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June 4th, 2008

Cardboard surfboard!

Here’s innovation for you… Mike Sheldrake in San Diego, California has designed and built an environmentally sound surfboard… using cardboard!!

Around the time Clark Foam closed its doors, Mike decided he wanted to build himself a cheap surfboard, so he researched it and experimented with 3D computer software to build a model of his surfboard. Then using cross-sectional slices of cardboard at angles in a grid of triangles and hexagons, a formation he calls "the quarter isogrid" he constructed the core of the board and then covered it with fiberglass cloth and finally glassed it. The end result is a really cool translucent board!

And if you were wondering "well that’ll never work"… well longboarder Alex Knost certainly thinks they do…

Alex Knost with a cardboard surfboard
Alex Knost with the translucent cardboard surfboard. Photos by Grant Ellis

Some pictures of the board

Cardboard surfboard

Cardboard surfboard

Cardboard surfboard

Cardboard surfboard glassed

Watch the assembly of the board:

www.sheldrake.net/cardboards/

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