Hello, My fatherand I are avid kitesurfers and have recently gotten into making our own boards.Our first board was made out of mahogany and is 6mm thick at the thinnest part.This has so far proven to be structurally sound but a bit too heavy, so werelooking into reducing the thickness and reinforcing with carbon fiber or fiberglass.

My question is, is carbon fiber skinning a good choice for this? Can Iapply multiple layers for skinning and if so do you have any recommendation asto how many layers would be needed to maintain the strength if I were to reducethe wood thickness by half? Also it needs to be slightly flexible to absorbimpact and would the clearcoat stand up against salt water conditions or wouldI want to apply a layer of something else on top?

Thanks much

You're welcome Aka,

Our reservation with pre-pregs stems from a reluctance to introduce an oven.   Can we make our own "pre-pregs" for the carbon outer layers that do not need to go in an oven?

Not really. If you did make your own 'pre-pregs' then by their very nature you would still need to cure them in an oven. If you don't cure them in an oven then it's not pre-preg in the conventional meaning of the work (although it could be some other technique for pre-wetting out your reinforcement).

Is there a way we can use infusion technology to achieve top and bottom off-form surfaces in a single bagging process?

To use Resin Infusion to achieve a double-A sided finish you would need to use an internal flow media that would facilitate the resin through through the laminate in place of the infusion mesh. Lantor Soric SF is a simple version of an internal flow media/infusion core but there are others. Of course the internal flow media/core remains in the finished laminate and so you would need something that has the performance characteristics that you're looking for but there are different options out there and something might fit the bill just right. You could then use RTV Silicone Rubber to make a reusuable vacuum bag with a smooth finish moulded into the top.

If we wanted to cover much of the surface with broad bands of a single opaque colour, could this be done? What about digital or photographic images? Will the resin/epoxy bond sufficiently to the film/plastic?

The surfboard manufacturers tend to have graphics screen printed onto paper or even glass tissue and then infuse/laminate them in. The epoxy does a nice job of encapsulating the pigments. I would steer clear of embedding plastics as many would be difficult for the epoxy to bond to but on this more experimental side only testing will reveal the best combinations.

Matt Statham
Easy Composites / Carbon Mods - Technical Sales