Reply to Jollyhunter's Comment

Sorry for the delay Jollyhunter,

It doesn't work that well. It wasn't worth pursuing as a base material. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure that plastic's the answer. It's lightweight, but there isn't anything (that I know of) that won't scratch up like crazy. Event the UHMWPE was pretty soft. I haven't tried it, but I suspect metal would work much better, but it's so damn heavy.

What we really need is something way out there, a breakthrough in technology. I've thought about a board that puts some sort of barrier between the sand and the surface of the board. Like a hovercraft with a skirt and small fans.

I've gotten busy with college in my life, so I haven't had much time to mess around with these ideas.

I'm sorry I don't have more info for you, but good luck with your sandboarding!

Sand Flow Theories

Believe it or not, sand flow is one of the last remaining frontiers of Physics. Granular flow applies to many areas of industry other than sandboarding. On the large scale, civil engineers are interested in how landslides work, and industrial engineers are interested in how coal, gravel, and other materials behave while in motion. On the small scale, pharmaceutical companies are trying to find ways to keep powdered medications from clumping up when funneled into pills. Unfortunately, no definitive equations have been developed for granular flows. That's because sand in motion acts as part solid AND part liquid. There is a link to a NASA website about granular flow here.

As sandboarders, we are interested in how to use the properties of granular flow to our advantage. If we can understand how the board slides through the sand, we can design a faster, more maneuverable board. There are two separate properties that we are most interested in:
(1) How sand creates friction at the microscopic level
(2) How to direct the sand as a fluid under and around the board to give the rider more control

More updates on sand flow later!

Here is an electron micrograph of particles of sand:

Test Board Designs

This Thanksgiving holiday I will be making a trek to Dumont Dunes: site of the Sand Master Jam last year. The dunes there are an excellent shape for sandboarding. More like a giant pyramid of sand than a crescent dune. Also, there are plenty of flatter areas for towing behind ATV's. We're bringing two ATV's (a Honda 250EX and 400EX) and some wakeboarding tow rope. Hopefully I can bring some attention to the sport. I learned at Pismo that awareness is a problem... When I asked locals about sandboarding, they looked at me like I was crazy!

I plan on making four boards for testing. These tests will be as scientific as possible, but still incredibly fun. For reasons of financial practicality, the test boards will be made of plywood and use my current snowboard bindings. The tips will be warped to shape. Two boards will be snowboard shaped and be more flexible, the other two will be shaped more like wakeboards with convex edges. I have two running theories about sand flow which I will describe later. Now we get into the the base materials. One of each design will have a Formica base and one of each will have a UHMWPE plastic base. The formica could be called an industry standard and will serve as a control. The UHMWPE is more tricky. Its operational limits are pushed to the edge by sandboarding. I have received a sample of Crown Plastic's highest quality DuraSurf (UHMWPE), they agreed provide me with the material on the condition that I report my findings to them about how it performs on a sandboard. It is my belief that the main function of the base is to resist wear, and as long is it is polished smooth the base itself has little effect on the coefficient of friction. The true lubrication comes from the wax used on the bottom of the board. Again, for the control I will use a seeming industry standard: Dr. Dune's speed wax. After testing it on all the boards, I will scrape it off completely and use another exotic material under the brand name "Zardoz NotWax", a liquid teflon lubricant. I am also investigating other lubes.

Please! E-mail me other ideas, thoughts, criticisms by posting a comment or clicking here

Thanks,

Dylan Brown
Owner and Chief Engineer
Taklamakan Sandoards

Pismo Beach

I went to Pismo Beach last weekend and saw three other sandboarders. Actually I just saw three other sandboards, two were in the back of a couple of Jeeps and one I saw strapped to the back of a guy's ATV. I only got to talk to the guy on the ATV. He had rented a Nomad Sandboard, and wasn't impressed. Frankly I wasn't either. It had no sidecut, just straight sides with the back beveled at a 45 (which was useless), the bottom was Formica, no edges, it was WAY too small and the bindings were one-size-fits-all... which didn't fit all. The rider complained that the ride was more work than fun, and it was constantly sinking into the sand which I explained to him was probably a function of its small size (a little bigger than a skateboard). This was a potential sandboarder who will probably never try it again. In order to stay alive our sport needs to continually grow. It is unfortunate that an interested individual would have such a bad experience and be discouraged, because that negative attitude will spread to those who ask him about it. All of which could have been avoided with a litlle more time and thought put into the design of the sandboard he rode.

I also brought back an (extremely heavy) box of sand from Pismo Beach. I will analyze and compare it with sand from other dunes in the So. Cal area.

-Dylan Brown

What do you think?

What ideas do you have for a sandboard? What features should it have? How can current designs be improved upon? Tell us about your dream sandboard, and maybe we can make it a reality.

Please post COMMENTS on this post by clicking the icon at the bottom. We'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

Where do you ride?

Taklamakan Sandboards is compiling a comprehensive list of sandboarding locations worldwide. Where is your favorite place to ride? Tell us the country, location name, and give a brief description of the location by posting to the comments page. (click the icon with the thought bubble at the bottom) We will include this list in an instruction booklet with every board once we go into production.

Sandboard Design

We are currently in the R&D phase of our development

Here is a letter I posted to as many forums as I could find:

Hi everyone,

I'm in the process of designing a sandboard from the ground up. I'm an avid snowboarder in California looking to extend my season. With Pismo Beach 3 hrs north, Dumont 3 hrs east, and Glamis 3 hrs south, Los Angeles's got plenty of prime local spots. I plan on building the board in the same process as a homemade snowboard, with a composite sandwich over a wood core (some cool sites for that are: Graf Snowboards and Ski Builders ) Being inexperienced on the sand, I had some questions about different design points:


- What base material is best? I want it to be light, so metal (stainless steel mainly) is out of the question. The top candidates right now are graphite reinforced UHMWPE, Formica/Laminex, or Acrylic (plexiglass). Race Base? Don't even think about it. Venomous is paranoid about their secret formula and won't sell it separately.

-Are metal edges necessary or are they just dead weight? On the snow the edges are meant to cut into the surface like an Ice Skate. But the edges become less useful in deep powder. The sand is more like the deep powder. Would hard plastic like the UHMWPE be a good substitute for the steel rails?

-What level of stiffness is right? This can be adjusted by core profile and thickness. Should a sandboard be more or less stiff than a snowboard? My gut feeling is that it should be slightly less stiff. Not LOOSE, but more flexible.

-What should I do for bindings? It should be comfortable, but provide ample ankle support.

-Sidewall or Cap construction? The same old question that hangs in the balance in the snowboard industry. Sidewall seems simpler and more durable to me. No edge roll, no pre-cured topsheet business... But if anyone is a hell-bent supporter of cap construction please feel free to state your objections.



I'll appreciate any help I can get. Don't be afraid to tell me how completely wrong I am, and if I'm right please confirm my assumptions. Send this to any sandboarding friends you have too. If you have other suggestions send those too. I'm sending a copy of this to "Dr. Dune" as well to get his take on it. You can reach me by clicking here

Thanks so much,

Dylan Brown
Taklamakan Sandboards

The Taklamakan Desert is located in north western China. It is has some of the largest sand dunes in the world. The name is believed to be rooted in Turkic, meaning "The Desert of Death". It is more literally translated as "a place from which no man returns". This is a satellite photo:

Welcome to Taklamakan Sandboards!

Welcome to the Taklamakan Sandboards website and blog! Taklamakan Sandboards is a new sandboard manufacturer committed to maintaining a transparent structure and an open relationship with its customers. Sandboarding is at a tipping point, where snowboarding was before it went big. Snowboarding came of its own when it stopped borrowing from skiing (think hard slalom boots and swallow tails) and went out to build something distinctly perfected for snowboarding. It is my belief that sandboarding, in order to stay alive, must do the same. The sport cannot progress without more advanced sandboard designs and materials. This blog is an enormous brainstorm. We are calling on the collective knowledge of the entire sandboard community. How can we at Taklamakan make the best sandboard ever created?

Note: The picture at the right is a dune in the Badain Jaran desert, which spans from north central China to southern Mongolia. The dunes there can reach 1,600 ft! (500m!) because they are held in place by an underground water table.