2.5 lb EPS stringerless shaped...

General Discussion
1

… now what. The blank/board in question has had a few different destinies in my mind. Originally, I was planning on doing balsa perimeter stringers. I ended up deciding against that for a number of reasons, eagerness to get it in the water being one of them.

I’m not really sure where to go from here and would appreciate suggestions. Again, I used a 2.5 lb density Bull blank. The board is 21 inches wide and 6’2’’ inches long. The planshape is inspired by a mid eighties thruster.

Foil and rocker is modern. It is 2 3/8’’ thick at max foil (center). The tail is wide and slim, 17’’ at one foot up and probably 1 1/2 inches thick. Nose rocker is 5 1/2 and tail rocker is right at 2’'.

The board is sans stringer. I want to be as light as possible as the board will be for grovel.

My desired plan at this point is to vacuum balsa 1/16 ‘’ to the deck with 4oz under. Then, lam bottom with 4 oz and then the deck with 4oz.

What do people think of this plan? Will I need a rocker ‘table’ when vaccing the balsa if I only use 6 hg? Does anyone foresee durability problems with this lam schedule? Basically, this will be a sandwich deck with regular rails and bottom–like one of craftee’s earlier boards–except that one had a stringer I think.

Any other suggestions instead or in addition? Maybe just glass 4, double 4?

Oh, and the board is for personal use of course.

hunter

2

Here are the pics with a few corrections:

Board is 6’2’’ x 21’’ x 2 1/4’‘. Tail width is a little under 17’'. Bottom is mild single to double. Gonna go with the quad set up. Mas to come.

Halcyon, bout ready to talk bout some fins. I’ve tried to implement your input. Thanks again.

3

Hola,

Bad idea vacuum bagging that stringerless stick without usunig a rocker table or a contrascoop or someting that would hold the board on its actual shape.

I’ll give you another way:

A solid full cloth inlay between 2x4oz fibreglass layers, both deck and bottom.

No need of vacuum. Just traditional way.

That’s what I did on my 9’2" stringerless supertanker (30kg/m3 density EPS) and it works OK after 17 months.

Neira’s supertanker

4

My desired plan at this point is to vacuum balsa 1/16 ‘’ to the deck with 4oz under. Then, lam bottom with 4 oz and then the deck with 4oz.

What do people think of this plan?

You could go there. You could also go 6/4 or 4/4 deck with foot patches. Balsa can get water intrusion.

4 bottom seems a bit too light…youll need some fin reinf there.

Nice little shop.

5

I think the glass sched. is good. Don’t foresee any problems with the vac tweaking your blank. Sure you’ll be right there babysitting it for a few minutes anyway. I’d have some weights on hand just in case.

Is that your shaping bay? Nice digs.

Quad fin set up; is that McKee style, Canard, or 80’s style? I’d be leaning real hard towards the Canards after riding that Rainbow. Fast as something really fast going fast.

Fin system? I’m guessing Epoxy resin? Is Bull EPS?

WM

6

With no stringer you’ll need something to stiffen it up. A lot of people use triple layers of glass. Useing a sandwhich is going to give you your best stiffness to weight ratio. 1/8" Pvc foam will be a lot easier than balsa. If you vac something flat (sandwhich material) onto the deck of a board with no stringer it is going to to flatten out the rocker to some extent. With PVC you can heat form it to the board to help stop this. Glassing the bottom first will help too, rocker table is going to give you what you shaped. I would glass heavier on the bottom as well. If youre not worried about experimenting and failure then go for it super light and see for yourself, but convention would be a much heavier glass schedule.

7

I bag balsa on all my 2# blanks with no stringer or rocker table.

Just don’t use more vac pressure than you need. If the bag is tight & the balsa is laid down smooth at 8" Hg, why go to 14? Weights can help, so can straps that go down & around your stands. But I use those to add or subtract rocker from the blank, not maintain what was already there. Just don’t go overboard with the pressure & whatever’s there will be fine.

8

I’m pretty confounded as to how I should proceed at this point.

The shaping bay is not mine. A super cool local shaper was kind enough to allow us to use it after I threatened him with legal action. This gets me thinking though. WM, maybe me and you and another local swaylocker could find a climate controlled storage area and set up shop in there. That’s what I used to do with my death metal band (hehe). That way we could keep all the nasties away from our respective families. His set up is bad ass though. All sorts of great tools/blocks/screens etc right at the fingertips/ and lighting makes such a difference. There are still some bumps, but fewer than usual.

I’m going to set this up as a quad with glass ons. I’m making some fins out of balsa plywood that I laid up last night. The quad placement will be based on the following comment as I can’t seem to find anything I like better–

Rusty Preisendorfer says… “I have enjoyed a lot of success with Quads in the last 18 months. They go well in a variety of conditions. Even if you were to take a tri fin Shape you like and set it up as a quad I think you would be pleasantly surprised. If you normally put your fins at 11 and 3.25, here’s how to set up the quad: keep the front ones in the same position. Half the distance to the tail is 5.5²…your rear fin on a tri is 3.25…split that distance…half way between 3.25 and 5.5…at 4.375…also move them away from the rail…about 2” seems to be a good place. All my fins point 2" off the nose so the back fins would be almost parallel to the stringer. The cant on the back fins: straight up and down for more drive…more cant for more lift and easier turn initiation. The placement isn’t set in stone…think of taking a tri fin and splitting the back fin in half. Keep the two halves back and close together for more drive…as you spread them apart and move them up the board becomes looser with more lift but drive and back foot control starts to diminish."

Benny–I’ve only been pulling 5 or 6 hg and that seems fine for the 1/16 thick stuff.

9

Good hit!

Wrt rocker beds…lets go the “el cheapo” route…lay your blank on the floor deck side up, with scrap wood blocks, support the two ends, tail and nose, mark the placement and secure the wood blocks in place with tape. Badabing! cheap easy rocker bed.

10

I need to order more resin to do this board and I’m debating between 2000 and 2020. Because the stringerless blank will flex more, I’m inclined to match this with a more flexible resin–hence my current plan to order 2020.

Thoughts?

11

I woulda thought the opposite–it would be good to know whether the flex in the flexible modulus epoxy is there to keep it from failing when used on a flexy blank or for a more “recreational” incorporation of flex–which is actually a question I had, since I have a couple of shaped blanks waiting for RR glassing.

Anyone know whether the less flexible RR epoxy is more prone to snappage given board flex? And what modulus resin/glass schedule should be on a stringerless 2# EPS like the boys’s’s’s?

Is Mr Loehr in the room?

12

Here are pics of the board post-glassing. I’ll go into greater detail on this guy in a few weeks on the hoharlabs site (not that anyone gives a … hehe).

13

Nice!

14

Well, I’ve had a chance to ride this board a bit and experimented with the fins alot. During the entire design and construction process I had a dialogue going with halcyon in re fins, outline, bottom contour, rails, rocker. I incorporated many of his suggestions and remained stubborn in other areas.

I’ve come to really like this board over the last few months. The wide tail is a little weird at first and the board really resisted direction changes and getting on rail when used in conjunction with stock fcs templates.

I tried all M5s, PC5 front with PC3 rear, H2 medium front with PC# rear, PC5 front with GX rear, H2 medium front with GX rear, and the list goes on. Each combo created a somewhat new board, but each one had quirks… sticky feelings, weird disengaged feelings and resistence to rail turning (this was more the case when I used all the same sized fins).

Then I got these in the mail…

http://www.hoharlabs.com/sans_07.htm

I swear I’m not jerking around or exaggerating… the board goes 100% better than with any of the other fin combos I tried. Amazing that a set of fins can turn an OK board into something really special. The board is a carving machine now. No problems or resistance to rail turns, easy speed generation, just a super fun small wave (chest and under) board.

15

Really nice looking board and those fins are way cool. Your early observations about not being able to go on rail match my limited experience with wide, fish style boards. I only weigh 155 so I have to surf wide boards flat (the skimming dish). That’s ok sometimes but I like to put ot over when I can. Never thought fins would help. I just thought it was a question of width.

Why did you abandon the balsa, vac bag idea?

16

I abandoned the balsa vac bag plan due to fears about tweaking the rocker as well as anxiety to get this in the water. I have several other balsa vac bag projects in varying stages of completion right now though.

Interestingly, with the double 6 S cloth top and bottom and 2.5 lb core–there is no noticeable flex going on. It doesn’t necessarily feel stiff–just feels like a surfboard. It weighs about 6 lbs.

17

I like the foil on that board. Nice rails.

Those Halcyon fins are a work of art. Always nice to see more of his work.

I’ve been riding some stringerless boards for a while and am finding that with the extra glass to stiffen them up they feel better if you make them thinner than normal. Almost extreme by normal standards.

Does “the Sans” have a concave deck by chance? Kinda looks that way from the deck shots but it could just be the dirty wax playing tricks.

18

How are theboyz?

What a wonderfully thorough presentation of your board and the process gone through to create it. It’s good to know that our exchange brought forth some valuable performance features. I glad that the fin set-up I made for you compliments the stick. I hope you have many grand sessions on her. I’ll put your feedback in my archives for future reference mate. The board looks as though you can carve up the face of the wave and come off the bottom in a fairly vertical pattern. I think the fins will give you plenty of engagement or release in those critical moments.

How does the board trim out? ~ feel much fin drag compared to the other set-ups you’ve run?

Good-on-ya, Rich

19

Boy, Boyz, you have done really well with that one. I, too, am a big proponent of stringerless 2 pound EPS. I’ve built a few and thought them very worthy.

And of course, those fins. I have a similar pair of twins that Rich shaped for me. They just light up the board.

What is your conclusion about the limits of stringerless?

20

Thanks guys.

The deck is very slightly domed. No concave on this one. It must be that tricky dirty wax.

Rich… I’m really sold on the need to pair fins and board together. You are right in observing the the board has some vert capacity. I’m not a particularly vertically oriented surfer (i.e. I’m not very good at it and it’s often hard to do in small soft waves). However, I’ve had occassion on this board to come off the bottom and gouge the top with some authority, or at least that’s how I felt. I saw Widowmaker doing some nioce vert style turns on it as well.

My favorite thing that the board does, and my favorite manuever in surfing, is a nice round, engaged cutback. I’m getting more and more confident with the board. I also managed to do a pretty large backside floater, which has been something I’ve always struggled with.

In trim the board seems to want to pull back to the pocket. I attribute this to the tail rocker. The board is really fast when pumped. In comparison to the fcs foils and templates I’ve tried, I don’t feel fin drag with the ques. Not to blow sunshine or anything, but the fins make the board. On a scale of 10 its gone from 5 to 8 with the ques I’d say.

I incidentally tried the lead fins in my firewire the other day. The waves were crap but the board felt good… maybe a little too much fin though.

Greg:

Limitations of stringerless:

well, during the shaping phase, it was a pain to keep shooting a chalk line for reference points and rocker measurement. On the other hand, we didn’t need to screw around with the finishing in the stringer area.

Because of no stringer, it was glassed Extra heavy. The board still came out a very reasonable weight though. I also feel it’s probably overbuilt. It would be interesting to see how a lighter lam schedule plays out. This is acually something rich and I discussed quite a bit.

I can’t imagine durability will be an issue for stringerless at this length. It’s funny though, becuase lots of people look at it and think its a TL2.

It certainly doesn’t flex noticeably or anything like that. I feel that the limitations may become more apparent as lighter lam schedules are explored.

Actually, I had another one of these blanks custom made but sold it to Figure 8 of project frog fame. When he shapes it I will mislead him into glassing it light and being out guineau pig, eh.

thanks for the compliments guys.