Base material - from standard HWMPE sheet?

[ixlix]

Hi all,

As i live in Australia the material for boards is hard to come buy without high shipping costs. I actually work for a large vacuum forming company and have access to normal sheet materials. Could i use a sheet of standard UHWPE for a base? Or is there something special done to the base material? I realise it would need sanding and flaming to be ready to bond.

Alex

[chrismp]

Welcome to the forum! Base material is usually not only sanded, but also plasma or corona treated by the manufacturers to get it to bond properly. I'd suggest you try to get some scraps from other Australian builders and run some adhesion tests with your own abraded/flamed material for comparison.

You can make a simple peel strength test rig by making similar sized test pieces (eg 10x10cm) with the different base materials bonded to a piece of wood with some fiberglass in between. Leave the base material overhanging on one side and clamp it with some metal bars over the whole width. Drill a hole through the metal bars and the base and hook a luggage scale in there. Clamp the test piece to something sturdy (eg a vise) and pull on the luggage scale while you're filming it to be able to check the highest value before it starts to rip off. The higher the value, the better the bonding.

Hope this makes sense haha