rider!!! where did you hear that or see it???in a movie perhaps???..any pictures anywhere out there???
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nat young made a stand up flexspoon. they don’t work end of story, i think mainly to much flex to control between you feet. not saying flex is bad, but the flex of a spoon is too much for standup
From what I’ve read and heard, Greg Loehr is honing in on a whole-flex standup board by using a super thin, peripheral-stringer epoxy approach. There’s a veil of secrecy over the whole thing.
" nat young made a stand up flexspoon. they don’t work end of story, i think mainly to much flex to control between you feet. not saying flex is bad, but the flex of a spoon is too much for standup "
look to the ancients for wisdom look towards the future to apply it to new scenarios.
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rider!!! where did you hear that or see it??? in a movie perhaps???..any pictures anywhere out there???
I’m guessing he “may” be referring to this …
[from www.surfresearch.com.au ]
extreme surfboard designs
Nat Young’s “Nautilas / Cuttlefish / Folly”
8 ft 6”
With Greenough spoon like nose, foam centre and flex tail, manufactured at
Gordon Woods Surfboards 1965.
The board is part of the Scott Dillon Museum.
Extensive warping of the nose section, the board is in otherwise original condition.
Photograph by Alby Falzon.
Reprinted in Carter1968 #117
…or … it may just be hearsay … (or “chinese whispers” , perhaps !)
cheers ,
ben
i read about it first in Nat’s biography, also i neve saod flex tails didn’t work or flexible boards don’t work just stand up spoons. i have been wanting a flex tail and desgined(never built) a very crude one when about the time i first started coming here.
Ok, where the hell was I? Well, I’ll start off by saying that the spoon is almost done! I’ll probably have it ready for its first session by middle of next week! I’ll try to keep some sort of order to these pictures and posts, but I may stray a little.
First of all, the spoon currently weighs 9 pounds. Thats pretty much all RR epoxy resin and fiberglass. I built the rails up with a uni-axial fabric, I’m not exactly sure what weight it was but it was really thick stuff. Warnings by members of the “flex community” confirmed my suspicions that the rails would be carrying most of the load of the rider. The uni-axial cloth is basically cloth that has all of it’s fibers oriented in one direction (warp direction). Good stuff, but when it was dragged out of the dusty depths of Fiberglass Hawaii, no one could tell me the weight of the cloth. I took one glance at it said, “thats some heavy sh*t… it’ll do!”
So, after building up the rail line with a few layers of the Uni-axial I added some 6 oz layers over it to smooth things out. After that, I decided to build up the center of the board with the stuff too. It adds so much thickness so fast, it really beats layering up layer after layer of 6 oz. You can see in the second picture that I’ve been doing a little grinding at the fiberglass… nothing beats the old 5000 RPM Milwaukee, it has to be one of my favorite tools!
can’t wait to see the finished pics! Looks incredible. Where will you be riding it in town? I’d love to see the spoon in action on the water when it’s done.
Pat
Oops! did that last photo have the almost finished fin in it? It did! The fin is a tale in its self. A few weeks into this project, I received a letter from Mr. Paul Gross! It contained all of the specs for the fin, along with a few supplementary photos and a template. This was extremely helpful, because I only had a rough idea of what the fin was supposed to be like. Knowing that GG was pretty particular about his fin, I knew that this was one detail that I didn’t want to “fudge” (using Pauls words) …Pauls instructions called for a 3/8" thick fin panel to begin with… I didn’t have one of those, but I did have an old fin that I had cut off one of my old noseriders a couple years back. ( I knew I was keeping it for something…) I measured it, and wouldn’t you know it… it was 3/8ths from base to tip! After that I glued (with resin) a couple scraps to the base to build up the thickness, it needed to be 7/8ths of an inch at it’s thickest point. Then I began by grinding the taper.
So in that last pic, you can see the line the I used as a guide for the thickest point of the foil, it is really far forward, if you haven’t noticed. Paul said that GG messed around with it alot, and that is what he settled on. I’ll have to ride the board before I can say much else. After I ground out it out, I decided to add more of a base to the fin, because I changed my mind on how I was going to mount the fin. Basically I just mixed up a bunch of chopped up fiberglass and lumped it on.
After the resin cured, I ground the base down and sanded it all. There were some air bubbles so I mixed up some micro balloons and smeared that mixture all over, so it should smooth out nicely tomorrow. I also ground off the tab that you see in the first pictures because I decided that I would mount my fin the same way as can be seen in this thread: http://flexspoon.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7
I would like to say Thank you to Paul Gross!
And also, thanks to the boys at www.flexspoon.com for their help and interest in this project!
The next update will feature a finished spoon! (I hope!!!)
-Carl
THIS is going to be one AWSOME board to ride. Best thread so far this year.
Chris
should be good testing waves this wedsday!!!..
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After the resin cured, I ground the base down and sanded it all. There were some air bubbles so I mixed up some micro balloons and smeared that mixture all over, so it should smooth out nicely tomorrow. I also ground off the tab that you see in the first pictures because I decided that I would mount my fin the same way as can be seen in this thread: http://flexspoon.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7
I would like to say Thank you to Paul Gross!
And also, thanks to the boys at www.flexspoon.com for their help and interest in this project!
The next update will feature a finished spoon! (I hope!!!)
-Carl
I can’t tell from your photos - did you choose the attachment method with the “plug” or without? Either is probably OK, but anyone who wants some added security for the “without” method might want to consider using thread inserts instead of tapping the fin itself.
-Samiam
Go Carl! Looks Bitchin’
Carl- Do you need to borrow some fins? Between Paul and I we have a nice selection. Let us know.
[=1]
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[ 3]THIS is going to be one AWSOME board to ride. Best thread so far this year. [/]
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Don’t know if the above is true about “best thread” but it’s nice to hear someone say it.
9 lbs sounds good. You’ll probably also grind off a little as you ride and tune. Better wait to paint it. Better sneak off to test it too or you’re going to have The Sentinal there.
You’ve left a nice photo record. I count 43 step by step.
The boys from flexspoon are in the bleachers…
one of the best threads this year, there are way to many to remember, but this is very high up there.
Hey you guys, I was just about to slip over to the factory to do a little work on the spoon. I was thinking that I will paint the rail line with bright orange paint, so that the spoon is easy to see if and when I lose it. Just a quick go over, nothing fancy… so I won’t hesitate to take a grinder to it. I wasn’t going to attach a leash to the board, because this thread has me scared… http://flexspoon.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8 To be honest… I’m kind of scared period of the board, it’s a freak’n heavy 9 lbs. It’s not all soft and light feeling like a normal board… where you can squish the glass down a little bit by squeezing the rails, and weigh only 6lbs or so… (shortboards) You look at the spoon and, think oh, how cute… this thing should be light, it’s only like 1/3 of a normal board… (all the missing foam) and then go to pick it up and it’s a rock. a very solid rock. Everything about the board is hard and heavy. And it’s got a fricking sword on the bottom instead of a fin. Like I said, scary. I’ve got a few breaks mapped out that have very few surfers out at certain times of the day- I would NOT want to lose/hit someone with this thing! -Carl
Carl, you’re headed home. Sliiiide! Take it out and don’t worry about it. Ride, learn, make adjustments–try not to gore yourself. You’ve got extra glass on the rails and deck, maybe a couple lbs, but it was better to overbuild. You want the flex and torque to start at the mid-point and increase evenly going back. You should have a good 2 in. flex in the tail (by hand).
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one of the best threads this year, there are way to many to remember, but this is very high up there.
definitely agreed!
carl: thanks for sharing. this has been a fascinating thread. i admire your skill & craftmanship.