Lets make some composite ATB decks…
This is going to be a slow long term project. I will make updates here to keep a record of my progress.
I welcome constructive criticism and suggestions from previous experience.
Methods:
There seems to be two approaches that have been used in the esk8 world when it comes to fully composite decks:
Prepreg composites. this method involves composite fabrics that have resin or thermoplastic already woven or impregnated into the fabric. This method uses an oven or autoclave to cure the composite into its final shape.
This example below looks to be made with a material called twintex or something very similar as far as I can tell:
twintex info 1
twintex info 2
twintex curing
I think if one was to make a deck in this method you would want a press with the shape of your deck on either side made out of a material you could put inside an autoclave. Like metal or wood. Then sandwich the twintex in between the two pieces of the mold and bake till golden brown.
Vacuum infusion. This method uses “dry fabrics” such as carbon fiber, glass fiber, and even natural fibers such as flax, like “jute”. Resin like epoxy is then pumped through the fabric under vacuum pressure and curing is done at room temperature.
This example below shows the use of carbon and fiberglass in one layup:
I will use vacuum resin infusion to make my decks.
Mainly because I think it will be easier with the resources I have on hand…and I don’t want to make an autoclave 
What do we need?
1: The mold
2: Vacuum pump & consumables
3: Composite fabrics & epoxy resin
1: The Mold
I’m going to use my CNC to make the mold. I would like to cnc a master mold like we see in the video below…
Epoxy tooling board like we see above will be quite expensive at the size we need, roughly 1000mm x 120mm x 330mm OR 40in x 5in x 13in …RIP tooling board.
What else could we use that would be super cheap? XPS foam? MDF? Either one would be easy to machine and very cheap. We could coat the finished shape in epoxy and bring it up to a glossy finish.
After a little googling I realized commie California has banned XPS foam. RIP XPS. So that leaves me with MDF.
If I buy 5 pieces of this, cut length wise, stack them, and glue them we can get close enough to our desired dimensions.
Here’s an example of a MDF layup cut with a CNC. I think this method will do just fine:
The method for MFD molds with CNC machining per the interwebs looks to be rough cut, coat in epoxy thin enough to soak in, the MFD swells as it cures, then do a final finishing pass with the CNC to get our shape. It is suggested to thin the resin before application so it will soak in so we will use this mixed with some acetone:
I will try this stuff to bring our mold up to a “class A” finish (example below):
or this
My CNC bed is not large enough to cut the full 1000mm in one go. So I will cutting the mold in two sections and joining them together to make the final mold.
My cnc also does not have enough clearance in its stock setup so I will use these risers I made for a previous project.
2: Vacuum pump & consumables
For our purposes this pump should suffice:
We also need something to catch resin, for this I will diy, something like this but not so F*ing ugly…
We also need…
This diagram shows the methodology very clearly:
3: Composite fabrics & epoxy resin
Now we come to the real meat and potatoes. This part will take a lot more trial and error I feel as my exp with composites is limited I have done simple layups with fiberglass and ply wood, worked with pre made carbon fiber plates. But in both cases I was only going for rigidity. Not attempting something that has a specified flex based on payload weight (the rider).
I will update this section over the next couple days with more info on my fabric and resin selections.
