Quote from Alpine Underground on July 29, 2026, 12:16 pm

In an effort to keep old information easily accessible I am working to 'backup' the sites that have been archived. I have found that working with the archive site its hard to find all the old information as a lot of the pages of message boards or forums didn't get archived so it often leads you to dead end searching. Another downfall is that not all pictures are archived. Any pictures that were archived have been saved and transferred over as it should be. Pictures that are broken are left out. Here is the information that was archived from http://grafsnowboards.com that I was able to find today. Each webpage that was archived has been broken down into sections listed below:

 

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***Introduction***

 

There are many reasons people decide to build their own snowboard. Sometimes it's a great way to combine your love of snowboarding with your need to create. Maybe it's dissatisfaction with the generic boards out there on the market. Perhaps you have an educational project where you'd love to do something involving snowboarding.

This website is intended to demystify the processes involved in building snowboards, and to prove that not only is it possible - but you can actually build some amazing rides.. We hope to create a place where people can share experiences, learn some new stuff, and build a knowledge base.

We don't claim our approach is perfect and do not consider ourselves 'experts'. We're just reporting what we did and what we have learned.

We love your feedback, but if you have board-building questions , we recommend you post them on our message board - that way you get maximum exposure to people with a range of different approaches.

 

 

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***Design***

 

^   twintip

^   directional

^   freecarve

Shapes
Snowboards are shaped to match your riding style. Freestyle is easier on twintip boards, which ride the same forwards or backwards. For all-mountain freeriding, a directional board has a longer nose, shorter tail, and a set back stance allowing it to float more easily in deep snow. The sidecut may also be focused aft of the centre axis, or may feature a tighter radius towards the ends of the board. Alpine carvers need narrower boards for quicker edge-to-edge response, a deep sidecut to tighten the turn radius, and a long running length for stability at speed. Once you work out your shape, build a template - preferably from steel but whatever you use make it accurate. One way to do this is to use our snoCAD software to design the board, then get the dxf file plotted on paper or card or laser cut into steel. We laser cut our templates at a precision engineering shop in the UK, who charged about £80.00 including the stainless steel.

Our steel template - the default shape from snoCAD

The parameters of a snowboard shape are as follows :
• Running Length
the distance along the central axis between the front and rear contact points of the base with the snow
• Effective Edge
the distance along the central axis from the widest point of the nose to the widest point of the tail
• Sidecut Radius
the degree of waisting of the board expressed as the radius of the circle forming the arc of the sidecut. This is in practice often implemented as a blend of multiple sidecuts or as a quadratic function. Doing the former enables more predictable turn entry and exit behavior. The latter creates smooth transitions from turn entry to exit, with a benign entry and a more aggressive hold and exit phase. In both of these cases the radius at the nose is usually larger than that at the tail. The freecarve shape above has a quadratic sidecut, with the rearmost of the two central vertical construction lines depicting the point of radius change - which is also the narrowest part of the board
• Nose + Tail Length
the length of the material forming the nose / tail of the board - beyond the running length
• Nose + Tail Width
the distance measured across the widest part of the nose or tail
• Stance Width
the distance from the center of the front insert pack to the center of the rear insert pack
• Stance Offset
the distance to which the stance is set aft of center
• Flex
longitudinal flex

The flex pattern of the board is a description of where the board becomes stiffer or more flexible along its length. This determines how the board will ride, and is one of the trickiest and most important things to get right. Generally, heavier riders need a stiffer flex and shorter lighter riders should ride softer boards. During a turn, the board is on edge, and the sidecut causes the board to bend against its camber. Heavier riders will cause the board to bend more, and if the board is too soft it will fold or judder. Likewise a light rider on a stiff board won't have the force to bend the board, and will not make tight turns or get any real control.

But there's more to it. Freestylers who ride pipe need a board soft enough to flex into the transitions and to land off-balance and absorb the mistakes. But you also need to retain some stiffness or 'snap' in the tail to increase the strength for landing airs, and to add more spring for launching ollies.

Longitudinal flex is governed by the thickness of the board. Snowboards tend to be uniformly thick between the feet and taper down outside the inserts towards the nose and tail. All boards are composite sandwich structures, and the stiffness of this type of structure depends on core thickness. The other way to control flex is to use 3D relief in the top of the board. Some companies call this a gimmick but if done structurally, it alters the flex by reducing the proportion of thick to thin material at a given location. So building the tail thicker than the nose will give more stiffness in the tail. Material choice also affects flex but read about that under materials.

In the example above, a flex pattern is depicted (exaggerated for this demonstration) alongside a twintip snowboard. On the right the parameters (shown in mm) are those used to produce the flex. Normally the values for thickness will be something like 3mm - 6mm - 3mm. The inboard, and outboard ordinates refer to positions along the longitude of the board where the next target thickness begins. So in this example the nose is 8mm thick from the tip of the core to the front contact point, then rises to 15mm thick 275mm back from the front widest point. Clearly these dimensions are too big for a real snowboard, don't go building any 15mm cores now - you hear ?!

Camber
Camber refers to the curved nature of the 'contact area' of the board - the bit that runs on the snow between the upcurved tip and tail sections. The camber is there to increase the speed of return of the board from the concave flex of a turn to the more or less flat flex of regular cruising. When the board is on edge and turning, the sidecut forces the riders weight to push the board against its naturally cambered shape into one of 'negative' camber. The more camber you have to overcome, the more force you need to apply to get the board to carve. Then on exiting the turn, the board has a natural desire to pop back into its cambered shape assisting you and increasing the edge to edge response of the board. It's a complex issue and getting the balance of sidecut, flex and camber has a lot to do with getting the ride right. Our mould is built with a 10mm camber, taking into account the fact that after demoulding the board will 'relax' and lose some of the original camber. We aim for an average mid-life camber of 5-6mm.Then while riding, the camber will gradually break down under structural fatigue - when the camber has gone many riders feel their board has lost its 'pop' or liveliness.

Torsional flex
Torsion is engineering for 'twist'. A snowboard, when turning is subjected to twisting forces, as the contact points are put under load. Ideally you want the edges to cut into the snow and maintain an even pressure, but the wide part of the board gets more leverage. So forces are increased towards the tips. This makes them more likely to twist against the edge pressure and reduce the amount of grip you can apply in a turn. The cure is to make the board torsionally stiffer between the inserts and the tips, and softer between the feet. If it were too stiff between the feet, it would make the board harder to carve into turns because moving the weight rearwards as you exit the turn would have a lesser effect on the board. Controlling torsional flex is achieved by material choice. Building the core with lots of fine vertically laminated strips is torsionally stiffer than horizontal laminating or using wide strips. Fiber orientation in the composite reinforcement is also a factor. Most manufacturers use 45' fibers to deal with torsional loads. Some use 22'. This second angle approximates that caused by a straight line from the nose contact point to the center of the front insert pack intersecting the longitudinal axis of the board. It therefore deals with the forces along the load path, increasing the efficiency of the construction.

 

22' fibers deal with forces along the path of largest torsional load

Structure
Snowboards consist of a number of individual components bonded together to form a light strong composite structure. All snowboards are sandwich structures. The basic order of components (base upwards) is as follows : Base + edges, reinforcement, core w. inserts + tipspacers, reinforcement, topsheet.

The core is the filling of the sandwich, and needs to be fully enclosed by the other components, to protect it from water contamination and abuse. A sidewall design uses plastic strips bonded to the side of the core to protect it from the elements. This requires more material and is heavier, but can be easier for homebuilders to deal with. Cap construction has a tapered edge to the core, and the top reinforcement and topsheet wrap around the taper and meet the base. a bit like a toastie. It's lighter, neater looking, and just as strong.

Cap construction is trickier for the homebuilder. We achieved it by pre-curing a topsheet over a mould to form the cap, and this was placed over the snowboard as the last layup stage. Usually you would have an upper mould called an 'upper cassette' which is CNC milled to conform to the cap shape. When pressed this upper cassette will mould the board into shape ensuring a good pinch over the edge, eliminating air voids. Tolerances need to be pretty high to make sure that alignment is perfect and pressure distribution is even. An alternative would be to use a deformable 'soft tooling' upper tool made from Silicone elastomer or an inflatable 'bladder press'.

sandwich construction

cap construction

 

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***Materials***

Base
Snowboard and ski bases are produced from UHMWPE - ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene, a dense hard wearing thermoplastic with low friction, and capable of absorbing wax, and treated for bonding with epoxy resin. P-TEX and Durasurf are brand names. Bases are made in two main ways. Extruded bases are made from polyethylene pellets melted down then forced under pressure through a thin slot and rollers which gauge the thickness of the emerging sheet. Extruded bases are cheaper, can be harder wearing  but hold less wax, and are slower. The plastic when not dyed is notably clearer than sintered material. Sintering involves crushing polyethylene pellets together under high pressure. This causes them to melt together and fuse, although tiny porosities are left between the clumps. Then the whole mass is turned, and a blade shaves off a uniformly thick slice as the cylinder rotates. The porosities hold wax, and break down surface tension of water under the base. The result is a faster board. Both types of material come in clear and colored variations. Remember, through clear P-Tex you can still see the teeth of your edges, and any bubbles in the resin. This can look a bit messy, and colored P-Tex prevents this. Graphite bases contain graphite powder added with the pellets. Graphite does several things - it hardens the plastic, decreases the friction coefficient and conducts static electricity - all preventing the board sticking to the snow.

Base material can be bought off the roll, and is one of the most expensive components of the board. You'll notice one side is shiny smooth and the other is abraded along the length of the sheet. Don't do what we did first time, and think 'brilliant - ready structured base! '. The scoring is to make the stuff bond into the board and should go into the mould facing up. The shiny base-side is easy to scrape seeped epoxy off afterwards and goes face down into the mould.

Cut the material with a sharp stanley knife, and clamp your template rock steady.

Edges
The edges are there to cut into the snow and give you grip in the turns, plus they also protect the board from damage on ice and rocks. Made from steel, the edge consists of a 1.5mm square spine with T-shaped prongs or squares protruding off it at close intervals. These prongs bond into the epoxy and retain the edge in place on the board. Various profiles are available in different sizes, be sure to get the right size for the base material you will be using. Edges are usually shot-blasted to prepare for bonding, For durability the steel is tempered (hardened). This makes them springy, stiff and difficult to bend. Where bending is needed, at the tips you should anneal the steel. Using a blowtorch or gas stove, heat the area to be bent up to bright red and then allow it to cool slowly back to room temperature. The steel will then be malleable and easier to shape. Once the shape has been reached, you could temper the steel by heating up to bright orange then quenching in cold water. This however can distort your carefully shaped edge, go over-hard and get brittle, and in any case the tips will be detuned and don't need to be sharp. So leave them soft.

Fitting edges to the board is tricky. A full perimeter edge wrap can be desirable, manufacturers are always arguing over the advantages or disadvantages of this approach. Ignore them, a full wrap or partial wrap is perfectly acceptable depending on your skills and needs. Full wrap edges need more bending and are harder to fit, but give more protection to the board whilst adding a slight weight penalty. A partial wrap is easier, extend the edges into the tip just beyond the contact points. For neatness, a nick should be cut into the base to tuck the edge in and prevent a little resin (weak) triangle blending the end of the edge into the base. The snoCAD software automatically calculates this recess (you can see it on the board outline on the navigation frame on the left). You may want to grind the flange off the end of your edge, then bend the flangeless edge inside into the layup to strengthen it against edge blow. This is done by Mervin (Gnu / Lib) and Santa Cruz among others. The quality of a home-built board can often be judged by the way edges are incorporated, take time and be precise to get good results.

Marcelo Rossi has designed and built a tool to bend steel edges. As you can see, the lever pulls the edge around a circular center – forcing it into a curve.

Core
• Wood Cores
The core of the board is the component which most contributes to its performance. The weight, thickness and durability of the core determine the riding characteristics of the board. Most cores are built from vertically laminated strips of wood. Laminated strips make the board stronger - a single plank of wood contains knots and irregularities which will affect the strength and flexural performance of your board. by using many strips these artifacts are reduced and the properties of the core are homogenised. Usually a mixture of hardwood and softwood strips are combined to provide a balance of high strength to light weight. Choice of wood types varies, the most popular being spruce, fir, ash, poplar and maple. The width of the strips also has an effect on torsion - lots of thin strips are more resistant to twisting forces, but there is a higher proportion of glue to wood which makes it heavier. Suitable glues for laminating include epoxy resin, and pva (evo-stick type stuff). These two glues work fine for cores which don't go all the way into the tips. Those that do will need to be pre-bent by steaming, and require a stronger more water / heat resistant adhesive. Penacolite Adhesive G-1131 - a resorcinol-formaldehyde adhesive is an aeronautical grade product which should do the trick. This is a good structural adhesive with excellent fatigue resistance, and therefore recommended for all core types. Arranging the strips or 'stringers' as they are also called is another design choice you must make. It depends really on the overall strength of the structure you're building. If you want to construct a lightweight board you need to maximize strength in the areas where it is needed, but save weight elsewhere. This could be achieved by only using the denser hardwood stringers where the insert rows are placed. The lighter, less dense material makes up the rest of the core. Strength will be regained by using composites chosen for a better strength to weight ratio (ie carbon fiber) with the additional expense of these materials being the price paid for weight reduction.  In some applications, notably in the lightest Burton cores, balsa wood is used as a lightweight filler material. If you've handled Balsa you'll know you can easily break it in your hands. But used correctly - with the grain running vertically or 'End Grained', it forms a natural honeycomb and has an excellent strength to weight ratio.

Horizontally laminated cores are also a possibility. Hot / Hammer Snowboards of France use this method of core construction. In its simplest terms this is a sheet of plywood - we've built boards with ply cores, they worked and were cheap and quickly manufactured, but not so light or torsionally stiff. Also it is difficult to profile for flex patterns.

To construct a vertically laminated wood core requires a bit of ingenuity and some reasonably good woodworking skills. It all depends on the tooling you have at your disposal. Or, snowboardmaterials.com can supply ready-made cores for you.

• Polymer cores
A core made of moulded plastic is less likely to suffer from irregularities in structure than that of wood. Polyurethane foam is the usual choice of material, and is available in sheet form to be cut and shaped. Foam cores are light, strong enough for most requirements, and do not require as much work to manufacture. They do not retain their moulded shape as long as wood cores, meaning that a foam core board will not be as responsive for as long as a wooden one. For lighter riders, this isn't a major problem.

• Honeycomb
Many manufacturers are building honeycomb panels into the core to reduce weight. In addition to this effect honeycomb also acts as an effective absorber of vibration. The honeycombs used are either aramid (Palmer) or aluminum (Sims). Aramid (branded 'nomex') is a man-made fiber made into paper-like strips, bonded to other strips at intervals. The bonded strips are dipped in phenolic resin which is cured, Then the whole block is pulled apart to open up the gaps between the bonds. These gaps are the cells in the honeycomb. Nomex honeycomb is resistant to fire and water ingestion, and is easier to handle than aluminum. It is also rather more expensive. Aluminum honeycomb is made from bonded strips of thin aluminum sheet (usually 5052 or 5054) and is drawn out just as the nomex version. It's cheaper, as strong, but unless treated with a corrosion inhibitor is more susceptible to water ingestion. Both types of honeycomb are sourced by sheet thickness, cell size, cell orientation, and density. Suitable cell size for snowboards is around 1/8 inch, with a density of ca. 4lb/cuft. Cell orientation means the direction of the strips - honeycomb is more flexible when bent perpendicular to the strips than when bent along them. Some honeycomb features long cells which flex more easily (called flexicore or ox-core). Bonding honeycomb into your board is tricky with wet-lamination because excess resin pours in to fill the cells. Pre-curing a glass-scrim (ca. 50gsm) skin onto the upper side of honeycomb before layup will get you around this problem, however it will negate the weight saving gained by using honeycomb in the first place. Or use prepreg (see 'composites' below) which is compatible - this is realistically the only way to benefit from this material. You cannot use honeycomb alone. It is near impossible for home builders to profile into a flex pattern, will not hold inserts properly and needs to be 'closed-out' at the edges of the board to prevent crushing on the corners. For this reason it is advisable to combine honeycomb panels into a wood or foam core.

Sidewalls
If you are producing a cap constructed design, the rails (outside edges) of the top side of the core need to be routed off into a smooth curve or chamfer to allow the top layer of reinforcement and topsheet to meet the bottom layer just above the edge. The angle of chamfer is quite important, too steep and the reinforcement won't conform properly and you'll end up will air gaps over the edge. too shallow and the edge won't be properly supported and end up too weak when you hit rocks. 45 degrees seems to work about right.
Sidewall designs need to have plastic strips bonded to the outside of the core. The material choice is usually ABS (acrylonitrile butadene styrene) or UHMWPE (P-Tex) both resilient and hard wearing. ABS is harder to work with and less given to bonding than UHMWPE but is easier to get hold of in suitable thicknesses. Cut the core into shape, then bond strips of plastic along its rails before profiling the whole lot on a belt sander or thickness planer into the flex pattern, or if using method 'B' above, plane the ABS by hand using the jig just as for the wood stringers.

Inserts
The inserts are fastened into the core before layup, and are usually M6 threaded T-nuts in mild or stainless steel. Regular DIY T-nuts  are open bottomed, and binding screws which are too long will come through or delaminate the base, so care must be taken. You can buy closed off inserts too which are more expensive but are the correct solution. If you don't trust yourself with binding screws, these may be a better bet. Closed off or 'blind' inserts offer more protection against water ingestion, and sometimes come with a p-tex base which must first be removed (this is for repairs). Mild steel components will show signs of rusting after storage. All steel components to be bonded into the board must be thoroughly abraded and degreased with acetone to get an optimal bond with the epoxy. Inserts are usually arranged in two packs of eight holes spaced in 4cm squares ('4 x 4'). Always mark and drill accurately (and vertically) because a finished board with misaligned inserts is a worthless plank. Very important to countersink a recess on the bottom of the core to allow the base of the insert to seat flush and smooth. If it sticks out you get lumps in the base or bubbles around the insert - a sign of weakness and disbond. Even more crucial is blocking up the insert holes during manufacture. If epoxy resin flows into your inserts they are ruined. Use short M6 grub screws carefully coated in Vaseline (don't get it on the outside of the inserts) to block the gap. Those with allen-key heads are easiest to extract afterwards. Or if you're not curing the epoxy by heating, inject melted wax into the insert right up to the brim. This is easily achieved by heating up the inserts with a blowtorch or hot-air gun, and pushing thin slivers of wax into the holes right to the brim. The inserts supplied at snowboardmaterials.com are pre-blocked with a resin cap.

Tip Spacers
A tip spacer is a plastic or composite insert used when the core ends before the tip of the board, to fill in the space and close out the walls of the board. It also closes out honeycomb panels used in the tips to safeguard against crushing. Materials to consider are ABS, polyethylene, nylon or glass fiber. All tip spacers add weight when compared to a full length wood core, but can offer protection against direct impact with rocks and skiers.. The spacer can be left oversize to hang off the side of the board during layup, and can be trimmed afterwards. Glass fiber tip spacers mean adding extra layers of glass in the tips during layup, and is a heavier but very durable construction. Plastic tip spacers need to be pre-bent into the curve of the tip by heating under a grill or oven and pressing into your mould, otherwise you'll never seat them properly during manufacture.

Composites
Composites are the primary structure of the snowboard and serve also to bond the other components together. A composite material is a combination of two or more separate component parts which do not actually mix, but cure together to form a single material whose mechanical performance is a sum of the component parts. In snowboarding terms this means a fiber reinforced plastic. The plastic is formed by taking a resin and a hardener or catalyst and combining them to kick off an exothermic reaction. The resin polymerises (forms into long molecular chains) and sets hard into a dense plastic material. Two types of resin are widely available. Polyester resin is the cheapest kind,  and smells horrible. When cured it is quite brittle under dynamic loading and is not recommended for high performance sports equipment. Epoxy is tougher, does not smell bad (light whiff of stale urine) and tends to cure more predictably - it is less likely to go off too quickly and exotherm spoiling the batch. The resin is combined with hardener, and stirred up to begin reacting. Pigments can be added to color the finished board, or metal flake particles or other additives can go in. Mixing too vigorously causes bubbles to form in the resin, which weaken the finished structure, so go easy.

Reinforcement
Reinforcement is the other constituent part. These take the form of fibres, either woven together, randomly scattered or arranged unidirectonally (UD). The fibers provide strength in the finished component, and are only strong along their length. A panel made of fibers arranged only at 0' will be strong parallel to the fiber orientation, but will snap quite easily along the 90' load path. For this reason, use fibers oriented in at least two different axes. snowboards often use triax - three axes, 0' +45' and -45'. In addition fibers at 90' increase strength across the board. Biax uses fibers at 0' and 90' and offer less torsional rigidity.

Glass fiber is the usual reinforcement for snowboards, and comes in woven fabrics of different fiber orientation and density. The weight of the cloth is a measure of the amount of fiber going into the board, and is expressed in grams per square meter (gsm). Structural layers will typically use 300 - 600 gsm fabrics and lighter layers for topsheets or for facing honeycomb panels. We tend to use approx 630gsm glass either side of the core, be it as 2 layers of 600gsm glass, or laminated smaller layers to a similar weight. In addition our carbon or glass topsheets use 1 layer of 280gsm material.

Carbon fiber is a higher performance reinforcement, and is three to five times more expensive than glass. It is significantly stiffer and springier, much stronger tensile strength but is not particularly tough. When it breaks it does so with a sudden violent snap, whereas glass will slowly give before it lets go completely. A given weight of carbon will be stronger in the board than that of glass, so weight can be saved by using less material for a given strength. But glass should be retained too for resilience. Typical carbon weight would be a 2x2 twill weave at 200gsm. This is the diagonal stripy carbon that looks very high tech. 4x4 twill is where the warp 'picks' or bundles of fibers go under 4 then over 4 weft picks, and vice-versa - the 'stripes' look fatter - 2x2 has a 2 pick offset of 2. Plain weave is the chequered carbon you often find on custom auto parts and has a pick offset of 1 - each warp pick goes over then under 1 weft pick at a time, and vice versa. The differences in weave style alter the drape characteristics of the fabric and this will not make much difference on a snowboard which is a relatively flat application. We can choose what to use based on aesthetic considerations.

Kevlar is an aramid fiber and while not as strong as carbon in tensile terms, is much tougher and very light. Kevlar tends to be cheaper than carbon, is yellow - gold in appearance and makes a board very robust indeed. This material is used in areas of structures which take a real pounding, such as the floorpans of rally cars, and bulletproof vests. It is almost impossible to cut without fraying all over the place, and you need ceramic scissors to get anywhere on thicker fabrics. For this reason using Kevlar at the edge of a snowboard can mean frayed ends sticking out of the sidewall. tuck Kevlar fabrics under the core (cap only) and close out with glass on top. typical fiber weight 200 - 300 gsm.

Hybrid fabrics are woven from a mixture of any of the above materials. These offer a combination of the properties of all three and may feature different fiber orientations for each material.

The resin is painted onto the fabrics until they are fully wetted out, then the next layer is applied and so on. Resin to reinforcement ratio is roughly 40% reinforcement to 60% resin. This technique is called 'wet-lam' because the resin goes on wet.

Prepreg
Prepreg or 'dry-lam' involves the use of fabrics which are already wetted out with epoxy at a factory - due to a more controlled process resin / fiber ratios can be brought closer to 50/50. These are sourced by fibre type, orientation and weight, resin type, and resin ratio. To stop them from going off, they are stored at -18'C in the freezer and need to thaw out before layup. At room temperature the resin is stiff and waxy, and needs to be heated with hot air to make it conform properly to the shape of the mould or core. Each piece is pre-cut to shape, then layed onto the board and the backing paper is removed. This technique saves on mixing and mess but adds problems of its own. Because the resin is designed not to cure at room temperature it must be heated to (depending on the kind of resin) 90' - 150'C and kept there for anything from 15 to 60 minutes. Often the heat cycle requires a controlled ramp-up of say 5'C per minute and a controlled cool-down of 3'C per minute. So you'll need a heated press or an oven capable of taking a snowboard sized load. If you have these resources (and we built an oven to try it out) prepreg can be a good clean approach. A good means of heating a press is to use silicone heating blankets, one below the stainless steel liner of the bottom tool or under the lower cassette, and another between the cat-track on the press and the upper stainless steel cassette top.

Topsheet
The topsheet serves two functions - to protect the structural composite part of the board from abrasion and UV light (eventually breaks down epoxy) - and to retain the board graphics. Material choice varies from polyethylene, nylon, polyester - and blends of these, or composite. Materials should be thin (300 - 400 microns or <200gsm composites), capable of bonding to epoxy and not too heavy. We have always used composite topsheets which can be co-cured during layup. A light layer of biax glass or nylon fabric can be laminated on top for a structural topsheet. To protect against UV a polyurethane varnish can be applied afterwards, or graphite powder can be added to the final layers of epoxy (your board will come out black!). Some topsheet materials are suitable for sublimation, and these usually come in white. Others are suitable for screen-printing and these usually come in colorless transparent.

A technique we successfully employed involves pre-curing cap topsheets before the board is built. We make an MDF model ('pattern' or 'male-mould'l of the snowboard, perfect in every detail, and use it to vacuum-form an acrylic female copy. This copy serves as the mould for the topsheet, which we lay up using a single layer of carbonfibre. The mould is first waxed for release, then the graphic is bonded on under a layer of clear epoxy. Doing this first stops it from moving about during layup of the carbon. Once it's cured, we paint the whole mould with resin, then lay in and wet out a 280gsm carbon fiber sheet and leave to set. Before building the board, this is removed, trimmed (but left over-sized) and abraded on the back for bonding. We tape a polythene sheet to the top to protect it from scratching and to prevent resin getting on top. Using this technique enables us to make shiny topsheets, with lots of 3D detail, good clear graphics, and cap sidewalls. It also lets us vac-bag the board without getting wrinkles in the topsheet. During the use of the board it became apparent that in using this technique, some air voids had remained under the topsheet. This is due to some mismatching in the shape of our model and the actual core shape.

 

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***Graphics***

Snowboard graphics are going to be the way you will most obviously personalize your board.

graphics examples - from left to right : sublimation, encapsulation, back-screen print

Sublimation
Manufacturers use a process called sublimating to fuse ink into the plastics used for the base and topsheet, which stops the graphic being scratched off or spoiling the bond between layers. Sublimating involves printing the snowboard graphic in reverse onto a paper transfer, using a large format printer and special sublimation inks. When exposed to heat, these inks sublimate - turn instantly to gas - and leave the paper. When this is done with a suitable plastic in close proximity, the ink enters the microscopic pores of the plastic and resolidifies. Therefore the ink particles are actually 'in' the plastic. In order to get this right you need to ensure your chosen topsheet material is sublimate-able. You cannot sublimate on to dark colored backgrounds. If you sublimate onto white plastic, everything will work quite normally. If you sublimate onto clear plastic you must ensure that you have a light colored substrate beneath - or back screen print white ink onto the back of the topsheet in the areas where the graphic shows through.

 

sublimation : the transfer (left) is used face down to sublimate onto the topsheet before manufacture begins

Screen Printing

 

 

CMYK separation with resulting composite image [L], and original graphic [R]

Screen printing is a technique where a screen of fine mesh is coated with a photo-reactive emulsion. Using UV light shone through a mask, this emulsion is cured. The uncured areas (in shadow) are rinsed away. The screen is laid over the component, and ink is forced through the holes in the screen with a squeegee, dying the underlying plastic. The process is widespread, but requires some preparation. To recreate color graphics , you will need  to separate the original artwork into the cyan, magenta, yellow and black constituent components (CYMK). This is known as 'additive' color mixing - we are adding our CMY and K values to white, and the mixing effect fools the eye into seeing the original colors. Most good DTP software packages can perform color separation - I used JASC Paint Shop Pro 6 for the example above. These separations are used to create an individual screen for each of the 4 colors. Notice in the example above that the separations and resulting images are made up of dots. This is called 'half toning' or 'dithering' and is used to create tonal values in the final graphic. The separation is 'binary' - either colored or white, there are no levels or shades of color available. It's either a hole in the screen emulsion or not.

A higher density of dots results in a higher density of ink and therefore a more dominant presence of color. The alignment ('registration') of the separations - and hence the dots - is the key to fooling the eye into believing it is seeing more colors than are really present. The example shows a central colored image produced by overlapping the 4 surrounding separations. Although you think there are many shades of blue and purple, there are no more than 5 colors in the image above - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black and White.

Screen printing in snowboard manufacture is done 2 ways - surface screening and 'back-screening'. Back-screening means you screen-print onto the back of a transparent topsheet or base in reverse, so the resulting image is visible in the correct orientation when seen from the outside. This has the advantage of being scratch resistant, since the component above it protects it from abrasion. The disadvantage is the bond-interface between the component and the underlying substrate (eg glassfibre) - you must use a compatible ink which has minimal impact on the bond strength of the epoxy. Sericol are well known for producing suitable inks. The other method is to screen print directly onto the topsheet, then lacquer above the printed design to protect it. Burton use this technique successfully, but label their lacquering process as 'top secret' !

Encapsulation

encapsulated graphics - part of the lamination

For the average homebuilder, it might be overly difficult or expensive to employ the above techniques. There is an easier solution.

Laser / inkjet printing onto paper is one possibility, with the graphic being laminated into the board during layup. Design the graphic on a computer, print and crop to size. For base graphics, bond them to the p-tex first with a thin layer of clear epoxy and let it cure. Otherwise the graphic will move as the board is pressed. Don't brush too much over the graphic since epoxy will loosen the ink and smudge the image. Use strongly contrasting colours and keep it as bright as possible. Most epoxies are not perfectly clear and dull colours to some extent. For topsheet graphics, bond them to the back of the topsheet with a thin layer of clear epoxy. A trick for those who don't want a plastic topsheet but want to just use the top glass layer - print the graphic on paper and bond to the back of a clear sheet of shiny PVC (600 micron). When the layup is complete paint the whole back of the PVC sheet with resin and lay it carefully on the board, squeezing out any trapped air as you go. Press the board as normal. When you demould, the PVC will peel away and leave the graphic bonded into the top epoxy layer, completely flush and very trick. This is how we have done all our graphics so far.

looks good - that graphic was printed on an inkjet and encapsulated

Printing on cotton or linen is another approach with the advantage of strength - the epoxy soaks into the fibres and the graphic is made part of the structure. This is a superior method of adding graphics when you want to do a full board graphic. Now it's tricky to use a computer and get successful prints onto fabric. You can buy those T-Shirt printing kits (some people confuse this with sublimation), but they transfer the ink in a layer of plastic film adhesive, which can spoil the bond and cause bubbling. You're better off going for an arty 'libtech' style design, and hand painting the cloth using fabric paints. The cloth should be a clean white natural fibre, you should make it rectangular so it overhangs the edges of the board just like you will with the glassfibre. You have to paint off the edge of the board too, to prevent nasty looking gaps if you get it misaligned by accident. The fabric paints should be waterproof and lightfast. To assist bonding, wash the fabric after painting - don't use detergent and certainly no fabric softener. This washing process will help increase the absorbency of the fabric and improve the bonding performance. Iron it before you laminate it into the board using clear epoxy, either above a clear P-Tex base or below a clear topsheet - or actually AS the topsheet - you could just make this the top layer and press onto it, using a bond-resistant release film above for demoulding.

Always make sure any picture is perfect and not contaminated with any fluff or crap which will look poor when encapsulated into the board. Also if curing the epoxy under heat check the ink isn't discolored.

If you're using black base material and want base graphics, you'll need to die-cut a window in the base and create a matching plug in clear p-tex with the graphic bonded or printed on the back of it. Many ski-shops who do repairs will have dies available in different shapes. Ask nicely.... many of the current boards on the market use this technique - but they have the advantages of ultrasonic cutting machines.

 

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***Press***

‘Pressing’ is the part of the process where the snowboard is moulded into its final shape while the epoxy resin sets – so the board will then retain the moulded form. There are a few ways to do this, the most common industrially being platen-pressing, and for the homebuilder – vacuum moulding.

Mould
The mould is the crucial component in the press / vacuum setup and is essentially designed to create the shape of the snowboard when viewed in profile from the side – curved up tip and tail and a cambered running length. Vacuum moulds can be built slightly lighter than press moulds but in all cases, the mould should be as solid, flat and rigid as possible.

Build the mould using a stiff heavy MDF base ideally backed with a rigid steel or wooden frame. For the profile itself, cut shaped pieces from MDF and align them side by side. We built our mould by cutting curved camber sections in MDF, and curved tip sections. Underneath the running length of the board, the mould is solid – there are no gaps between the MDF camber sections. At the tips, we interleaved the tip curved sections with the camber sections. This enabled us to sink the tip ribs beneath the camber ribs – to get a smooth curve up into the tips – and to do so without having to cut the MDF down to zero thickness at the ends of the curves. A router and template setup guarantees you precise cutting and a good result. This mould can be used for both vacuum and press forming.

Platen Pressing
A press consists of two matched shapes, one under the board and one on top which can be brought together under pressure by hydraulics, pneumatics, weights, levers or screwthreads.

The press must be constructed using a rigid frame to exert the pressure onto the mould and snowboard below. For a heavy duty press powered by pressurized air, the frame consists of steel beams above and below with a ‘cavity’ in the middle into which the mould is inserted. Suspended above the mould is a ‘cat track’ which is a series of square section aluminum tubes strung together on cables. This provides a surface which is flexible along its length and stiff across its width. It is important that the cat-track flexes along its length because it can adapt to the shape of the mould – and more importantly to changes in thickness along the length of the snowboard. You could of course make two matched moulds – an upper and lower half – but then you’d be stuck with the same flex pattern.

Between the cat-track and the upper frame is a length of wide diameter fire hose, which is sealed at either end with heavy steel bar bolted through, and with a valve connector at one end. By inflating the fire hose using compressed air, the cat track is forced down onto the mould where it exerts pressure on the snowboard and forces it into shape – and squeezes out any excess air and resin from the whole thing. The higher the pressure, the more epoxy comes out of the board and the tighter / lighter the layup. Too much pressure can lead to ‘print through’ where the glass fibers make an imprint in the topsheet. We press at 8 Bar in the fire hose which gives us a nice tight layup – there’s only as much resin as we need. When applying the pressure we apply it slowly – creep up to 2 Bar and dwell for a while allowing resin and air to flow out. Then creep up to 4 Bar and do the same until we finally settle at 8 Bar. If we cranked it right up to 8 Bar in one go, there might be some sealing in places which would prevent the resin flowing out effectively and could cause us some problems.

Aims :

Even pressure is important, and for increasing the speed of reaction you may want the press to heat up. This is only worth doing if you intend to bang out lots of boards during the day, otherwise the extra investment in heating is not worth it. The mould should be non porous, ideally lined with a steel or aluminum sheet. In all cases, moulds should be about twice as wide as the board being built, be very rigid and not deform under the pressure applied. Do not use any compressible materials under the board since the base will come out lumpy. Good materials include MDF, plywood, stainless steel. The board you produce will only be as good as the mould, so work hard to get it right.

Vacuum Bagging
For vacuum bagging, the board is built on the mould, and a plastic sheet is fixed over it and sealed with tape. Using a vacuum pump (eg an old fridge pump) air is drawn out of the vacuum bag to compress and consolidate the layers of the board. For cold cures of wet resin, you can use ordinary polythene sheet as a vac-bag but if curing under heat you need Kapran, which is a heatproof cast nylon film. Sealing is done with gaffer tape for cold cures, and with Tacky-Tape (it's like blu-tak) on hot cures. You can't rely on the bag to mould itself around your core and leave a good topsheet finish. There will always be wrinkles and ridges of resin with nowhere to go. The solution is to pre-cure a topsheet or use a proper ISOCAP style topsheet material, with the desired surface finish, and lay it on the board last of all. Above this is a layer of breather, a fabric intended to soak up excess resin, and allow air to flow across the board without damming up where the bag seals itself against the topsheet. Breather gives an even vacuum pressure throughout the bag. To suck air out, and get a sufficiently powerful vacuum effect, the bag needs to be fully sealed, and the mould itself needs to be absolutely airtight. Using a fully non-porous liner will see to this. Through-bag connectors are attachments which let you fix a pipe to the bag to draw out the air. These are made from aluminum, and the bottom half is placed on the breather before sealing the bag. Then, the bag is sealed and a small cross is cut just above the lower part of the connector. The upper part pushes through the slit cross, and screws down - a silicone gasket is squashed against the bag and seals the whole thing. A one way valve in the connector and a quick-release pipe attachment lets you switch off the pump without losing too much vacuum. For the full picture get 2 connectors, and attach one to the pump and the other to a vacuum gauge. At atmospheric pressure, a 'full vacuum' is -1 bar, and you should aim to pull down to at least -0.8 bar. If you're not getting this, there is an air leak which can be traced using a length of hose to your ear. Listen for hissing sounds, and buff the tape over the leak or put more on to contain it. Good pumps for this can be found on the back of old fridge freezers. This means making a little eco-disaster, and letting out all the freon by cutting a hole in the pipe. It comes out under pressure, so keep your head back. Once done, cut the pipes down to a useful 20cm length and wire it up to the mains for a test run. One pipe blows while the other sucks. The third sealed pipe was where they put the freon in, don't do anything with it.  If you know a bit about electric appliances, you might be able to find and remove the thermal fuse which causes the pump to cut out now and again. This gives you a pump which runs more reliably over long cures, it will get hot and spit fluid but is safe enough and will last for quite a few goes.

Autoclaves
An autoclave is used in conjunction with a vacuum bag to increase the amount of pressure you can exert on the board. At atmospheric pressure the minimum possible pressure inside the bag is -1 bar. So to pull even harder you have to raise atmospheric pressure. An autoclave is a sealed pressure vessel which can be pumped up with air, the vac-bag goes inside it with the air sucked out, then the autoclave is sealed. The bag needs to have a hose venting to the outside of the autoclave (1 bar). Inside the pressure can be increased and at a certain point you can release the vacuum on the bag by opening the vent which goes outside the autoclave. For example if the autoclave is pressurized to 5 bar, and the outside air pressure is 1 bar you get an effective 'vacuum' of -4 bar, whereas at normal pressure you only got -1 bar. These machines are big expensive things used by major composite industry to build aircraft parts and Formula-1 car components.

 

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***Preparation***

You cannot start building a snowboard without getting all the components ready for layup, since the moment hardener comes into contact with resin, the time starts ticking and the job needs to be finished in one go without wasting any time. A part cured board is only good for the bin. Here are the stages you need to complete in preparation :

Workroom
Set up the mould / press, with a clean polythene liner on a well supported stand or table. Slit the liner right in the middle to stop air getting trapped underneath.Give yourself room to work around it, and pick up stuff on the floor or you'll trip on it and faceplant into the epoxy. Get a table set up with all your materials on, brushes, squeegees (make your own from P-tex offcuts), stirrers, vac-stuff (for vac bagging), resin / hardener bottles, mixing pots, paint trays (pour out mixed resin to prevent exotherm), pigment, gloves, paper roll for spills, lots of gaffer tape. Bring a big bin or a bag in to throw away old gloves, glass offcuts etc. Hoover up any dust to prevent getting it on your components. Go through it all and make double sure you have everything you will need. The photo below shows our work table. Most importantly, get some tunes on !
If you're using pre-preg, you need to thaw your rolls, and trim them to size. Set up the oven, check the temperature probe is working and you have made charts to help you run the cure properly. Have a hair dryer on the side to soften your material, plus all the vac stuff including a working reliable pump.

mixing trays, croc clips, brushes, gloves, resin, connectors, squeegees, stirrers, pigment, tape, materials, pump and hoses

Base
Cut the base out by clamping it firmly under your template. Keep the blade vertical and pressed against the template for an accurate cut. Once cut, slightly round off the rough-side edge of the base to get a fit into the radius on the steel edges. Use a thin smear of clear epoxy to fix the base graphics to the p-tex, and let it cure before layup begins.

clamp the template to get an accurate cut

 

alternative : use a router and template to cut out the base

Edges
Cut the edges to length, but leave a few centimeters extra on each end to give more leverage when bending. Mark the last tooth before the widest part of each end of the board. All of the edge beyond this point needs to be heat-treated (annealed) to make it easier to bend. Using a blowtorch or gas stove, slowly heat the area of the edge up to a bright yellow / orange color, do it evenly and include the teeth as well as the spine. Once heated let it cool slowly back to room temperature, don't quench it in water to cool it quickly, or the steel stays hard. Bend and fit the edges to the base as accurately as possible, it's easier with 2 people, since one can bend while the other holds the edge in place. When you have a good fit, mark the point on the edge where the base is nicked out, and trim the edge to length. Tack them in place using tiny dots of cyanoacrylate (Loctite Superglue gel is best) at 10 tooth intervals, and more frequently towards the tips. Cyano is not strong, and you need to treat the base with care after bonding,  Hold the edges in place with powerful crocodile clips while this glue cures (takes less than 1 minute). Don't over do it with the cyano, this is just to hold them in place. The laminating epoxy is way stronger and runnier, and will get under all the teeth when pressed. Before laying the base into the mould, bend the tips upwards following the shape of the mould so they don't come unstuck when the board is pressed. If edges pop off during this some more cyano will get them back down, but cyano on top of old cyano isn't good. Sand away the old glue first.

tack the edges to the base with superglue, using clips to hold it in place

 

annealing the edges using a blowtorch flame

Composites
Cut out your layers of reinforcement. don't make them board shaped, let a little bit hang over the sides (ca. 20mm) to ensure there are no parts along the edge without fiber. Roll the reinforcement up and line up in order of layup along a pasting table by the mould. Set up the resin bottles on the work table, and if using West System epoxy resin (see 'suppliers'), buy the pumps which make it far easier to measure out accurate amounts. These are only about £7.00 and save so much messing around. If you pre-cured a composite topsheet, use a flapwheel or sander to rough up the back to make it bond properly. Go easy because it's not hard to go right through. If this happens, stick some tape on the topside of the topsheet above the hole to stop resin coming  through. Afterwards you'll be left with a small raised bump which will need cutting off and feathering in. Then, clean off the dust and put polythene sheeting over the shiny side to stop epoxy spoiling the surface finish. Cut a small slit in this sheet at the very middle of the board. This stops air getting trapped above the topsheet during pressing / vac-bagging.

our finished core sitting on top of the pre-cured topsheet. note abrasion on topsheet for bonding.

Core
Having built a core by whatever technique you choose, finish it by drilling and countersinking for inserts. Pre-bond the inserts to the core with a bit of epoxy, not forgetting to block them up with wax for cold cures, or grub-screws for hot cures. Check the fit against the base and topsheet to make sure it won't overhang the edges, and will be contained by the cap sides (if you choose cap construction). Cut the tipspacers, and if using a thermoplastic pre-bend them and abrade them for bonding. Tack these to the core with some epoxy. If using sidewalls, bond them to the core first with epoxy. The wood should be sanded, but not shiny smooth since a rougher surface bonds better.

countersinking the core for inserts - we modified a reamer to cut the correct sized hole

 

A full length wood core with sidewalls – cut to shape, profiled into the flex pattern and with sidewalls pre-glued to the rails

finally....

Double check everything, Go through the layup in your head and visualize each stage and try to spot things you forgot to do.

 

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***Layup***

Layup is the actual 'making' of the snowboard, laminating all the components together with resin before pressing to cure. The idea is to get everything wetted out with epoxy, accurately placed and set up as it will be on the finished board. Once you begin layup, you have to finish the job, since mixed epoxy begins to cure immediately. Leave plenty of time for this (like 3 hours). The layup can begin when all of the preparation stages are complete, and all components are dry, abraded for bonding, clean and ready to go in. Wear full overalls, an apron and some latex love-gloves.

 

step by step :

Position the base in the mould very accurately, so that the beginning of the tip curvature corresponds to that of the mould. Make sure it is straight or the board comes out twisted. A piece of double-sided tape under the base at each tip will hold it still during layup.

the base, positioned in the mould for layup

Mix up your first batch of resin, always use small amounts (typically 400g per batch) and stir it gently in a pot or jar. If you want to dye the resin add a small amount of pigment paste with a syringe and mix it in. When you've mixed for at least three minutes pour the resin out into a wide container with a big surface area. This keeps the resin cooler and stops it from exotherming (going off too fast).

Pour a line of resin down the center of the base, and use a squeegee to spread it all about until the entire base is well covered in epoxy, put extra over the edges. Don't brush too much or you end up with air bubbles. Using dyed epoxy makes it easier to see spots that have been missed. Also, put epoxy off the board in a 25mm border surrounding the base. This is for the overhanging layers of glass to stick down to, and prevents bubbles forming close to the edge / sidewall.

Take the first layer of reinforcement, and carefully lay it onto the epoxy coated base, using a brush to dab it into place. Make sure it goes on flat with no creases, and that the entire base is covered, with the material extending beyond the edge of the base. Then apply another coat of epoxy to fully wet-out the fibers, so they look glossy when viewed from an angle, but not 'puddled' with standing epoxy. The fiber texture should still be visible, but should look wet. Wet out right over and beyond the edges, and make sure the layer is pressed right into the edges. When completed it will look like it has 'melted' over the base, with an impression of the p-tex standing up from it in relief. Laminate any further reinforcements such as UD tapes etc in the same way.

base is wet out, and Dom lays in the first glass layer

laying in unidirectional tapes in 22' X patterns for torsional stiffness

Take the core, and paint its underside with epoxy resin until it is fully coated. then very accurately position it on top of the bottom layers making sure it is central, and that there is adequate space between the edge of the core and the edge of the base, unless sidewalls are being used, which should extend beyond the edges. The core may not seat fully flat with the camber of the mould. don't worry, Apply some weight to the ends of the core to hold it down, or clamp it down with croc-clips. Whenever you add more layers above the core, re-check its position over the base. If the core hangs off the edge, you'll have exposed wood - and that's bad. Add tipspacers at this stage too.

the core goes in - positioning it accurately is extremely crucial.

the top glass layer is fully wet out

Wet out the top of the core and apply the next layers of reinforcement one by one ensuring each conforms perfectly to the cap and any 3D relief used.
Check the whole thing to make sure no layers have become dis-bonded or misaligned, then wet out the back of the topsheet and position over the board, again ensuring it is perfectly aligned. Alignment is hard to check during layup because everything is so sticky.

Topsheet is in (protected by polythene) as Dom adds a layer of breather fabric

If you are vacuum bagging your board, put a single layer of breather over the whole lot, and 4 or 5 layers where the through-bag connectors go. Put the lower part of the connector in, then apply and stick down the bagging film. Do this with no creases where it sticks down, but if needed make a tuck in the bag by folding the crease along the edge of the bag and taping down. Slit for the connectors and hook them up, switch on the pump and guide the bag down into the cap and relief - it takes a while for things to start to happen since fridge pumps pull a low volume of air. As it gets really well sucked down, get an eye on your gauge and watch the needle rise towards -1 bar. You'll start to hear hissing where leaks are forming, deal with these by buffing down the tape or adding extra tape as needed.

fitting through-bag connectors to hook up the pump and vac gauge

drawing a vacuum - check for leaks by listening to the seams using a hose

If you are press-curing, you might want to fold over and seal up a polythene sleeve to contain the extra resin, then bring down the top of the press and get it jammed down hard onto the board. Leave for the required cure time for your epoxy (usually at least 5 hours).

 

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***Finishing***

When the cure time has elapsed, check any remaining epoxy in your pots / brushes to make sure it has set. Then open the press or reflate and remove the vacuum bag, and carefully extract the snowboard. It may have stuck down to the mould in places. Don't force it out, since epoxy will not yet be at full strength (can take 2 weeks) and could de-laminate if you over-do it. Peel off the barrier layers, and check out the topsheet and base for smoothness and major problems. If something drastic has gone wrong it may not be worth bothering to finish the board, rather use it to investigate what went wrong and get it right next time. If things look OK (minor problems can be fixed) use a jigsaw or bandsaw to cut away the excess resin and fiber (called  'mould flash').

Lifting the board out of the mould

Dom trims off the mould 'flash'.

Clamp the board base up and follow the edge all the way round, then once the thing is roughly cut out, use a bastard file to abrade the remaining resin back off the edges leaving them clean and shiny. On the base, use a sharp blade to cut off seeped resin, it's easier when the resin is fully cured after 12 hours. Any further will be ground off when the base is structured. If you have a gap between the base and edge you can fill it with P-Tex. Use a hot iron to melt a P-Tex repair strip (from service centres) until the gap is filled. Get it as flat as you can with the iron, then when it is fully cold use the bastard file to flatten it right back to the base. Get the worst off, then when you send it off to be belt-ground it will all go properly flat.

Using a flapwheel to trim excess resin from the edge

Looking down above the edge, spot bubbles or small porosities in the resin. If one of these leads to the core water will find its way in, expand the core and freeze causing a major delam. Fill any porosities with some thickened epoxy resin.

Turn the board over, and using a fine drill-bit drill into the top of the inserts which should be visible through the topsheet. If you can't see them try shining a bright light onto the topsheet and look at it from an angle - you should be able to see the outline of them through the top. Or, some magnetised filings may do the trick. If you blocked them with grub-screws, use a sharp scribe to scrape the epoxy out of the head, then undo the grub screw with the allen key very slowly and carefully, don't tighten it by mistake. Then once it's out use a wide drill-bit to countersink into the insert to form a neat rounded rim over the hole. If necessary use an M6 tap to clean out the thread. With wax, scrape out the majority with a scribe, then use the M6 tap to clean out the thread. If you don't have an M6 tap, get a short M6 bolt and carefully drill a hole right down the middle of it. Screw it in and watch the wax come out of the top of the hole.

Drilling out the inserts

Test the topsheet for air voids by tapping your finger on top. You'll hear a different tone over hollow areas. You can fill them by using a syringe to inject epoxy into 2 small holes drilled at either end of the void. One hole for air to get out, the other for epoxy to get in. When you're happy with the topsheet, polish it wth t-cut to remove fine scratches then get some Colour-Magic the same colour as the topsheet and polish the board with it. This buffs up to a deep shine and makes the board look killer.

Semi-finished board no.1 with no.2 waiting in the background

The base now needs to be properly structured, and the only real way to do this is to go to a snowboard service centre, like Snowboard Klinik (see suppliers) and have it put through a Wintersteiger or Grind-Rite machine. This uses a belt to flatten the base and edges, then a diamond-dressed stone to cut a pattern of fine grooves into the base and to polish the edges. These grooves hold wax and break down surface tension of water under the base - making it go faster. The sides of the edges will be ground to an angle to get them sharp, and to make them less 'catchy' when running with the board flat on the snow. Dull the edge around the widest points - not so that its rounded off, but just until it stops shaving fingernails. Called detuning, it reduces the likelyhood of catching an edge and getting kicked off.

Then, wax your board using a hot iron to melt drops of wax into the base. Run the iron evenly over the base until everything is covered with a thin layer of wax. With a plastic scraper, remove the cold wax until it is flat and smooth then get a scotchbrite pad and polish the wax in the direction of travel. Finish by scraping off leaked wax from the edges, and polish the base with a soft cloth up to a glossy shine.

Our 2 finished boards. compare this with design on snoCAD page

Don't do any big destructive tests on it until it has been at room temperature for a few days. Then you can mount your bindings and start spinning around the living room carpet with a big cheesy grin on your face. Just wait until you get it on the snow !

 

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***snoCAD2.3.1***

 

download it now ! (848KB)  :

snoCAD_Setup.exe
screenshot from snoCAD2.3

 

Introduction
snoCAD2 is the new version of our previous snoCAD software which had proved functional but limited in capability. This latest version goes far beyond what was previously possible, and is now a highly capable and sophisticated snowboard (and ski !) design tool. The major change is a jump in platform from the old DOS format (caused screen problems) to a new Windows GUI which is developed in Macromedia Flash MX – it is vector based and will adapt perfectly to any screen resolution. Using some clever code it is now possible to present this Flash application as an executable program which can read and write files. So it is possible to load and save your snoCAD designs in the new “.sno” format, and to export them as either SVG or DXF graphics files. The previous version of snoCAD only exported a rather shaky DXF which caused compatibility problems. This version produces very plain DXFs. Further new features include :

 

o Separately editable nose and tail widths

o Quadratic maths engine for blended sidecuts

o Quadratic / Cubic Bezier and Elliptical nose and tail shapes

o Integrated smoothing aid for a more blended ride

o Editable insert layout

o Flex profile design

o Board profile design

o Enhanced core editing with editable 3D topsheet (if required)

o Integrated print function now prints the board outline

o Integrated measuring system

o Zoom and Pan function

o 10mm grid

o Show / hide board elements as required

o Manual entry of dimensions

o Shift + Click for smaller dimension steps

 

Compatibility
snoCAD2 was written and compiled using Macromedia Flash MX and Flash’n’Pack, and runs under any Windows operating system. We recommend at least Pentium II with 32MB RAM and 4MB graphics memory, the Flash 6 plugin is NOT required.

Using snoCAD2
When snoCAD loads, a default board appears on the screen, which can be manipulated to the shape you require. At the bottom of the screen is a series of menus, activated with the * button on each one. Each parameter is adjustable using the + / - buttons on the menu. The board will change in realtime according to your input – the increment is usually 5mm. If you SHIFT + CLICK you will get a smaller increment (1mm). You can also enter the parameter data by hand, by selecting the light-blue coloured parameter in the specification and editing it.

The interface should be pretty self explanatory, just a few pointers :

o On the CORE menu, pressing the ¬ button next to ‘nose’ will open the ‘tail’ menu

o On the CONFIG menu, the screen is only updated when the menu is closed again

o DXF output can take 20 – 30 seconds and snoCAD2 will ‘freeze’ during this time

o The ‘DXF Vertex Count’ on the CONFIG menu is the number of vertices plotted per longitudinal millimetre of snowboard. This is different along the rails, which is calculated using a quadratic function

o ‘Print’ on the FILE menu will print whatever snowboard elements are selected as ‘on’, and the dimensions to the printer specified by you in the dialog. We recommend you set the driver to print ‘landscape’ for best use of paper.

Tip shaper
The tip shaper is a new menu which can be activated from the tips menu. It enables you to specify what type of curve you would like to use to represent the nose and tail of the snowboard. This feature is currently only available to the board outline – it is not yet implemented for the core.

Types of curve  :

o Elliptical : the curve is part of an ellipse where x and y of each point are a function of the length and width of the ellipse

o Quadratic Bezier : a polynomial curve with two fixed anchor points and one control point

o Cubic Bezier : a polynomial curve with two fixed points and two control points

Knowing which type to choose is a matter of personal preference and depends on the performance requirement of the finished board and your manufacturing capabilities.

Elliptical tips are easiest to represent, but the disadvantage is that the tip curvature is fixed and a function of the length / width ratio. In addition, Ellipticals always begin and end perpendicular to the ellipse axes. This can present problems where the tip joins the sidecut – the sidecut curve NEVER ends perpendicular to the board axes – therefore there has to be a sudden change in direction which results in a corner. This leads to a more catchy tip / less smooth ride especially when changing edges.

Quadratic tips are a little more complex, but can assist in smoothing out the corner to some extent. As there is only one control point, both terminating tangents of the tip curve are affected by any adjustment. This type of curve is a good one to pick for boardercross / alpine style boards, to get the pointy looking tip shape – like Burton’s Fish…

Cubic Bezier tips are the most flexible but also the most complex of the three types available. They have 2 control points which make it possible to control the exit tangent of both ends of the curve. There is also a cunning mathematical principle which enables snoCAD to assist you in guaranteeing a smooth transition from sidecut to tip. Look at this diagram :

The four yellow points at each tip describe the two control points for each of the upper and lower arcs of the tip. The central yellow point indicates the control point used to generate the quadratic curve of the sidecut. To ensure that the exit tangent of the tips is parallel to the exit tangent of the sidecut, snoCAD2 can project a red guideline (choose ‘smooth-aid’ from tip geometry menu). If the inner control point of the tips is placed anywhere on this line, a smooth transition from tip to sidecut with no corner whatsoever is mathematically assured. Be advised that it can lead to the tip of the board being slightly wider than the traditional ‘widest’ part of the board at the end of the running length. It will be a very small difference, but you need to check it won’t make the board wider than your available base material. Use the measuring function in snoCAD (right click and drag over board) to test the length at this point.

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snoCAD was written to make it easier to draw snowboards, because with pencil and paper you can't be accurate, and normal CAD software is a pain in the arse. Although capable and accurate, it is free software for the homebuilder. If you are a commercial snowboard manufacturer, and you are interested in our software you may download it for evaluation purposes. If you would like to use it for commercial manufacture please contact us regarding buying a license. SnoCAD2 is built on a very modular design and lends itself very well to customisation, interested manufacturers who have specific requests may contact us for customised versions.

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Examples - all made with snoCAD

 

The first four shapes were created in snoCAD 2.2 and the elliptical tip problem is visible – there is a definite corner visible. The second 4 shapes were produced in snoCAD 2.3 and as you can see the curves are much smoother. . The leftmost board is an alpine shape with a quadratic nose and a cubic bezier tail. The next board is a twintip with cubic bezier nose and tail, followed  by a directional board with cubic bezier nose and tail. Finally, a big swallowtail powder board using a cubic bezier tail to create the slot.

Raw snoCAD1 output (top) and design with graphics applied ~ the board featured on this site

The finished board to compare with original design