- Reinforced with flax fabrics
- Sustainable option that does not sacrifice performance
- Winner at JEC Asia Innovation Awards, category: Sustainability
Lavender Composites supplied materials and knowledge to Archer Cork Skateboards to assist them in the research, development and production of a vibration-reducing cork composite skateboard. Traditionally, skateboards have always been made of wood or carbon composites, but Archer decided to use Amorim’s CoreCork, reinforce it with Bcomp’s Amplitex flax fabrics, and infuse it with Sicomin’s GreenPoxy.
The result is a laminate that displays a high level of vibration reduction and improved performance without the use of any traditional materials, proving there is a sustainable option that does not sacrifice performance.
From cork “spacers” to whole board from cork
The process started out with traditional hand-laid wood laminates, examining what the main performance issues were. The first and main issue was the “feel” of the ride, and how the vibrations could be suppressed. The initial test consisted in adding cork “spacers” between the deck and the “trucks”. This worked as a temporary solution for existing wooden boards, paving the way to attempt an improvement by creating the whole board from cork. The next step was to find a matrix that would perform well, but could be infused so to keep the VOC content to a minimum. The GreenPoxy was chosen as it displays one of the highest contents of bio-based ingredients.
