Transferred from the blog

FranP
Submitted on 2009/05/12 at 9:59am
Hi, several kitesurf guys want to buy some firewire boards…we know what shapes we think we need, but it is not clear to us which technology will be stronger to heel pressuree…
are all decks with similar strenght ? thanks a lot

MarkP
Submitted on 2009/05/12 at 12:07pm
Hi Fran,

The DD or FST technologies have the strongest decks as they use the same aerospace deck skins. The Rapidfire bamboo deck will dent slightly more. Felix Privec (sponsored Billabong kiteboarder living in Hawaii) has been riding the Taj FST for some time.

hope that helps.

On top of that if you don't want to use straps on the board 9which has pads to protect the board from heel dents) you could easily decrease the chances by adding a front and tail pads. These boards for wave ridding are great.Taj model in particular.
Mark question,would it be possible to combine FST and bamboo technology for kiteboards??? just to add extra strength??.Would the weight increase substantialy??.Considering on using bamboo fiber cloth instead of fiber glass cloth???.We have a local shaper in Montreal using those for quite some time and so far it has worked really well. Pre-stretched, it increases flex memory
Thanks

We just delivered 3 boards to Felix Pevic, a top kiteboarder living in Hawaii who has been riding our stock Taj for the past year. We built each one slightly differently, but all were stronger, stiffer builds than our standard 'surfing' construction. Based on his feedback, we might offer a very limited edition 'kiteboard' construction in Future Shapes Technology.

Regarding Bamboo, we got the idea for bamboo from F.one kiteboards and then combined it with our suspension technology to develop Rapidfire. We are actually building boards for F.one and part of our agreement is that we will not use bamboo for any Firewire kiteboard product, or built kiteboards for any other brand using bamboo.

You can check our their bamboo boards at www.f-onekites.com/

That's a sick looking board.F one are known for high performance kites and innovative design.Their patented Delta shape is a revolution to the kite industry. Good association.Shame that you're not allowed to produce kiteboards with bamboo or wood decks,it would have been interesting to see the result of both technologies combined

True, but don't underestimate the potential of our existing technologies with reinforced sandwiches and topdeck laminations like we've made for Felix. We'll see which version he likes the best and then probably offer special orders for kiteboarders.

Hi markp ... looking forward several announcements from you guys,

- What is Felix feedback regarding the boards he is testing ??

i saw this recent photo here with a FW
http://www.hanglos.fr/news/181912/news-kitesurf-eclipse-surge-2010-.html

- When will you launch FW boards with footstraps screw inserts ??


cheers

Felix is stoked on the boards, he should be receiving his next round to prototypes in a few weeks and then I'm sure he'll post directly about the how they ride. We expect to get them to market by November and they will have inserts in the boards so the option for straps or strapless will be there. Check out the FW kiteboard logo.

woundering if you can help me out? im from South Africa, i surfed the Taj pro model and really enjoyed! I also tried the flexfire and cant make up my mind purely because the guys are saying that the direct drive will give me a better performance than the FST technology! is there any real difference and is the DD stronger?

Byron,

The DD is not stronger than the FST, just slightly stiffer (the eps core and deck skins are identical - the only difference is that FST uses Balsa rails to control the flex and the DD has internal carbon rods). It depends on how much flex you like, but honestly the difference is very slight. I don't think you can go wrong with either choice - it really comes down to personal preference.

Are the RF boards hot coated with epoxy? I was wondering because they have a gloss finish.

Tupper,

sorry for the belated reply - just saw this post. Al our boards are built the same way with a sand finish - it might be the bamboo that is reflecting some light creating a shinier finish.

Other manufactures are claiming their fused cell blanks don't suck water. I'm not sure I completely believe that, but can you explain how the fused 2lb core in the RF boards compares with the 1lb core in the other techs?

Mike R,

We have determined the best recipe for Firewire boards. There are many different types of foam out there, all of which have different weights, water absorption properties and perhaps most importantly, flex properties.

The RF 2lb foam is more dense then the 1lb - that goes without saying. That increase in density comes about by expanding the EPS beads under higher pressure and temperatures, cramming more material into a given block of foam. This leads to less air trapped between particles and a greater weight. In the 2.0 lb foam, the water has less space to migrate through the blank - the obvious trade off is the foam is twice as heavy and has different flex properties and behaves differently as it moves through water - hence the different construction between FST, DD and RF to counter balance that.

Because the 1 lb foam is more porous, we apply the high density deck skins to both decks to stabilize the core and along with the balsa rails, to help control the flex. And some people feel that the 1lb core rides better than the 2lb core, but its a matter of opinion.

The FST & DD bottom decks are also tougher than the RF due to the deck skin (and costs a little more at retail). The RF bottom deck and rails are going to dent and/or ding similar to regular PU, although the top deck with the bamboo skin is a lot tougher than PU.

At the end of the day they are too different recipes to reach a similar result - lightweight and controlled flex.

A point about densities: The density of an object has a big impact on how it moves through a particular medium. Think about a tennis ball and a baseball - both roughly the same shape but due to the different density, they behave completely differently traveling through the air.

Sorry to digress, but I figures the next question someone might ask is why if the 2lb is less porous, do we even use 1lb?

Fused versus 'unfused': The think the key phrase to look for is not fused versus un-fused - all EPS beads are fused together during the foam blowing process. But generally speaking the greater the density the tighter the fusion and the less water absorption. A waterproof 1 lb core would be interesting but I'm not aware of a foam that light that also has waterproof properties, but from all the foams we've tested that do not compromise flex once we've included all our other design attributes, its about different degrees of water absorption. Some are certainly better than others but the overall performance has to be a factor as well.

Excellent post Mark...

markp and anyone else

I've had two FST with balsa rails and enjoyed the lightness. I'm considering getting a new board and looking at the Spitfire which I think only comes in Rapidfire with 2lbd foam. I read your posts above about the different tech but I wonder how much the 2lbd foam adds to the whole weight of the board, if you had two Dominators one with FST and one with Rapidfire together how would you compare the ride and also tell me the weight difference in the two boards?

Cheers

dreamin

the weight difference is negliable. We have a 0.5lb hi/low weright tolerance for any board we make due to slighlty variables in materials and the human touch in lamination, sanding etc. Those factors will have a greater bearing on the weight difference between the two tech's versus anything else, both will fall within that range.

the heavier foam is offset by the lack of a bottom deck skin (RF only has as top deck skin, FST has both top and bottom). RF is slighlty more flexible than FST. As to which flex pattern is better, the jury is out. We've got die hard proponents of both .

markp

Hey Mark, thanks for quick reply. I'll have to try a RF and see for myself how it compares - gotta say, it's terrific you guys have so many great designs but it sure makes choosing your next board tough!

I'm watching the quik pro online. The commentators are talking about Michel Bourez's Firewire.
"Those board don't really have any flex, but they seem to be working for Michel",
or something along those lines.
Not the best bit of exposure for the boards when people are misinformed.

Anyone else watching it? My feed is really jerky, is anyone else having that problem?

Yeah I'm watching, I just posted a comment on the firewire facebook page. What the heck do they know??? they have not ridden one yet so they have the PU stigma stucked on their heads!!!.

Yeah guys, I heard that as well. I promptly sent a message to the commentators to help them see the error of their ways. The only thing you can chalk it up to is a lack of familiarity with the product. Here is what does matter: there are 2 guys on the WCT that ride Firewire exclusively. Yes, 2 two competitors riding epoxy, sandwich construction technology. That alone is unprecedented. In addition, several guys currently on tour have ridden and LOVED Firewire boards and you can be there are more to come. So, the moral of the story: the technology revolution is only beginning and mistakes like that will grow scarce, and soon, cease to exist.

Compsand boards are beyond a lot of people.

I have been riding a dominator for the last couple of years coupled with several Channel Islands to boot. I am an old school surfer (surfing now 45 years) and loved my 6.6 dominator. The board allowed me to catch waves on
a smaller board, yet maintained super looseness in small to mid size surf. I almost always rode it as a quad. Great board, however lately I bought a 6.4 spitfire which of course employs the new rapidfire technology described here.
So here is my take:

I absolutely love my spitfire, it answered all the problems inherent in the dominator for me which mostly occurred with the large round and thick tail in larger surf, and of course, was more a shaping issue than the technology, but suffice it to say the spitfire perfectly answered those issues and I was able to go 2 inches shorter. My new spitfire is the diamond tail and I am riding with futures V2F4's which perform imho way better than the Merick's they gave me with it.

Now for the tech side. I think the rapidfire seems not as floaty as the dominator, even more than the 2 inches account for, and I can get the rails to "plant" better allowing for more thrust out of turns (and the dom was not slouch in this anyway) so I much prefer the rapidfire tech in this regard. the only problem I have encountered is keeping wax on the bamboo deck in our hot Florida weather, a small price to pay for this added performance. It does seem to me that the rapidfire skin is more fragile than my old dom, that may just be an apprehension more than reality, but it just does seem this way to me.

All in all my next firewire will definitely by the rapidfire technology, now, if you guys could just make a wax that will stay on better :).....

I owned a few Aviso's. I just kept a towel over the board and used harder wax.

yeah, the bamboo does get a bit warmer, but direct sunlight will take wax off of just about any board. might i suggest that FCS creates a day bag with a built in AC?

Just curious, here. I assume at some point in the R&D stage a RF board was made with the bamboo deck on the top and the high density skin on the bottom. How did that go? It seems like a good idea to me, the added durability of the FST boards is an excellent selling point. Was it too much added weight? Maybe it restricted the flex too much with the 2lb foam aswell?
Having just got my first RF board I'm slightly paranoid being back in the realm of easy dinging!

Bamboo + rods + hi density bottom + 2.0 lb foam = stiff and heavy. We've tried almost every combination of existing materials and FST & RF are best yet. Always looking for new materials though and R & D pipeline in full of ideas. No new tech for right now, don't want to confuse everyone.

I thought that might be the case.
As always, looking forward to seeing what's next!

Confuse us, please!

phill, you will be surprised how much less than p/u boards the "unprotected" rapidfires ding...i surf over bare rock everyday...not surfed a sandbank for 6 months...i am constantly surprised after an encounter by only finding slight surface scratches...only one shatter after a head on with a rock that wasn't there before..i swear!!...probably watertight but has my state-of-the-art repair work just in case. (stickytape).....previous board has only one similar shatter after i headbutted it and was knocked out briefly..(also only taped...the board not my head..!!)...

man, after saying that, i better not snap it today!!!...gunna be paranoid now!!!

that's good to know, cheers dave!

Testa dura!!!!!jejeje