Well, this one cost me just a little more than $143. First off, huge thanks to Bert for convincing me it works to just jump right in. Also, Sabs, Oneula, CMP, …and Mr. J for starting his thread on his new project.
I posted a photo of the board in the veneer bagging thread and it drew a few questions and comments. So here we go. It came out a little heavy - about 23# - for a 10’0". But not too bad. Its incredibly stable but also nice & responsive. I surfed it Sunday in knee high glassy beachbreak and today in OH+ Pleasure Point. It cut like butter in the small stuff and held a good solid line, then responded to a hands-up cutback when asked, in the big stuff.
I think its heavy because I didn’t trust the balsa to conform to my foam shape, so I cut the balsa 3/16" thick top & bottom, assuming I’d have to true up the shape and didn’t want to sand through. But actually, I could have cut the strips 1/8" or even 3/32" because they followed the shape faithfully.
I started with a blank of 1# EPS and d-cell stringers. The stringers were probably also not necessary, but they didn’t add much weight. I added 2.5" of straight solid balsa to the sides of the rails, before the veneer, so I could egg down the rails without shaping through into foam. The whole thing got 4 pc. 3/16" balsa bent around the rails for shaping. To aviod bending into super tight curves, it also got nose & tailblocks as big as the finished rail shape so the balsa rails could butt into those instead of finishing the curve.
It’s got 4oz glass under the balsa and 6oz over. Probably could have gone with 4 oz everywhere. Finbox.
The only real hitch was with the bagging. I ordered the $8.99 vacuum pump from Harbor Freight (“no moving parts”). It needs a compressor to provide air to create the venturi for vacuum. And my compressor took a dump. So I did my “bagging” a little differently - 25 gallons of water in Ziplok bags to hold down the veneers. 24 hours later, I knocked a knuckle everywhere on the board and heard no hollow spots, so I guess it worked. You’ll see from the photos.
The photos are hosted on Ofoto, so I don’t think they’ll take any Swaylocks space. I think I can link to more than 3 per post, too, but we’ll see.
Here’s gluing up the EPS & D-cell with polyurethane glue
Skinned before templating (the first time)
Solid balsa onto the sides
Mapping out the veneer
“Bagging”
Got a concave, no problem
Bending on the outer rail pieces
Nice dry lam after shaping rails
Setting the finbox
Done!
And, the “brochure shot”
