Hello Swaylocks. Build threads are always nice, so prepare for amature hour, kick back and watch the trials of my sixth build.
We’ll start with the outline. As a 24 year old, I use computers, so I do my outline in boarcad. It’s nothing revolutionary as far as the shape goes.
I really don’t have an hpsb. As a 24 year old human who is 5’5", 120lbs and a decent surfer, I can take advantage of a low volume shortboard. Plain and simple. I like slightly wider craft, so I went with 5’7"x19" for the outline. It’s got a 15" tail. The outline is based on board #3, but slightly modified to be more shortboard-y and have the wide point further back. Otherwise the outline isn’t too radical in any aspect. The intended waves are chest high to whatever I feel like I won’t die on it in. I really want to get into airs. I can do them fs airs and fs 360s on a skateboard, but I’ve been having trouble on surfboards. I’ve done a handful, but I think I can do better. I also just want something I can be very aggressive with. As such, other than the deep concave, this board isn’t too extreme in any direction.
Computers stop there, since this is a physical project, after all. I printd out the template, did some arts and crafts then cut it out in masonite. It was traced onto a 5’9" stringerless eps blank from greenlight.
I decided to try something new and cut the outline with a long blade on a jigsaw. I would a hundred percent recommend trying that. It cut through like, well, a reciprocating sawblade through eps foam. Perfect cut that’s normal to the surface of the deck/bottom. The only issue was a bit of heat buildup and melting. It created these silly string like bits.
They basically chipped off, so it’s more like a side effect than an actual issue.
I missed a few photos because I was tired of my phone being full of eps dust. So we’ll resume after I cut the rail bands. This is like my third time doing this with a planer. My planer has a pretty sallow cut depth wide open, so it takes a few passes. I suppose that’s better for a beginner though, since I can’t remove half the entire blank in one pass.
One of the big changes from board #3 to this one is the concave. #3 was flat. This has a very deep single. I’m a skateboarder at heart and I move the board around a lot and quickly, often too quickly if I’m going to be critical of myself. Deep concave boards seem to pick up speed quicker for me when I move the board around, whereas the flat bottom ones I’ve had in the past seem to cruise better. I’m not really much of a cruiser (maybe when I’m older) so I’l go with deep concaves. It’s a straight single starting near the front and going to around the leading edge of the rear fin, where it fades to flat.
This is near the front. NExt one is between the stance.
The rails are resonably boxy through the middle and the deck is pretty flat. The board’s like probably between 2.25 and 2 1/8". It’s probably got a volume of around 25 liters or so, maybe. They’re harder on the bottom than on board #3.
The tail rails are very thin, so it should be nice and sensitive. It won’t be a total drag because of the wider tail, so I won’t completely sink at the slightest hint of back foot pressure.
Rocker is like that. This is an earlier picture and I’ve smoothed out some edges afterwards. I added rocker to both ends. Blank starts at like 2 3/16T and 4 3/4N, but since I took a 5’7" out of a 5’9" I added some back. I wanted to try something with a more rocker this time, as opposed to my flatter boards.
Outline is like that as of twenty minutes ago. Again, nothing crazy, just a plain, slightly wider shorty for decent to good waves where I’m not riding my 5’4"x20.5 grovel thing. The extra width, as opposed to a 5’7"x18.25 or something, should help on those days where I can ride something other than my 5’4" but it’s big. I don’t think the extra width hinder me in bigger surf since the stability is nice. I surf new jersey all year round, so I’m hoping this will have a wide range since we kinda see everything here. I didn’t go super potato chip thin because when it’s 5mm suit time I’ll be thanking myself.
Glass will be 6oz bottom with uni carbon tape end to end, 6+4s top with vectornet over the entire top. The board gets pretty thin at the ends and I like to build these things to last. I usually do 6+6 tops, but I’d like to try a bit lighter this time. Colors will be a slightly transluscent orange with a white tail dip, aka creamsicle style. I might add some white to the orange to make it a bit more opaque, as I’m afraid I’ll screw up a tint or something. I’ve always done color in the resin, but only ever opaque pigments.
I have to get glass and resin and stuff. I also need it to be more than 2ft and tiny for once. Praying for some tropical activity by the time this thing is done. It’s been so small I haven’t even bothered bringing anything other than the 8’ board in my avatar to the beach for the past few sessions.
Overall I’m happy. There’s a few cosmetic imperfections, as you can see, but it’s the color I wanted and I think it looks pretty cool otherwise. We’ll have to wait a few days for the performance aspect of it. 