MATSURFERS.COM NEWS - SEPTEMBER 2019

So as we roll in to another season we can take a look at this month’s happenings in the Surfmat world. We have a fun video added to our YouTube page, fresh from the shores of Baja, an interesting approach to deck grip, a new (old) article and a prper cute dog video! The stoke is on!


JOHN ADKINS IN BAJA

San Diegan mat surfer, John Adkins, shared a fun little clip of himself in Baja in the Facebook Group and we loved it so much that we just had to ask for it to make a proiper little video.

John tells us that he was completely unaware of the So Cal surfmat scene so be sure to hit him up if you live down that way!


GRIP EXPERIMENTS FROM JERRY

Jerry Phillips sent us in an email and some photos of his experiments with gripping his new 4GF Blue Streak using a combination of Sikaflex EBT and glass micro-beads. Intersting thoughts from Jerry. It will be interesting to see how this works out in the long term.

Until now we only had the choice of Canvas decks found on 4th gear mats or polyurethane adhesive decks both have there pros and cons canvas decks don’t always have enough grip for some riders, I have never had this problem and would be happy to ride canvas deck mats but the mats themselves are not as durable as their Blue streak counterpart. Adhesive decks offer all the grip you could possibly want but the downside is they wear with use and need topping up both are not very face friendly if you do a lot of duck diving.

My new mat has a new experimental deck which uses a combination of Sikaflex EBT and glass micro beads which so far has proved more durable than just EBTand has a strange tacky feel when wet and gives tons of grip. The downside is the mat feels heavy but this was my first effort and now I would use even smaller micro beads in thinner strips. Future could be a durable grippy deck tailor made for the individual rider.
— Jerry Phillips

Here are some photos of Jerry’s handy work.

Jerry followed up with some info on a second grip job:

Thought I would not find a buyer for my second Lotus so I have given it a deck. I have used even smaller 0.07mm micro beads the advantage was I only needed a very thin EBT coat and needed a different technique to apply the beads but have ended with a grippy deck that still leaves the mat very flexible and the grip can now be waxed if you wanted.
— Jerry Phillips

For those who remember it, this looks like a similar effect to the Blue Streak mats that we did through our store in partnership with PG at the beginning of the 2010’s which were gripped with a PU sealant called Tremflex with rubber crumb added. As the sealant wore down the rubber was exposed giving grip but we moved away from this because of the weight issue and to prevent rubber beads getting in to the ocean.

Interesting work from Jerry here. Thoughts are more than welcome in the comments section.


NEW ARTICLE ADDED TO OUR MEDIA PAGE

We have just added a great article from UK based Real Surfing Magazine by Steve Griffin.

CLICK HERE for a full PDF of this excellent article.


VIDEO OF THE MONTH

Yes, we think John’s video is amazing too but you have to go a long way to beat a dog video, so a doggy mat video… Are you kidding me?!?!?

Amazing stuff! from @matman_jpn

Give him a follow. One of our favourite Instagram accounts.


As always, we welcome your feedback and contributions.

Thanks

MatSurfers.com