is your best bet so far.

I used polyurethane glue (gorilla glue) to build a ski, it works but it must be fully cured when taken out of the press or it will expand and F’up the ski. The bond is strong, skied on it for 2yrs.

Hey guys

I work quite a bit with entropy resins, and while I generally like their products a lot I would like to point out that it is still an epoxy and the source of the raw materials doesn't mean it's any better for your health.
But with proper handling epoxies are really pretty safe to use and glass fiber sanding dust is probably more problematic than a good epoxy with no VOCs.

If you want to stay away from epoxies then I would probably try to work with titanal and try to find a adhesive system that bonds well with that (this might be already a challenge).

Otherwise a ski like the ones from http://www.earlybirdskis.ch are awesome and I would build something like that with my son.

But I think it's awesome if you think outside the box and if you have different ideas then go for it and don't listen to the naysayers!

Some cool ideas coming out simply by someone wanting to try somethung different, that's cool.
I would email the info desk at Henkel, they have always really gone out of their way when i have had a question for them. They might have a VOC free option.
I have always thought that VOC free epoxy had a super short pot life. The only stuff i have ever seen was mixed as it went through the spray gun and could be walked on in a few hours at ambient cure temp.

Not sure on the horizontal core though, that sounds like a recipe for disaster, but can't hurt to try.

gav wa wrote:Some cool ideas coming out simply by someone wanting to try somethung different, that's cool.
I would email the info desk at Henkel, they have always really gone out of their way when i have had a question for them. They might have a VOC free option.
I have always thought that VOC free epoxy had a super short pot life. The only stuff i have ever seen was mixed as it went through the spray gun and could be walked on in a few hours at ambient cure temp.

Not sure on the horizontal core though, that sounds like a recipe for disaster, but can't hurt to try.

Please let me know when I'm wrong here, but I think high quality laminating epoxies all have a very low VOC content. you couldn't really degas them as all the volatile parts would go out of solution. Either in the exicator or when vacuum pressing a laminate, which would be a huge problem in a vacuum infusion.

Yeah pressed laminations have a higher volume of VOCs still trapped within the resin after curing than a ventilated cure. As far as I knew the chemists building the stuff have thought about it already and I've never been overly concerned with it, it works I'm happy.
Epoxy resin does have a very low level of VOC though as you mentioned.

Interestingly enough k2 has the patent for horizontally laminated cores and uses them in much of their boards. Their bambooyah core is horizontally laminated. It's also nearly indestructible and super light.

Good point about resins and voc. Will need to look into that more. I know the stuff is super toxic if it kicks in the pot

Also want to point out that I'm looking at pre cured not pre preg. Fully cured sheets.

doughboyshredder wrote:Also want to point out that I'm looking at pre cured not pre preg. Fully cured sheets.

This is why I wrote that sanding dust is probably more problematic and I personally would rather use a flax laminate with liquid epoxy rather than having to sand the precured glass.

Ahhh, got it. Are you saying you'd have to sand the sheets before layup, or are you thinking during finishing?