Dennis Ellis at the Boardroom has come up with a beauty - a black beauty to be precise. Say hello to the Darth Vader, Deno's futuristic new stick. The Boardroom doing their bit to be BEE compliant! Caught up with Dennis to find out more about the kiff looking carbon-deckedboard. Give us the breakdown... This board features a full carbon top deck, which is wrapped under the bottom deck. The wrap width is at a maximum at the midpoint of the board and decreasing towards the tail. This makes for a lively flex, with a flex variation throughout the board, increasing towards the tail. And what's hiding in the core? I've been doing some EPS (standard polystyrene) epoxy boards as a change from the extruded polystyrene,which is incredibly difficult to work with. I think a lot of shapers have been going this route, Hayden shapes, Wedge etc. Apparently the new foam has only a 5 to 7% water absorbtion rate when dinged. Absorbtion was a problem in the past, but 5 to 7% is about the same as standard polyurethane foam. There is a lot of (very heated) debate on the foam blogs about this, but the proof is in the testing. Why the carbon deck? The carbon deck gives the board rigidity where you need it, under your feet, whilst not having a stringer. Keeping the bottom deck standard glass gives the board a nice lively feel. One can get a similar performance effect with wood veneer decks which also look great, but I wanted to do something different. Carbon just looks super cool too! But is actually a hazard in the sun. If you take your time getting out into the water your wax can liquidize! So definitely not a board to leave the board lying around on the beach either. Some factories spray over the carbon to hide it from the sun, but I'm pretty good with my boards, and carbon just looks so good...it's like the gold of the surfboard industry, why spray over it!? Tell us a bit about her shape. The shape on this baby is similar to what a lot of pros are riding and its a very popular model for me right now. I'm doing it from 4'11 for groms like Kye Mcgregor and Alex van Rijswik up to 6'2 for the big boys. It's got a very aggressive bottom curve with loads of concave, single into double, all the way to the tail and nose. It needs to be surfed hard from rail to rail, definitely not a cruiser. Probably a bit high performance for my personal board, being a ballie and all, but I got it to hit the lip a few times, so I'm learning. (Ed - don't let Deno downplay his ability on this - ou's saying they've seen him rip waves to pieces on it!) How's she ride?
The board has plenty of speed with the high volume and boxy rails, and the tightest turning radius of any board I've ridden, thanks to the aggressive curves and flex. It was designed for better surf but seems to go great in the smaller stuff too. She has Future boxes, but we do any options. So there you have it, wanna insane looking futuristic board that rides as good as she looks? Give Dennis a shout. The Boardroom 041 586 2276 [email protected] (Groms - if you dunno who Darth Vader is - go watch Star Wars. Baddest of the bad dude's ever) Comments are closed.
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AuthorMillerslocal Archives
July 2021
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