Well my project is to glue together these sheets, and I guess do like other people have done and post along the way. So far, I got my foam almost all glued together, made my template, made my stringer template, now just need to find some stuff for the stringer. Heres a picture of where im at so far, and I’ll try to take more along the way. I used tacky glue to hold the foam together, and seems to be working well so far, but ill have to see. Im also allowing a day for glue to dry.
yup…looks like the embryonic stage of a EPS surfboard to me…
Yewaha! You’re havin some fun now!
Light touch on the shaping…just like butter.
Had my original “$143”/$14 blank board out this morning. Still handles full-bore, hard-on-the-heels, backside, head-high bottom turns like a dream.
Too much fun. Who needs Clark anyway!
Merry Christmas.
well today I cut the foam in half that I had glued and traced on my template. Still need to go get my wood for my stringer, and then glue that in, and after that hopefully get my outline cut out by the end of the day. Any recomendations to glue the stringer wtih? Five minute epoxy or just tacky glue like I have used for the rest of it? Here are some of the before pictures I whithout the template on them…
and the third one is for fun, just something I made messing around with photoshop.
Regular white or yellow glue has been fine for me. 5 minute epoxy wouldn’t give you the time you needed. 90 minute would, but at that point its probably cheaper to mix up a batch of laminating epoxy.
Heres what ive done so far today, I cut out my outline to conserve tape when I glue in the stringer, but I haven’t trued it up yet so it still looks a little off, and I also cut my stringer and messed with that. Its not the best looking, but I think it will work. I ended up using some pine panneling that comes in eight foot sections, and cut the last foot and a half off one and stuck it next to the side so I had a four inch peice and an eight inch peice on the end, and it worked great. I tried a break test with an extra peice and the wood gave before the glue, so I think its good.
Got the stringer glued… Going faster than I expected.
Benny did you glue in rocker? If you did did you use a rocker table to do it, or did you just cut it out of your foam with hotwire equiptment?
finished shaping… EPS is so soft… I kinda went off a few times wiht my outline so its not quite semetrical, but I didn’t wnt to keep trying to make it better because I figured id end up with something a half inch thick and ten inches wide, and it still would be just as bad.
pictures attached…
What did you shape it with?
Are you sure that you are finished shaping?
aww post got deleted… anyway, I used a belt sander to get the rough shape from the block and get thicknesses right, then went on to a 60 grit sanding sponge to smooth out everything from using the belt sander and got the shape as good as I could then, then went back to the belt sander on the rails, sanding sponge again, then 120 grit sanding sponge to smooth everyting over, sanding block to make sure stuff was flat and everything good like that, then 120 sanding screen to finish.
I went back and did some more after analysing the pictures and decided that I could probally do a better job without killing it too much, and its slightly better now, but still not perfect but im fine with that.
The next one will be better.
It’s a good start, but I’d stay away from a belt sander. The power planer, even if it’s a Harbor Freight cheepy is by far the best way too go. Then once you got the basic shape done you can do some finish work with 2x4x12 sanding blocks, If you got to use soft sanding pads make sure they are as big as a full sheet of sand paper. I wouldn’t recommend sanding shape with anything less than a full sheet of sand paper, those soft sanding pads are bad news.
-Jay
Good on ya deathfrog! I’m planning my eps too.
Hi Josh !
Where will you get your 'E.P.S. from ?
What size sheets [width and thickness] do the sheets come in on the east coast ?
It seems like the Americans have to glue two sheets together with their ‘home depot’ stuff yeah ? [to get anywhere near the thickness needed for rocker ?]
…will YOU have to do the same ?
Hopefully one long sheet, rather than patchwork pieces, would make it a bit easier [ ? stronger ?] for your board …
[ The stuff I have will be a good size for HEAPS of sets of fins !]
One question for the people who have made these 'home depot' eps boards....
Have any of you had them as long as , say, three years ?
If so, are the decks ‘depressed’ / dimpled heavily now ? [I’m just curious how durable they really are, is all.]
And, how well have the bottoms [and fins] lasted ?
thanks for your help !
ben
I’d contemplate making one if I knew it would last at least a few years.
Thanks for the advice resinhead, I was just using what was avaibile to me at the time but ill try other things next time(also didn’t have all that much money at the time, so I couldn’t get many new tools). I actually went back and looked at my template and that was slightly wiggly, then I transfered onto something where it wasn’t completley touching most of the time, and never really trued it up much after cutting it out, and I think thats where my main problems have started.
How much epoxy is going to be needed for this? I was planning on doing a 4x6 deck and a 6 bottom, and have a quart of epoxy. From what I hear this will work, but im not sure.
Thanks for the input from everyone!
Deathfrog,
I was at the same point too, I was scratching out boards with a 6 inch surform and a drywall saw. I still have board number one in the rafters some place, and I still love it too. I’m glad your going to tackle the glassing thing too. There’s a lot of guys that will only shape boards, and for some reason either it be, toxic stuff, mess, or shear terror of glassing, won’t try it. I’ve heard of guys taking shaped blank to a glass shop and spending $425.00 to get it glassed. When you can do the whole deal you’ll really feel like you made a board nuts to bolts. Keep it up.
-Jay
Deathfrog - fun, isn’t it?
I glued up the ‘blanks’ flat, then bent my rocker in when I glued in the stringer. Looks like you did the same.
You’re going to need another quart of resin + the hardener and some more glass. At least triple 6 top & double 6 bottom.
Chip, I’ve only had my first ‘$14 blank’ board since August or so; its been out probably 25 times. Its showing some fatigue along the stringer on the bottom. It looks like the resin bonded really well with the plywood stringer and slightly less well with the foam and now the stringer reads like a very slightly dimpled line up the bottom. But no cracks or delams yet. The deck feels soft under my back foot when I step back & do a drop-knee turn, and I expect the foam will eventually lose its memory there & fail… but right now (aside from my time) the board’s cost me less than $6/surf so I’d do it again.
Now I’m not even trying to baby it, just pushing it into anything I feel like, sort of even trying to discover a failure. If I get 40 surfs total out of a $143 board, I’ll be perfectly happy with that…and then I’ll get to make another. I’ve got some design tweaks of course, and (thanks to Bert, Sabs, Mr J et al) I’ll know how to make the next one last for 80 surfs and the one after that for 160…etc.
Well worth the personal r&d costs, to me. Plus, its fun!
Benny, well if I need more glass it looks like im in a prediciment… I just ordered something like five yards of six ounce, and three of four, so what if I put all the extra into a deck patch?
The board is (don’t know if I allready have listed dimensions…) 6’2x19" so I was hoping to get some extra off what I have ordered…
At least im not doind this blind, thanks for all the help so far.
Annd… I have a a quart of resin, and a little thinggy ( a fifth of a quart apperently because its a 5:1 ratio and that was the appropreate match) of harderner, and I read that was supposed to be enough for a 4x6x6, but I might need more now because im doing the patches…
Ill work something out, and I also had a question about my fins. I made some wood fins earlier, that need glassing but not sure what to glass them with, I was thinking using my extras from my board again, (but that might limit my patch) and do like two layers of 4 on the fins themselves, then use six ounce for the football thinggys that go up the sides when your actually glassing teh fins on themselves. If this won’t work can someone tell me something that will?
You’ll have plenty of glass for the fins, no matter what glassing you do. When you cut the rectangular cloth to the shape of a surfboard, the cut-off corners are always more than enough for the fins.
With 5 yards of 6 oz and 3 yards of 4 oz, I’d go all 6oz on the deck, 2 full pieces and the biggest patch you can get out of the rest. Start the patch at the tail and hopefully it’ll be long enough to get up under your front foot. If not, you can use some of the corner off-cut material to make a stomp patch and 2 spots for your hands on pop-ups, as those are the real impact places. All the glass will disappear in the resin, so even if your patches are strange shapes under the whole lam layers, they won’t be visible.
Use the 4 oz on the bottom, one piece cut to 3" bigger than your shape all around to wrap the rails and then cut the rest to the shape of the board just to the rail line, starting at the tail and up as far as it goes with the cloth you have. Then, obviously, the smaller pieces go under the top/rail wrap pieces with you lam.
Make sure your lams are as dry as you can get them. Push the resin around the glass with a light, slow touch, so it doesn’t foam. Mix small amounts and you can always mix more.
You can glass on the fin with anything you want. I just use - both to make fins & to glass them on - whatever came off the laminating glass. One small football & a larger one on top is good. You can make rope for your fillet by pulling apart cloth. That goes under the football, all around the fin. You can also make triangles instead of footballs, if you think your fin might be too flexible without them - that helps stiffen it up a lot.
Have fun!
ok, so put one layer of four on the bottom, and lap the rails with three inches hanging off the board, and cut the two layers of six on top just to the rails. But before I do the deck I get all the extra and put it between the layers and try to get a patch long enough to get under my front foot, and then get some of the scraps and put them where my front foto goes as a stomp pad, and where I use the rails to pop up. And when im doing my laminating, I need to squegee out as much resin as posible.
and then I put my fins on before hot coat and after lamination, right?
And my patches and stuff can be odd shapes because the resin makes them invisible. Thanks alot for helping me get all this right, and ill let you know how it goes when I get my cloth.
