DIY|Flexible Carbon Fiber Deck|Enclosures|Build

Yes, it went with the plan. It’s 9mm thick 42 "long.

Yes, it’s heavy as I expected, twice heavier than a wood deck. I wanted to try “The vacuum press(thin plastic bag)vs The machine press(Trampa)” to see if there is any weight difference, I suspect that the machine press might be squeezing more resin out to make it lighter but an adequate resin needs to be fed in order to achieve the strength and so on.

During the infusion process, I noticed that way more resin had been fed than I thought it would be, and thought the electric vacuum pump wasn’t able to handle the thickness,but the outcome is rather satisfying.

CF 9mm 42"long deck stiff weight 2.5kg(5.5lbs) Tampa 35"long deck weight (2.2 to 2.5kg)

Curious to know how thick the trampa board is.

@onloop they are using some kind of fiber-reinforced cloth(possibly woven fiberglass cloth) but definitely not carbon otherwise it gets too expensive to make for the thickness.

Nicely done! What does the 9mm deck weigh?

it’s heavy for such a high dense material. see above.

Sorry I missed that! Beautifully done and thanks for the walk-through on how you did it!

Thanks,I saw your thread about laminating your wood deck with carbon, looks great!

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Time to update. I have been looking for an alternative materials to duplicate the flex that achieved with full/pure carbon materials but to reduce the cost and weight. I think I found the solution.

Thanks for the tip from@KMeyerson that going with Hybrid option using bamboo veneer.

So here it is.

Initially, I was little worried that wood could get wet with resin and becomes hard solid wood but once I got the piece, noticed that bamboo seems very high density wood so it shouldn’t be a problem with one layer of clear coat to prevent it.

I used 2 layers of bamboo veneers as core then used carbon cloth on the top and bottom. Currently,working on the 2 part enclosures, thanks for the inspiration @whitepony for the battery enclosure.

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show us your flex test!! :smiley:

looks awesome like all your stuff! did you use your plexiglas camber & concave profile again?

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Yes, I used an acrylic sheet :grinning: works as always and don’t have to polish :sleepy:

Flex test! https://youtu.be/0kiyqJypMe0

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That Is Awesome!!

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that flex looks really good, maybe just a wee bit to stiff, but probably perfect for my weight. you were fairly light i remember?

amazing how thin the board is :scream:

Yeah,I am about 150 lb. can’t wait to ride on it :grinning: The enclosures might be too long for the flex I hope NOT. I am planning to have 50 cells in it(10s5p) for the longer ride.

By the way, I picked up new tesseract. It’s beautiful. I guess it will be a longboard for my Son.

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Nice tesseract I have been eyeing that board for quiet a while its just way to out of my budget haha

Not cheap, but the materials they used is very interesting to me. The board material is a fiberglass with epoxy skins. These are sandwiched between two layers of bamboo cores which are vertically laminated,It has some flex but stiff.

The most interesting is the bottom of the board has been laminated with a nice cork layer. It is supposed to have shock damping capabilities. We will find out.

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Mastercho I’m finally getting close to doing an infusion with divinycell80 core and am wondering how many layers of triaxial Carbon to use for top and bottom. I forget the weight of what I have now but generally what would u recommend of what weight or do u have any other general advice?

I got 3m 77 spray to hold the fabric in place and will do it around the edges of the core with the carbon as apposed to how I always see people cutting the center of the mold out of overlayed fabric in generally in on plane

Or better yet how many layers of what weight is ur board made of?

I spent 2 months looking for a pot or pan big enough (40"x12") to thermoform the core and gave up and am doing multiple layers now of thinner stuff which will be able to bend in the mold.

Really like the bamboo core you did. Can u cut each veneer with the exacto?

@Hummie For the stiff deck.I would use

1 Layers of Carbon Fiber Cloth Fabric Twill 3k as cosmetic purpose. 2-3 Layers of Carbon Fiber Fabric Quadaxial 90/+45/-45/0 Degree 12k 815gsm for top and bottom Plus the core material.

If you go with 18oz/ 610gsm I would use 3-4 layers each side.

The challenge I have when I’m bagging is to make sure the bag is absolutely sealed. (I sometimes just can’t find the leak) Otherwise, you will have tiny pinholes which will weaken the board. I would do the leak test before the infusion.

I do trim the accessed fabric as well so that the bagging film is flush with the edge of the mold as a barricade to slow the resin flow from reaching the spiral vacuum tube.

4 lbs *1 layer Carbon/200gsm *4 layers Carbon18oz/ 610gsm *1 layer Fiberglass DBM 1808 Knytex Biaxial 610.31gsm sandwiched between two layers of bamboo veneer.

  • 2 layers 1/16 Bamboo veneers

Yes.The bamboo is very fragile to handle until it is laminated so I was careful. There was another step I didn’t mention (no picture)was that I sliced the bamboo veneer after the cut for the resin flow. Looks like this.

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Just laminating wood with epoxy makes the board last longer?

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Mad props sir. I was gonna make a CF deck, but i didn’t know if it was possible to make one without a foam core. I have a Hi5ber deck with a foam core that I don’t use. It’s really stiff, and i don’t like riding it. Your deck looks much nicer.

Thank you for the kind words. :slight_smile:

I tried using a foam /honeycomb core with CF, after 20 minutes of riding it,I missed my old wood deck for some reason. Since then I have been developing flexible CF deck. The bamboo veneers help get the flex you want without sacrificing so much expensive CF cloth and epoxy resin(weight) but not as strong as the pure/full carbon,though.

Have you figured out a nice enclosure solution? I’ve ordered a Trampa Street Carver and haven’t come up with an enclosure solution I love.

2 part enclosures will do.