2nd board experiment

General Discussion
1

Here is a spoonfish 5-5 x 18 x 22 x 17.5 x 2.5 originally to 1/8-3/16-1/4 deck through tail

1/4" vee midboard to 1/2" through fins back to a bit flatter out the back. Very turned down and ‘traditional’ rails.

After grinding out the foam everything came out way flatter, which is good considering its gonna flex and tweak.

Also the peak of the vee shifted an inch to right of center (oops). Also I pretty much freehanded the ‘spooning’ so ithe inner outline is not very symmetrical but its close enough for a prototype. I am a bit dissatisfied with the top endrail transition to the full laminate fish tails, something to work on and think about.

Heres me giving one side o the tail a extra 1/2" of rocker/vee with one hand (not sanded yet hence drips, roughness, etc)

10.75 pounds (probably be more). I started thick so theres room to sand my way down.

Just interested in feeling out some bottom turns and learning a bit before it’ll probly snap. Definitely will need some push to get it going.

Still have a couple more reinforcements on the fins to do and hoatcoat the bottom and sand it all.

Weird fins that I learned from, due to inconsistent foiling on my part between the two, one has the peak thickness midway on the leg. The other fin has it a half inch closer to the leading edge, when glassed on the result is extremely pronounced that the further up one twists better (miniscule thrust rearward), while the centered one wants to twist the blade ‘rail-to-rail’ (miniscule thrust downward from board)

Thanks very much to swaylocks and everyone for inspiration and info and Dale S. for taking the time to share some knowledge/experience.

Will let you know how she rides, looks like she’ll paddle like a submarine but I reckon I’ll learn a lot if nothing else!

edit- fin rambling- its a quad, the paddles are the leading fins (the photo is obviously not showing the right two fins). When I was rambling about the twist characteristics it was about the leading paddles- the trailers are fairly straightforward stiffos in my mind just for stability and a bit o drive. The placement is loosely based on toby choice/ romo standard quad kneeboard stuff. Dunno how long the baby paddles will last before snapping. When done they will have 5 footballs of 6 oz with 3 different fills of fin rope/twisted scrap cloth between layers.

second damn edit- Of course its a kneeboard, though I have contemplated someday surfing it standup with a narrow mid-board stance ala litmus hynd via some sort of glued inflatable deck mat bladder



2

Fantastic Job!!!

3

looks interesting. How many hours labor involved, do you estimate? I have a couple of kneeboarder buddies and I’m sure they would like to try a board like this out…

4

Probably 40-50 solid hours, and it’s not even finished.

When Mr. Gross in the resources said 100+ hours he wasnt kidding, especially with how his came out!

What I used

2 layers of 6 oz bottom, spoon it

2 layers of 6 oz top

1 more layer 6 oz rear 3/4 of deck

1 more layer 6 oz rear 5/8 deck

5 more layers rear 5/8 of deck but only covering flex center and 1/2" perimeter of inside of rail chines/nose foam.

5 more layers covering rear 1/4 (about 14 inches) out the tail.

Weight without fins or hotcoat (and very rough unsanded): 10.5 lbs

Thickness midboard: 1/8-3/16; Thickness out tail: about a 1/4" (1/2" thick at last 1/2" where glass turned upwards

Right now the balance point is a couple inches behind center.

One of those things where you’re not gonna find anyone to make you one, ‘gotta get in there and make it yourself’. I think Mr. Romanosky still makes them for 1200 bucks, to me he should charge at least twice that.

On a side note I read in the archives that Mr. Gross has the last ‘most-refined’ graphite spoon.

Imagine if he let someone like Dave Rastovich (open minded enough to try a mat, open minded enough to try a spoon??) surf that thing in perfect crisp indo…that would be cool to see the results.

Man the waves are small and crowded today.

5

Having seen Paul Gross’s spoon and built a couple myself, I’ll throw some unsolicited advice to use or discard…the tail seems too thick (about 1/8 or less for the "flexy parts beyond the pontoons. If it were mine, I’d go with a simple keel fin first before going with the quad set up. That way you’ll get a feel for how the hull works. The way you’re set up now, you might be feeling the effects of a bad fin set up and think its the hull design.

Be prepared to grind off the fins several times to get their locations dialed in. 1/8 inch off will make a HUGE difference. Don’t can’t the fins too much (if at all) cause the flex will cant them automatically.

I can’t say enough how impressed I am with your board…One last thing about flexies: if ya did it right you can thump them with your finger and you get a nice drummy thummmmmmmm sound. Just like a kettle drum. Then you know its tuned in right!

Sand on…

6

Totally appreciate your sharing of ideas, LeeV.

Unfortunately the board is incarnate in the living room awaiting some swell as I finished its first setup last night before seeing your post.

Some thoughts.

I never blame a board for anything.

Even my first board (which I think is a dog from my first wave on it and still do) I surfed for 2.5 hours when I had a better one in the car just to learn from it and keep trying to feel it out.

As random as my attempts at surfcraft are I do try to put a bit of thought into it…the lead fins have identical depth and rake to the inspiring ‘traditional’ setup. I simply cut the base chord length in half and added some rounded tip area. The cluster is spaced to the best “averaged dimensions” I experienced the parent board in the last 4-5 months of surfing point, reef, and beach surf from 8 ft at 17 sec kneelo reef to 4 at 17 point stuff (even proned it a bit) to head high windswell lowtide beachie to weak high tide mush standup. Its red-x and I’ve tryed it everywhere. Any dimensional difference between the parent board and this one I simply “split the difference”.

I know that doesn’t guarantee anything because besides the fact the tail is entirely different in shape and width, it will flex and has no buoyancy! Oh well had to choose a starting point somewhere.

I do see the realism in difficulty trying to tune a fin cluster, though. I like the simple twin keel (no toe no cant, eh?) idea just to find a basic placement, THEN split it into the quad cluster based on that. Because in the end I am convinced its hard to make up for the turning leverage and sweet spot open uppage added by toe-in and a bit o cant. (something I knew bookwise, but felt first hand going from single to twin finner on my first board, which isn’t dead yet)

Also I am confused in the true definition of ‘spoon.’

When I first saw a velo replica at the Greenough exhibit my brain immediately thought ‘spoon’ in an adjective sense… representing the bottom contour- as the hull just looked that way- much more so than the deck resembling a ‘spoon’ with it’s raised pontoon rail, flat nose to concave transition in the foam etc. The term being something specific to a displacement hull as in ‘Greenough Spoon’ .

Then I have heard that ‘spoon’ is more of a verb- as in to spoon the deck, removing foam to add flex, having nothing to do with bottom contours.

The latter is the context I used in my first post on this thread. The bottom contour of the design is downrailed and flat to slight vee like a traditional fish; my choice being this as from reading the archives and seeing the drag of a hulled out board under 7-foot is pretty impractical. Of course then could have applied an edge design to it, but as shown by my first board experiment I don’t know how to make a edge board work impressively. The simplicity of the lis fish made sense right now, with flex added out of curiosity.

Maybe a better term for the board would be ‘flex-fish’.

Thanks again for sharing knowledge. If nothing else 'twill be a interesting couple of years tweaking and tuning this thing and any offspring.

edit- I agree on the tail thickness being excessive, my thoughts (or are they pschological justifications lol) is the fish tail obviously splits it in two, reducing cross-section area and increasing flex from a traditional trash-can lid greenough tail. I’m sure I will end up sanding it down. I am also stoked with the feel and sound of the lam midboard…sounds like me 16x16 gretsch mahog flr tom with blue hydros on it heh just kidding…so anxious to feel it twist tweak and conform to the wave…

7

i am extremely stoked with my first session on the board.

I waited and got some really good shaped hollow shorebreak on it. (the kind where one out of every 3 waves is a tight little head-dip, and 1 out of every 8 waves is a full on drive through little tube with the foam on your ass and the lip hitting the bottom in your view…)

Just paddling out and feeling the neutral handling was an awesome experience

It planes in fine with the udts- u need to be focused and kick in at the right spot with commitment- due to its lack of float/strange sunk tail nose high balance while dead-in-the-water. It is sluggish on the drop in and through the first bottom turn, but once it passes that upswing threshold and ur high on the face about to release the outside handpull from torquing the rail it friggin takes off on that drive- weight=momentum to drive through anything, I am serious about this…

observations…

strengths:

handling in the pocket/tube is awesome better than any traditional bouyant boards I have ever felt. I am serious. Think about submerging a traditonal board (still-in-the-water). It schizoes to get to that surface. all that float. With this you can sink it gently with one hand and it lazily finds its way to surface.

There was one shoulder high shallow good wave that I dropped in, bottom turned (still kinda slow, board loading up)then instead of driving that accererant line off the top, I pulled the outside rail midface even more (the drag drifting me HIGH on the wave face), leaned back, and just sat in the friggin tube with my head an inch from the waveface. You could FEEL the board just flexing to wave anomalies and the tail drifting here and there but overall holding completely controlled on the foam. To drive out I simply released the outside rail leaned forward and shot out to a cuttie/eat crap right onto the sand. Any other board I have done that with I would’ve got sucked over/wrecked/nosed it/tail slide-out/whatever

Duckdives deeper smoothly through situations where on any other board you would be annihilated and spun around/sucked over/pinned to the snad with your board/etc

Neutral observations:

Inbetween sets you sit on the nose to balance and you’re up to your neck!

Strange looks from everyone.

Slight fear of breaking it overcome by stoke to feel how it does on different waves

Weaknesses:

No initial rocker/not too good at no-paddle takeoffs/late-entries equals nosediving if not careful.

You get tired.

Your knees take a beating

Very slow/sluggish feeling initial drop and first 3/4’s of bottom turn.

If you have good speed and go for a full rail bottom turn or cutback there is a threshold you pass where the board goes from smooth transition to jumps lightning fast 90 degrees onto a rail and you can dig it or lose all your speed if it is not timed to end at the correct spot in the wave.

Future changes?? Thin the tail to increase quickness/response/reduce weight, compensate with a bit more hull to smooth full-rail transition??

Couple years down the road move onto carbon fiber/resin-research/vaccuum bagging to minimize weight/maximize strength.

Experiment with inflatable bladders someday for standup variations.

The fin setup feels as good my ‘traditional’ setup. Research cleaner foiling?? My thoughts were all fins the thickest part at mid-point, thin overall, a la speed liddle foil, let the cant-toe-in do the lift and paddle twist on the leads help the squirt. stiff wide base trailers to sort it all out for drive pretty simple. Probly still go keel setup to feel the difference someday…

Approaching this project realistically in the beginning I did not expect to have as much fun/surf the way I wanted to on my first go out…must’ve been the waves…damn place only gets like that a half dozen times a year that I’ve noticed (spitters up and down the beach every 5 minutes) stoked

hey keith tell your buddies they should make themselves one with the right attitude it is an awesome experience.

thanks guys for the help/ideas

run

8

Your post brought back some memories! Flexies are a bit slow on the take-off anyway but the multi-fin setup may be dragging it even more. Mine always took a turn to get up to speed too. You can feel every warble and ripple. Try spreading your knees and shins apart, you’ll feel the difference with a little speedier take-off but you’ll have to use your hands on the rail more when you turn.

I used to hold it out infront of me on the take off (like a kick board) or maybe use one arm for stroking…you’ll get used to it and it won’t tire you out so much.

On your next go-out, try moving your hand position fore and aft when you turn. You should find that you can vary the “drive” just by adjusting where you twist the hull. That’s probably why G.G. is so happy with mats…infinitely adjustable.

You did good!!!

9

Run,

Man ,that thing is so cool. I am going to build one someday, even if I never ride it(yeah right…). Keep us informed of the progress and riding observations. Although a 100+ hours does put a little intimidation in the equation, I am going to make one. Good job , keep us informed…peace and waves…

Sean W.

10

current incarnation, thinned tail to 3/16-1/8, drill stop and relief cut in trailer fins to cease noticeable birth of spidercracks and nurture flex…ahh if we only had some waves…this fall will be fun…still only surfed it that once so far…really need to improve on transitioning rail shape into the last 12-18" of boards edge…


11

great test waves wednesday finally for the boards 3rd session.

Very nice forsight Lee V. on the toe and cant being excessive…from what I can feel I am fairly stoked on the position but sometimes it cuts too tight an arc and lacks drive. For example you can pivotty snap a la standup contemporary shortboard…but in the light floaty standup scenario you can recover (speed) virtually instantaneously through 1 or 2 pumps and/or a little bottom turn where with this it takes effort to build speed again. Or compared to a mat if you do that top-turn at the top you stall a bit…but then it accelerates immediately on its own again.

So my next change will be to reduce the lead paddles toe to 1/16" and the trailers to virtually nothing…maybe the current toe would be ok traditional wide base templates, but the paddles work out their own toe so might as well start small…hopefully will draw out the turns/more drive/build speed faster. The main reason I want to stay with the quad with narrow bases is to minimize the flex restriction/contact area with the board.

The board is too heavy…takes 3 good turns to really start going, the feel is cool once up to speed, and with every top to bottom upping the speed and inertia it feels that I havent even gotten close to top speed, but it just takes too good a wave and too many turns to get it going…the waves were good but not as hollow as they needed to be. By no means is it more funcitonal/faster more maneuverable than current pinnacle standup shortboard designs…but thats apples and oranges…its still a very different, challenging, and fun experience.

So more refining this poly version with:

reduced toe-cant

sand thinner…reduce weight increase flex

eventually experiment with single to double concaves as the vee is passively variable and a result of laminate thickness (??)

The future will also split into a carbon epoxy version with no more than 8 layers of 4.8 oz at its thickest, including only one overall bottom layer and one overall deck layer

The main goal on this approach is to reduce the weight in half or less. I will also need less float so can reduce the foam volume in the nose.

I will put a bit more belly in the nose/front third also as it still likes to dive like a submarine if I’m not careful.

Its obvious this has all been found out by people long ago…I just need the practice along the way…and its good to feel it for yourself to truly try to understand…have contemplated someday separating the deck from the bottom so the wave may have its way with the bottom contours; while with a bit of foam for rigidity and float, I’m on the deck just pointing it into the right spots on the wave…hopefully someday.

edit- redundancy/inaccuracy in a sentence

12

run,

i’m really just starting out, i’ve never made any fins before, but i like the ones that you’ve shown here. i have an interesting idea, i think:

in the aug 2004 issue of scientific american there is an article on page 19 that discusses the hydrodynamic advantages of scaloped fins - think of a serated knife.

as much as 32% less drag and withstand stall up to 40% more than a similar fin without the serated edges.

i want to try and make some fins like this, but don’t know how. can you briefly explain how you go about making your fins?

these types of fins might also help your board with initial speed.

ps that board looks amazing!

13

rmd i saw that u got some good advice/suggestions regarding making fins from other fellows here so right on! yep interesting stuff but beyond my comprehension at the moment. good luck with your experiments and let everyone know how they come out!

Ok before my last session (which had a mix of good test waves and absolutely worthless inbetweeners that had me shaking my head at myself for taking some) on it I set the lead fins toe to nothing and the cant to nothing, and took about a pound of material off…mostly on the horrendous overly thick original last 2 feet of the board…lots of that weight was also eliminated thru sorting out the 'shifted vee peak" (evening out the bottom) and putting in a very very subtle single to double concave in the bottom. what a difference, very noticable

increase in drive thru turns…but with the neutral tail can still rip fins loose if desired!

increase in feel/response/snappyness

increase in glide/trim speed

what i am thinking so far: with those fins u dont need any toe or cant. with solid pressure on them to their “stress audible faint crack point” they fall right into about a 1/4" toe and some healthy (i.e. consistent with paradigm rail fin cant on modern shortboard) looking cant, while goin back to pretty much dead straight for minimum drag on the downdrive/glide/trim whatever.

Right now because of either 1. my ignorance of proper fin foiling. or 2. Maybe that experiment where someone switched the rail fins on a thruster and found it surprisingly controllable still…if its not a single fin and u are approaching it rail to rail outer fin style then cant and toe make foiling relatively insignificant??? at least in terms of what produces a more significant difference in feel.

this seems to fit greenoughs whole ideas of flexibilites/variabilities shaped by the wave itself??

also I was and am still waaaay too thick and heavy

i am pretty much done with this board…gonna go aggro and REALLY thin it out and try to kill weight…have material on order for bladder but that is a whole nother set of hurdles/learning to accomplish.

refined outline for the carb/epox version tonight…going for (yes redundant from older posts but been thinkin deep on it)

lightest weight possible

more evenly foiled board/thinner less foam overall especially in nose to reduce swing weight

as radical as can be (and still be cleanly-foiled/transitioned-into-a-downrailed-single to double concave-flat exit board) hulled front third/more rocker in front third to make more friendly on late drops

no toe-in no cant on lead paddles

1/16" toe on trailers/just the faintest cunt hair of cant on trailers

one inch narrower nose- same reason as hulling it

1-2" wider fish tip to tip basically to stiffen speed up the business end

this will be just another test board

no mold yet but i contemplated it…damn stuff is expensive per gallon…will post pics when progress is made thanks again all sorry i ramble bye for now

edit- dont get me wrong, even with the improvements on the poly board it is still unacceptable/too slow UNLESS in a hollow/pushy pocket or after a couple well timed top to bottoms, but the range is opening up a bit and it is an invaluable learning tool if nothing else.

14

hi Run !

just wondering what the update is on this board, and your future version ?

       cheers mate ! 



           ben

ps - a friend of mine is still thinking of making one.

15

got about half a dozen tubes (hard offshore long period firing beachie) that made my first session look like nothing at all…drop fade bottom turn go go go till the end. Some people got out and just watched me surf the damn thing…the thing drives when the waves are firing. Dream waves.

Greatest benefit to me is the neutral handling…still leashless kneeloing it is closer to bodysurfing than bodyboarding which is a strange but true concept. Ride it to the end sometimes you go over and lose it washes 20 ft in but it stays close; but mostly when the foam gets u it absorbs u and come through the back peacefully unscathed, even in some pretty pitching tubes…

staying low fast and flexy u can really work it. Lefts are sweet, a carry over from frontside goofy standup days…the rights feel less natural and require more focus/luck.

finally got remotivated after a partial epoxy lam failure and layed a carbon fin panel…more to come

16

that’s what I like to hear …thanks, ‘Run’ !!

I can’t wait to hear/see the carbon fin panel, before and after cutout/ foiling [hint hint!]

   'chip'