These are a few of our favorite things: Foam Cuts
Welcome back to our year end countdown of our favorite jobs. This week, we would like to take a look at projects by product type.
Symmetrix Composite Tooling does one thing very well: we bring our customers’ complex shapes to life. This is done in one of three ways: as a Pattern or Plug, as a Direct to Mold Pattern, or as a Mold. Our methods are tested and proven, and pride ourselves on matching requirements and schedules of our customers.
Every once in a while, we receive a request that simply wants to make use of our second greatest asset (behind our employees): our 5-axis CNC machine and its incredible accuracies. One job this year was looking for a long, accurate cut out of EPS foam to be fiberglassed in California. It was going to be the Worlds Largest Surfboard.
Our most popular job this year was probably one of our most simple. Surf City USA, the tourist office for Huntington Beach, California, decided to go after the Guinness World Record for the most people riding on one surfboard and for the world’s largest surfboard. Originally contacting surf board makers in their area, it quickly became apparent that this project was better served by a boat builder. Westerly Marine of Santa Ana, California, was hired and asked Symmetrix to help with cutting the foam.
The design and construction team for the board covers some great names in surfing, boat building, and design. Symmetrix’s role was simple but significant: the 42’ board, divided in half, fit easily into our 86’ 5-axis CNC machine. The cutting of the foam took less than a day, boxing it for shipping took hours, waiting for permits to be faxed took longer than expected, then it was out the door to the builders at Westerly Marine. On June 20, 2015, 66 riders surfed for 12 seconds on the 42’ long 11’ wide board and were broke the Guinness Word Record. Join Visit Huntington Beach on January 21 to relive the ride.
