Board Builder Creates Splash With Cardboard Surfboard
By Joe Wertz
Foams and composites have long proved tough enough for rough waves, but the modern methods used by most surfboard makers certainly aren’t cheap. Enter Mike Sheldrake, a SoCal surfer and board builder who was inspired by a crack that formed in the center of his beloved Robert August, an 8.5-foot board that carried him for 13 years. Eager to build boards from cheap, natural materials, Sheldrake builds his boards from a cardboard “quarter isogrid,” which forms the rigid skeleton for his hollow boards. The board’s ribs are cut from sheets of cardboard and assembled to form. The framework is then covered in layers of fiberglass sheeting, cured and sold on the cheap. [via core77]
