Annie Hill wrote:

I've always thought, myself, that it's the resin, rather than the glass, that used more finite resources and had the major carbon footprint.

Annie,
you could be right, but I am not so sure. Producing glass itself takes quite some energy per kilo, as it has to be heated up to over 1500°C. I don’t know the weight ratio of fibre to resin, but with today’s vacuum-bagging, there may well be more fibre than resin in the finished product.

Btw. the use of organic fibres for such jobs is not new. The body of the East-German car, Trabant, was for decades made from cotton-fibre reinforced Bakelite.

There is nothing new under the sun...

Arne

Flax fibre is used by small scale surfboard and ski manufacturers, along with 'bio' resin.

(if interested in Skiing, check out Lonely Mountain Skis in Scotland)

Easy composites in UK sell woven flax, about 5x ££ of glass.

cheers

Mark

ps google flaxcat and you get non-clumping cat litter, not so good for reinforcement!

Bonjour

there is expertise building on the subject for years on south Britanny around "l'université de Bretagne sud" at Lorient.

They already built a mini 6.50 (50% carbon 50% flax) racer, kayack and a trimaran dayboat (out of a standard glass mold). There are already industrial productions of boards (surf, standing paddles...). The prices are estimated to be 10% higher. The infusion process is different but not more complicated than with glass.

The market should be mainly for cars, airplanes and windmills. R&D is conducted at European level. 

http://www-limatb.univ-ubs.fr/le-lin-technique-pour-composites-une-filiere-en-mouvement--371318.kjsp?RH=presentation_limatb

http://www.notox.fr/

http://www.sicomin.com/products

Eric