ive just shaped a new board (no.3 ish) and due to the bloak of foam i had (eps,and only about $15 so cant complain) i couldnt get quite the rocker i wanted, its close but would like to add just about a inch or so extra in the nose if posable as at the moment it just doesnt look quite right. Im sure it not a perfect thing to be doing but its a lesson learned and would just like to see if there was a way to over it on this one.
Other than a full vacume bag and rocker table has anyone got any sugestions, the only idea i came up with is to some how weight it down using something that has a very small point of contact with the wet glass, or maybe to glass a thin strip down the center first along the stringer line but im not sure wether it would just crease when i take the weights off it or lastly cut it in half and glue in a stringer but id realy prefure not to do that.
if any one has any sugestions or has done it before it would be of great help
I had to do that once, I kept the board on my glassing rack, glassed it normally, then put some plastic over it and used a strap to pull the tail down to the rocker I wanted, since i was glassing the bottom first.
The best non vacuum way is to hot wire the exact rocker you want in the blank, then glass…
Your second choice is to use a rockered strong back and vacuum the board down to that…
The third choice being a full on rocker table vacuum set up like I use…
If you’re not going rocker table, Hot wired rockers are the norm…
In your case you could weigh the foam down to a rocker stick or “strong back” But you have to shape/construct the strong back in the first place…
Hot wired rockers with strongback vacuum assist are high tech norms…
If you want to tweak the nose or tail rocker you can do so with shims. clamps, rocker sticks etc… Tapered shims added to a vacuum rocker table setting are fine and are used to over curve rocker tabled nose and tail curves,
Get a couple of light weight objects and practice placing them on the nose and, or tail to adjust the rocker accordingly. Then glass the board and place the weights on the laminate with some type of peel-ply. Doing it this way isn’t high-tech but will work well enough. Make sure you give the laminate plenty of time to cure, and expect a little bit of relaxing. Take note that for some reason when rockers are added they tend to add concave to the bottom, and relaxing rockers add belly.
[img_assist|nid=1063787|title=In the bag|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=558|height=317]In the vacuum bag. Note that one side of the strut has bottom rocker, the other side has deck rocker.
know i’m pulling this one out of the dead thread chamber, but i’d finally uploaded some pics and i’m looking for threads to fit them. this is my bend-in rocker “quarter pipe.” this one was meant for nose on a zero tail minisimm blank, but it would be a nice tail kicker on an HPSB as well. hot wired eps sheet with the templates used for the cut permanently joined. wired face is glassed and then cork bagged down with gorilla glue. the thin edge is reinforced underneath with a bit of 2 oz glass tape in RR.