Evaluation

Evaluation from start to finish:

First Stage: Design process:

Before my school year even started Tom and I were making long board designs while we were camping. I choose my design because I liked the look of a snow board (even though I never have done snow boarding in my life)

We had to make three design that we though we could develop further and make into a working board. I spent another weekend sketching random deigns.

The next step was to design it on CAD (Computer Added Design). We used Freehand design for 2D to show basic shape and then later I built a more finalized shape in 3D on Solid Works.

Second Stage: 1/2 scale mock up:

We finally picked our board shapes and then had to make a 1/2 (ish) scale of our board.
We made them from cut outs from flute boards (labor party support board thing) we drew the out line of what we wanted them to look like.

I had to cut out the board using a craft knife. I used a ruler with my craft knife while cutting out to give a nice straight edge.

Third Stage: Actually Building The Board:

We originally wanted to make our boards with flax in the middle of them. . we were going to do this by stripping the flax and weaving the flax together to make a mat, the strips were meant to be 10mm wide (give or take a few millimeters). After we made our mats we placed them in between two sheets of MDF that were used as a giant clamp to flatten the flax's while It dried.But unfortunately this did not work as well as we had hoped because the flax inside the board made it to thick.

So then we decided to just make our boards with fiber glass in between two bits of marine grade ply that were 4mm thick,we used R180 adhesive to hold it together mixed at 5:1 ratio with K180 hardener. We made molds for our boards to make the curve that we wanted. Mine had a small curve so it wasn't much of an issue.

Once the molds were made the next step was to cut out our materials for the board. I cut out tow sheets of marine grade ply wood 1200mm x 350mm x 4mm thick. As well as one piece of double chop strand Fiber glass to match then length of my board to go in between the ply wood
We measured out the Epoxy Resign in a baked bean tin 55mm of E180 then 11mm of k180 on top then mixed well. Then I left the board siting in the mold for a couple of days to set and get shape.

we drew our shape on our boards with pencil and then used an 18 inc scroll saw to cut out the shape. Then I sanded it down with the belt sander to help to give nice and straight edges at each end of my board. Then i worked on getting my inner curve sorted, i did this with a file mainly.
then i sanded it down to make it smooth.

After sanding with 120 grit I moved on to 200 wet dry sand paper to help to make it more smooth. I think I also used some 400 at some point to make it really really smooth so that the paint would stay/stick on nicely

Fourth Stage: Painting my board:

After i had finished the sanding, I moved onto priming. We used a white primer which we applied with a brush and then I sanded it off with 400 grit sand paper and then applied a second and then a third coat before base coating.

I sprayed my board with a air gun with black paint, I ended up spraying three layers of black before I even started to go near doing my art work.

Fifth Stage: My Art work:

I had picked my art work earlier on in the year so I just had to figure out how to get my art work on to my board, I found it hard to get my stencil onto my board because the way I was going to do it wasn't going to work because my board is black and if i had the black bits on the panda white it would of just looked rather strange so what I did in the end (with the help of mu mother =S) was we cut out the black bits on my panda and kept the white paper we cut it out of, then we put double sided tape on the black parts of the panda, put it back from where we cut them out, put them on my board, paper and all, then made sure the black bits were stuck on my board and then pulled the white paper off only leaving the black bits left and since my board was already black that was ALL GOOD. Then we thought some "racing stripes" would look cool to go with it. I tend to agree with my mum on that =]. The next day I sprayed it white. I did that twice so I had two coats of white just to make sure it looked good

waiting to see how it turned out took SOOO long, it was only like a day bit STILL

I then peeled of the stencil to see the end result of my art work, i loved what it looked like. it looked perfect

next lession we had I did a layer of laccer over my board to keep my art work "safe"

Sixth and Final Stage: putting Grip Tape on my board.

The first step in gripping my board was to chose a Grip tape from the Skate Warehouse in the U.S.A so that it could be shipped over, I picked a black and white checkered to go with my board (black and white theme).

then I put the grip tape on my board (doing that on Monday the 9th of November)

What I would do differentially:

One thing I would of done differently is I would do of made my design/board smaller, we found that the shorter boards had more strength in them and that they would probably be able to be riden unlike mine..

We should also of had more Epoxy resin. It would help to stiffen our boards and also keep the fiberglass nice and hard.

I would of left it in the mold for two weeks instaed of just one. i would also have less curve so it would be stronger, but also change the way it curved

when I laccerd my board I would of liked to use a cleaner brush and have a dust free room