Does anyone use cork for stringer material? I have been using sande ply and cedar but I was wondering if anyone uses cork? How does it plane? Gunk up?
Why not? Interesting idea and I credit you for thinking about it. I think it was Portugal or Spain years ago where guys were making whole boards out of cork. Off course they had no other materials available back in that day. I’ll be watching this thread. Good question.
i see it couple time here and there but can’t remind exactly where… I think it’s here, someone use cork in a 3 stringer blank… I see a guy that make is stringer, for eps blank, with cork laminate both sides with fiber. For me you can use cork for same use as HD foam.
I just used cork as a deck padding material and may use it for rails, but for a stringer?
Depends what you want the stringer to do! If you want replace a wood stringer by a cork stringer, without thinking or changing the usual construction, I would not recommend it, because it is not that strength like wood, the mechanical properties are not enough.
But if you think about a stringerless board and add a stringer for optical reasons, just as a foam substitue, I think, you can do that!
I would not plane the cork, it is to soft. Particles will move and tear out of the structure, For very coarse work, you may use a rasp, but I would advoce on just sanding, coarse work with an orbital sander with low grit finer work with finer grit, Very fine work handsanding only and 200grit at least. This does not tear out tiny particles but gives all the bonded particles the wanted shape. In general it sands easily, so be carefull with orbital or similar sanders and coarse grit paper.
My next board will get cork rails, which will be protected by a final epoxy coat, cork does suck water, not much, and it redrys quickly. Cork glued upon a surface is best done using vacuum technique and abundant epoxy, which permits that there is enough glue everywhere between the surface and the cork and excess epoxy will be sucked into the cork. If not glued well, the cork sucks water and forms blisters, which are easily worn off during surf. Easily rapairable, but to be avoided if enough glue is used; as said for surface covering I recommend vaccuum…
Thanks for the comments!
I wanted to replace the cedar or sandeply I have been using for stringers with cork. I just have some cork on hand and was wondering if it would be suitable. Plus less planing.
I have made a few boards with just cutting the eps in half and using the gorilla blue line as the center to be able to lay out my dimensions. Actually seemed quite strong and wondered if I really needed the additional carbon reinforcement.
I don’t have the capacity to start vacuuming boards so I won’t be adding any cork to the deck. Maybe someday.
My high school Wood Shop teacher once told me the glue line was stronger than the wood it held together. I was glueing two pieces of Butternut together with a glue I haven’t seen since. It was a powder and we mixed it with water. When it was dry it looked a lot like the brown expanding Gorilla Glue.
Dry Powder Urea Resin AKA Plastic Resin Glue.
Still around.
https://www.dap.com/dap-products-ph/weldwood-plastic-resin-glue/
Good to know. I’m gonna get some and try it on a few things. I’m thinking someone on Sways May have mentioned this to me before. Walmart’s got tubs for about $8. Gonna give it a try to glue up a few blanks.
I think I am going to try using a cork stringer along with the DAP plastic glue Thanks McDing for bringing that up Wonder if you could add some color to it?
Unclegrumpy hope SHACC is doing well! Really amazing place!
I believe you could put pigment in it. I ordered two tubs from Walmart for about $8 each. They are one lb. each. I’ll have it next week. I’ll let you know how my experience goes. I’ve got about six 9’4’s to glue up.
Sounds good. I am going to try and source some.
I split a few blanks today.