Just de-moulded this today and is the first part that I’ve been allowed to share by the client. Our FEA software supplier’s son is a keen skater so he asked if we could make a carbon board.
It’s prepreg cloth and uni directional fiber with a 5mm Nomex core. We ran a FEA optimisation on the laminate and board turned out much stiffer than a standard board and only 900g. The finish is straight out the mould.
you know, everyone is going to ask, like me. How’d you get the edges that well rounded out of the mold?
It was kinda by chance. When I made the tool I used a normal board as the plug, which was painted on the bottom (the pattens transferred to the tool then part, which are the swirls in the middle of the board) so I couldn’t just release it. I put it in a vacuum bag and sucked it down, making sure it pull it tight over the edge, which when I made the tool left the radius. It was a carbon tooling prepreg tool by the way.
I think this has to be the most over the top simple part I’ve done. FEA optimisation, carbon tooling, pre preg and nomex, it’s kinda funny.
that’s really nice!
I wish I had one of those some 20 years ago…
BTW, any chance you can tell us how many layers you’ve had to use?
spot on mate, nice one
What do you use for FEA optimization?
looks good! I hope you put alot of extra layers in the nose and tail since they will get worn down really quick doing ollies and expose your core. Good luck with it! Carbon skateboards havent gone over too well with skaters in the past for many reasons.
Have pictures of the top?
Maybe some kevlar layers for wear as well. Or Spectra? HELL, embed some Teflon or UHMWPE blocks. Ok, i’m going over board.
Cough…
the problem is skateboards takes a beating, though kevlar, spectra, ect… may help slow the wearing I suspect you will burn through very quickly. An average decent skateboarder goes through a wooden board in a week, sometimes only last a day. even if the carbon board last twice, or even 4 times longer The majority of skaters could not afford a $300+ skateboard. also imagine a board slide on a rail and the carbon board snaps in half, yikes. Most modern skateboard companies have a line of boards that put either fiberglass or carbon inbetween the layers of maple to gain the stiffness and strength. Overall skaters love their wooden boards.
OP, Im not downing on your product, I think you did a good job from what I see! And its good that you made a proper tool for prepreg!
Yea skateboards take a hell of a lot of abuse. Nonetheless your friend’s kid is gonna have a lot of jealous friends with a board like that!
Wow, I just woke up and there have been a few comments I see.
@Gades: [Cloth,0,+45,-45,Core,-45,+45,0,Cloth], the 0’s are along the board and are 600gsm Uni, the 45’s are 300gsm uni.
@Canyon: Altair Hyperworks, super easy to use on composites, it can even to non linear analysis. Plus the sales/support guy for NZ and Australia knows his product and is a good dude hence we made him this board.
@TET: Sorry, I didn’t grab one, and the boy has it now. It wasn’t as pretty as there was the hex pattern that you get with Nomex. I’m thinking of ether pre curing a layer of cloth and curing that on or using a intensifier next time. But the top does get covered with grip tape so I’m not to worried.
@Hojo: In this case the carbon tooling works out cheaper and quicker than anything else, it took me 30 minutes to lay the tooling prepreg and we just piggy backed an autoclave cook. All up it cost about $100US. I have fallen in love with carbon tooling.
@Everybody else:
I’m fully expecting it to be destroyed in a matter of weeks, but as I understand it he will use this as his “cruising” board and he has a wooden one for tricks.
We aren’t looking to mass produce these as the cost will be too high. But we will keep tweaking the design as replacements are needed, some ideas are: adding arimid layers, an abrasion resistant gel coat or an abrasion resistant surfacing film.
are you using ACG tooling prepreg? would love to see the tooling.
Yeah it’s ACG, 2 layers of “cloth/blanket”, syntactic core and 2 more layers, done. I’ll get some pics on Monday when I’m back at work.
Thanks a lot for replying.
BTW, when you say cloth, I imagine you mean plain CF or maybe twill 2x2. If so, what gsm?
About the concept of a carbon board, OK, wooden ones will be more suitable for tricks, but none is going to look as xxxy as this one 
what product do you use exactly?
Hyperworks 10, Hypermesh to get the mesh and OptiStruct for the optimization and I think RADIOSS for non optimization work. I don’t drive it myself but our FE jockey says good things.
Here are the pics of the tooling:
We are in the process of sanding off the pattern from the plug board which is why the mould isn’t glossy.