Is cardboard the new plastic?

[tennytive]

Now that we have a bicycle made of cardboard, how long before we're playing tennis with cardboard rackets?

What's next? Cardboard cars, boats, houses? If you buy one of these bicycles, does it ship in a cardboard box?

Lots of great possibilities for this technology, but leave rackets alone. They'd be so light we'd have to add a ton of lead or risk a tennis elbow epidemic.

I imagine the price would come way down tho… the leather grips and strings would cost more than the racket itself… heck maybe even the dampener for that matter.

If we have any design engineers among us, what's your take on this?

[El Diablo]

What's next??? Cardboard houses are hardly new, I've seen one that sells for about 30,000 dollars that's been around for a few years. Cars are less likely due to crash standards. Tennis racquets are unlikely because the thickness of the cardboard matrix required to allow enough stiffness would impair aerodynamics of the racquet.

[OHBH]

A racket made out of a very dense cardboard might not be a bad idea. It would essentially be like a wood racket but with little air pockets to decrease the density and allow modern headsizes. Though I doubt such a material could be made durable enough, perhaps if we mixed in a little graphite.

[pkshooter]

Mega troll but ill play
I think that it depends on where you draw the line, when does card become a diff substance. If you mix in graphite or carbon fiber is it no longer cardboard. How large do the perforations have to be before its just a thick as$ piece of paper.

[LeeD]

And why not? Most of a tennis racket is spacer/filler, to create the 3D necessary for stiffness and strength. Carbon is used only on the outer shell, or just inside the paint.

[tennytive]

The bike had a "secret" ingredient to make it water and fire proof, so most likely a racket would also need some kind of resin or binder for durability.

Cardboard would be the main ingredient, just like the bike.

Still think it would be wayyy too light, tho some might like that. Maybe the one hand backhand would make a comeback if rackets were light enough so kids didn't need 2 hands to swing them.

[goober]

Originally Posted by tennytive

Still think it would be wayyy too light, tho some might like that. Maybe the one hand backhand would make a comeback if rackets were light enough so kids didn't need 2 hands to swing them.

Weren't kids swinging with one hand when there were only 13-14 oz wood racquets available? If anything racquets are lighter today than previously when kids were growing up using 1HBHs.

[Vlad_C]

The Westerm imperialist block is way behind the times, as always.
In communist Eastern-Europe we had cars made of cardboard decades ago.



(Well, actually it turns out it was made of something called Duraplast, which used recycled cotton as an ingredient, but people generally believed it was made out of corrugated cardboard. Either way, it was recycled garbage. 26hp, and famous for the heavy exhaust it generated.)

[chrischris]

Bioplastics are better. You can dump them anywhere and they wont end up in your food and body as a result later.

[VaththalKuzhambu]

http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/ta...cardboard.html

[pkshooter]

i'm thinking maybe cardboard would be a good idea, if you put it as filler in a racket then they would feel more solid while maintaning light wieght

[db10s]

Braided cardboard strings.....

[db10s]

Rubber tennis rackets..... Concrete rackets.... Cardboard rackets.... this is fun....... transparent rackets (actually would be pretty cool)..... leather rackets?..... glass rackets..... AND the coolest one I could think of.... Touchscreen rackets that allow communication with coaches.

[OHBH]

Cardboard is indeed coming

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...-inventor-says