Damascus steel? No. Carbon fiber!

Written by:Emma Allison on 21/03/2015

Damascus Steel and Carbon fiber

Blade smiths in medieval Syria used a special steel ingots imported from India along tortuously long trade routes. They folded and hammered the mysterious and well guarded alloy from the Tamil Nadu into legendary blades which upon analysis reveal the presence of carbon nano-tubes. The carbon and other trace minerals such as Vanadium and Tungsten made the steel very resilient, and many present day sword smiths try to re-discover the lost process.

Recently we were commissioned a Steampunk wooden surfboard and we promised to keep you  posted with developments. 

Sparks fly as the panel is cut

The fin shown here is only partially shaped. Just to give some perspective, the panel is custom-made by C-Tech from a minimum of thirty layers of carbon fiber oriented in different directions. We completely blunted at least thirteen blades designed to cut steel while using two different jigsaws. Roy ended up using the AEG battery operated jigsaw and we were running the re-charger continuously, charging four batteries from empty as they were used. It took three hours just to cut this fin out. Every few millimeters the blade had to be cooled in water, as sparks would start to ignite the carbon dust below, and every two inches or so the blade had to be replaced. That was Thursday afternoon. We might investigate water-jet cutting in future, but needs must.

Shredded sandpaper

Yesterday we started shaping the foil. We used a rotary sander and a smaller orbital sander. Both Makita brand. There was no question of doing this by hand, each stroke needed to be repeated many times and the power tools simply do this efficiently. Heat was not so much of an issue this time. Sandpaper was changed frequently. Five hours and many shredded pieces of sandpaper later we had this shape in our hands...

Credit: Emma Allison
Roy Stuart Surfboards

Layered carbon fiber surfboard fin

Oh! The beauty.

What's even more interesting is the orientation of the different layers of Carbon fibers has given the fin a cat's eye effect similar to the chatoyance of some woods. The fin started shining like a gem as the sandpaper became finer. It was like uncovering a precious object from a rough ashler.

Check out the iridescence here.

Stay tuned for more updates on Roy's progress with the million dollar Steampunk Hotcurl surfboard