ISSA - International Slalom Skateboarding Association

hi,

first i want to say hello to all, introduce and apologize for my first posting to be some advertising.

my co-partner arne and me are product-/industrial-designers and are building custommades since last year. we do slalom-, downhill- and cruising-decks.
you can check our last years work on our website
http://www.wefunk.de

this year we started experimenting with vacuum-lamination and this is our first gs foamcore proto:













specs:
- size 800 x 205 mm
- wheelbase 560 mm (inner truck bolts) or 620 mm (axle-axle)
- weight 520g
- 10 mm concave

material:
- 14 mm airex foamcore (will be 8, 10, 12 mm in future models)
- uni- and bidirectional fibreglass
- texalium
- glass/carbon stringer
- epoxy resin

the next decks (foam for 20 decks is ordered) will sport inlays (? plates fitted in the top, below the laminate) to allow use of "normal" mounting screws (you know: so that they are flush with the top of the deck)

let me know what you think!

Alex,

Very nice looking machine. From the photos I'd have to say the finish and quality of construction is superb.

I must admit, though, that has got to be the THICKEST CORE I have ever seen. I see from the specs I see this is the 14mm core? Wow. Is it safe for me to assume this particular board has the flex characteristics of a slab of granite? Although I'm not much up on the nuances of concave design, it looks as though you have it right.

Keep up the good work. There can never be too many well made quality slalom products on the market.

I like a good concave design personally.



Are you going to be at the Köln race with some demos? I'll bring my wallet. I hope to check them out.

Thanks,

Yeah - the core is pretty thick and the flex is exactly that of a slab of granite.
but I wanted to make sure that the first proto would last for a few rides.
I was way too anxious.
Surprisingly it rides very nice in gs.: very direct and the higher frequency vibrations are all dampend out.

Anyway the next decks will get a 10mm core and flex will be controlled by the use of different fibres. They will be still very hard but I want to try to keep some hard, snappy flex. ... we will see.

I´ll definetly be in Cologne (being my hometown) for the European Championships 2004 and will have at least one deck/board mounted and ready for testing and hopefully a small supply to sell.

Nice looking deck. Keep us posted.

Hi alex, are you already producing and selling those boards ? If so what would be the price of a nude board (no trucks or wheels).
Is it fit for somebody weighting 80kilos (I dont really like much flex on my boards)

This deck doesn't have any flex at all !!!! It's very stiff, but because of the concave you can handle it very well !
You can have an nice acceleration while pumping through the cones !
I already ordered one !!! )

And how much did you pay for that (in euro)?

And by the way is it ok to ride this board with Avalons and or Avilas with a single angled riser pad, or is there wheel byte ?

Pierre-Yves Ritschard wrote:Hi alex, are you already producing and selling those boards ? If so what would be the price of a nude board (no trucks or wheels).
Is it fit for somebody weighting 80kilos (I dont really like much flex on my boards)
...
And by the way is it ok to ride this board with Avalons and or Avilas with a single angled riser pad, or is there wheel byte ?

hi P-Y,

hopefully we´ll start producing this week (when the ordered foam arrives).

the deck will cost 200,- Euro. (as shown with texalium and optional carbon-stinger)
we´re thinking about a 180,- version with just glass and uni-colored resin.
(light-blue - RAL 5012 like the first decks we made last year.)

i weigh 80kg myself, my friend donald weighs over 100kg and i am 100% confident that you could weigh 150kg. - it won´t snap.

i can jump it with full force in the middle and nothing happens beside a really really hard and snappy flex (maybe 6-10mm).
when riding i can´t feel ANY flex in this deck.
(this is why we´ll use the thinner core and trim the flex by glass (like in our wood decks))

i ride it with avalons and 10° angled risers by khiro (which are not as thick as g-truck 11° wegdes) - impossible to get wheelbite.
with avilas, the thinner core and khiro wedges you might get wheelbite but surely not with g-truck wedges.



on this pic you can also see that the camber peaks at 2/5 of the length from the nose and then mellows out.

i beg you to be patient for 1-2 weeks - then we´ll have the first 10mm core decks in testing and i´ll know how to make a hard/snappy- or no-flex deck by use of diferent ratio uni-directional/bi-directional glass.

i promise to post pics as soon as we have the new decks.

i think now i got it just right:

this one is just slightly but essentially different from the first one:

- thinner core: now 10mm
- no carbon stringer (it really stiffens)
- same glass-layering as the proto
- 6mm plywood inforcements for the trucks
- 4mm longer (more pointed nose)
- two wheel-(truck-)bases 565-545 mm (or 600-620mm axle-axle with offset truck)
- weight is now 535g !!! (thinner core but +50g plywood inforecements)

it has a nice hard flex: still cambered when i (80kg) stand on it and flattening out when pumping/kicking it.

i´ll report more on the deck and if we keep it like that after really riding it on the weekend.

This board looks similar to the Airflow C-81. Could it be that the idea originally came from Airflow?

Manuel Schaub wrote:This board looks similar to the Airflow C-81. Could it be that the idea originally came from Airflow?

the wheelbase and the length are the same cause they are functional.

the shape, width, camber, concave and weight is different as you might observe.

and no - the idea to build a deck with a different shape of the foamcore and the outline originated in the 70´s.
just look in the other threads and you sure will recognize that for example Turner and IckSticks do that now for decades.
so the idea originally came from them.

it´s not even the same texalium that we use. (airflow 160g/m2 / wefunk 290g/m2). we also used texalium last year for our wood-decks (the same time airflow made their limited edition decks).
if there is a new material we experiment with it and use it if it is good.
other producers are free to do the same.

bloody right mate!

your core is different to the one of airflow, also your concave! only because they are both foamcores and both finished with texalium they aren`t the same, dude!

so, i recently finished school and have now a lot of time to experiment with foam, honeycomb and other similar stuff. i`ll post my experiences later!
i also thougt about using balsa-wood (don`t know if it has the same name in english?!?!? in german it`s called baslaholz)

go ply, ride wood
plywood slalomboards

David,

Good luck with the Balsa experiments, but I think I can say in advance you'll be disappointed. Balsa doesn't "flex," it "conforms." In other words, instead of "remembering" it's previous shape and returning to it, Balsa will feel perfectly suited to just stay in whatever shape you leave it. This is one of the reasons why Balsa is such an excellent material for modeling: you can shape it easily without too much fear of "snapping back" to something else. This is good for modeling, not really good for flexible skateboards.

(This may also explain why you'll rarely find a balsawood bow for an arrow. It really doesn't do much good to pull back on the string and have your bow just stay like that without popping back into shape and pulling the string and arrow with it!)

Although experimentation with new materials is an excellent pursuit and lots of fun, I think it's safe to assume the wood family has been pretty well thought through with the best answer coming in the form of maple. I know that some of the more exotic woods are also tried (rosewood, mahogany, cypress, etc.) but there's a reason skateboarders usually return to rock hard maple: it's the best thing going.

Good luck with your efforts and keep us apprised of how you fare. We'd all be interested in reading your results.

P.S. Your English is EXCELLENT! I must admit that I am truly miserable in any multilingual skills and am awestruck with the number of non-English Euros who comes to this website with an incredible mastery of the English language. It really motivates more than you can imagine to get out all my CDs, language tapes and instruction manuals and try once again to get an handle on speaking Deutsche.

Jeez, all this debate of who was first to make a composite deck and not even a mention by anyone else about the reflectoporn Alex is using to sell his product! He is definitely the first at that. Well Rick, Chicken, or Gareth be next to try this unique marketing strategy?

Wesley,

there are some different kinds of balsa wood available.
I know that Lib Technologies uses some kind of end grain balsa for their snowboard cores; and they flex. Well, they are one of the better boards around and these guys experiment with a lot of different woods & composites.
My 2c on this one.

Maybe I get to see the new Wefunk decks at the Euro Champs in Cologne.

YOYO Schulz, Germany, Europe
P.S. Avatar shot is of me riding a GNU with a balsa core btw.
GNUs are made at the same factory as Lib Tech. Lib also makes skateboards.....

Wesley Tucker wrote:David,

Good luck with the Balsa experiments, but I think I can say in advance you'll be disappointed. Balsa doesn't "flex," it "conforms." In other words, instead of "remembering" it's previous shape and returning to it, Balsa will feel perfectly suited to just stay in whatever shape you leave it. This is one of the reasons why Balsa is such an excellent material for modeling: you can shape it easily without too much fear of "snapping back" to something else. This is good for modeling, not really good for flexible skateboards.

(This may also explain why you'll rarely find a balsawood bow for an arrow. It really doesn't do much good to pull back on the string and have your bow just stay like that without popping back into shape and pulling the string and arrow with it!)

thank you for posting your experiences and advises! i`ll think about building a balsa deck... i think it wouldn`t cost very much... so...had to be tried! but i think first of all i`ll experimentate with foamcores.
and now i have to order all the stuff for the vacuumpump!
go out & ride!

ok - here are some more pics.













we´ll have definetely a small supply at sale at the ESC in cologne.

That's a really sweet board. Nice work.

there's some other stuff coming from alex next week.i'm also getting a tight slalom deck.
the first deck-the prototype,was a stiff and very responsive ride.
i have to admit that i didn't want to ride my regular deck on the same course later on again.
and...hey mauel-there's any out side world lots of things are happening good stuff

your post reads as if you want to flame alex

give it a break here!

he's a supernice guy and really determined to the things he's doing.

it's good to see different folks doing different stuff-or else life would be boring

Wefunk's in the US! I love this deck. I can't wait to set it up with a split fire and roe grip.

looks "Ickish"........what was the price?.......how much for shipping from overseas?

I had someone who went to germany pick it up for me. I'm not sure what the shipping is.

Hi Karl,
many happy pumps with that board !

COULD YOU MAKE ME A DECK THAT SHAPEE AND SIZE WITH THE CORE, BUT WITH NO CAMBER AND A LITTLE LESS CONCAVE? I WOULD PAY IF PRICE IS REASONABLE. EMAIL ME OR POST BACK HERE: himotomas@hotmail.com THANKS MATE

which deck? the GS or Karl´s S-camber TS?
i put up some general info on our pricings here:
viewtopic.php?p=23485#23485

cheers
alex