A longboard consists of a deck, trucks and wheels. Depending on the shape and width, there are different types with more or less concave decks: Freeriding, boardwalking, cruising, carving und downhill.
During a training course on fibre composites, I made a prototype of a carbon fibre-reinforced plastic longboard myself. Most boards are made of wood or bamboo with outer layers of fibre-reinforced plastic composites like carbon fibre-reinforced plastic. Carbon fibre-reinforced plastic has 50 percent more fibre volume content (more fibres than resin) compared to metals or woods. Due to this sandwich construction, the mechanical properties of the longboard can also be adjusted to its use. That makes it particularly lightweight.
We decided to produce the board using the vacuum infusion process with a semipermeable membrane. A semipermeable membrane is a membrane which allows air to pass through, but not the resin. Everyone knows this principle from breathable outdoor clothing. This production process is particularly useful when producing a curved shape high in quality – with low quantity and low level of automation.
For bonding the material, a special epoxy resin was used. This is highly flowable and has a long pot life as well as good adhesive properties for bonding the fibres.
First, we cut the sandwich core, the fibres as well as all other support materials to the right shape. In order to do so, we needed extra sharp scissors, like our WEICON Cable Scissors No. 35, as the carbon fibres are very rigid.
Then we put the carbon workpieces (different fibre orientations and interweaving) in a specified order.