we’re all mixed up these days
Iolani palace wiliwili, bamboo. off the store shelf white and blue foam, bamboo cloth, 1/2" redwood stringer, resinX, LM35, fat butts, fusion boxes. fat noses, too many fins, bamboo fins. Its the theory of everything hawaiian hackmen style.
Sharkcountry and Oneula Beach Park at it’s glorious worst.
If thats your worst, i’ll be amazed at your best…
Beautiful wood!
And good to see some exploration of shapes and material going on at the same time!
is the middle one, the five fin, a Griffin blank you did in bamboo?.. think I remember you or Greg mentioning that you had him ship you a few shaped blanks of his mod fish model??.. maybe someone else?
looks great, all of them
whats the deal with the far left one, all green one? what materials and glass were used on this one? glassing looks funky in the light on the deck in the photo, like it stilll needs some sanding
far right, compsand, looks like a good small wave killer
nope everything in this bunch is home grown
we’re still working on finishing the three griff modfish shapes and bammbamm has one to finish all in Matt’s magical ResinX, We just put a wood deck patch on two. One’s bamboo the other is other is tigerwood. Mark said he’ll tint the other orange and green as a Resinx color test.
The Bamboo fish is modeled after my Griff 5-fin which is suffering from a case of pressure deckitis. It one of two hacks I was trying to finish when Keith was here. I have a 6’6" mod fish template in the same material. It’s two flat sheets of Lowes .75lb white foam with bamboo mat springers to lock in the rocker and fins wih a wiliwili panel glue up bottom and bamboo mat deck cause I got lazy instead of glueing up more wiliwili we saved from from iolani palace. It’s glassed in Greenlight’s bamboo gloth with Matt’s LM35 rsin hotcoated with ResinX and high performance Acrylic sponge painted to seal.
The green board is a gift EPS blank we inserted a half inch redwood stringer down the middle. The glassing is a mess from Sharkcountry the rails needed to be sealed again so my brother just brushed resin all over it the deck still has a heavy coat of wax on it.
you make working with that bamboo mat look too easy…
the williwilli could be a sweet double ender…
props.
Very nice oneula!
How did you like using Matt’s LM 35 lam resin with the bamboo cloth?
Take it easy,
~Brian
The green board is what I call a quick fix job. Didn’t bother to take the wax off. Just fixed a couple of pin holes that were sucking in and then blowing water out. I hope I sealed it this time.
She’s to go back out, just needs a freshening up of the wax.
FYI… on my boards, I don’t get crazy about the finish on the deck. I try to keep the rails and bottom as smooth and clean as I can, but the deck is going to be covered with wax, so why bother trying to make it shiny and slick.
The bamboo cloth is hard to work with. We’ve found that it sucks up more resin than fiberglass, and if it’s not pulled really tight it moves around and bubbles up.
We have not been able to get it to come out clear either, so it has a milky quality when it’s over wood. You can see that on the bamboo fish. We have a couple more Griffin boards have a wood deck veneer. One was glassed with Bamboo cloth, and one with S Glass.
We did 3 boards about a month or so ago using 2 “new” resins and Bamboo cloth and Sglass with FH epoxy. The FH epoxy board looked the best, and was the easiest/fastest to glass. We have not tried to glass using the banboo cloth and pu resin.
I think S Glass and epoxy is the simplest way to get good results.
Hey oneula, nice boards mate. Why do the 2 quads have such different palcements?. One looks like the mckee setup, any advice on how they differ in the water??
one quad is modeled off of my Jeff Alexander Gemini quad setup which is similar to the Mckee The other is based off of Grifffin’s 5-fin setup since it’s a copy of a personal Griffin Fish. They do different things. Those are FCS Stretch quads on the fish. We have some bamboo 5-fins(actually a bunch) to finish up.
These are all experiments although my brother say he made made the nugget/slipah for me like he did the green one. None of which would float me well although the slipah might work here in Pu’uloa. We’re still struggling with some of the new tech we’re using which complicates things more than normal.
The LM35 stuff was great as was Matt’s ResinX using bammbamm’s super secret laminating techniques. We’re still struggling with the bamboo cloth and haven’t found a way to get it tight enough to become transparent or not soak resin. We’ll try vacuum bagging it next time. But Greg’s new timba"jus-flex" kihoalu system makes all this seem like an epic struggle in comparison.
The wiliwili remind us of agave with all it’s texture and wormholes without the dangerous dust.
the question is how they will ride…
“They do different things”
I’m sure - Care to elaborate? The green one’s set up is a lot like the one I made, and I like it very much, so I’m curious to hear what you/you guys think about it.
quads are okay but there’s times when I’d rather just have a good thruster.
Certain pivot point and forward jumps you can get bouncing of the center fin that you can’t execute with a quad.
Quads cut of the top cleaner and seem smoother overall than a pure thruster so you can draw better lines with them.
but Griffin’s five fin is a different animal
only those that have ridden them will ever understand how different they are.
There’s allot of them here now so they can chirp in. My Griff’s getting on 3-4 years now.
much more controlled acceleration and control in very difficult situations that other designs would wash out on but its more than the fins its the ultra flat bottom and nose to tail pinched hard edge, outline curve and cut your fingers off g10 fins. Again you almost have to ride one to understand the feeling. some call it lift, I like to think of it as Greg’s version of mazda’s “zoom-zoom”.
The overall alexander gemini design with the quad set up is the closest feeling I’ve had to a Griffin 5 fin. But it’s very unconventional and unforgiving regarding weighting and foot placement.
Thanks for the input B - The one I made, the back fins are closer together… half way between the rail and stringer. So, I can’t say for sure I can relate, but I can say I’d sure love to try one of those Griff’s - been under the delusion, the fins set up like that give a feel much more like a twin… read tracking, so I went the other way. As Greg L. once said, “so many options, so little time”… And I’m only talking fin placement… I’m still just hand laming, but at least I’m making my own 2# eps blanks… again, what he said… Ha! I’d love to try it all, and have the waves to try 'em on…
I love the way you guys are like mad scientists experimenting with everything. Sharing your experiences with all the different methods and materials you’re trying out is an invaluable resource for all of us.
What is the weight and density of the wiliwili like? Close to balsa, if I remember you right. I like the wiliwili board for the spiritual, symbolic and historical reasons. Are those bamboo fins on the wiliwili board? I have a friend who just made some balsa fins that fit FCS. I’m thinking of trying something because I love Griff’s 5 fin set up but would like to get some of that weight out. My five fins added over a pound to the board.
Great work guys!
I agree. Great experiments, guys. Thanks for posting and sharing the info. Be sure and post the Grif copies too when you are done.
The wiliwili is as light as balsa just not as refined in structure especially the stuff we have which is more like agave in coloration and structure. Bumble Bees are addicted to it as are tigersharks from what we hear.
its so sad as there’s so much of the stuff going to the dump as compost because of the wasp epidemic. Kind of like throwing away tons of balsa with each new fallen tree. Our wood is special cause of its story and pedigree which alot of you heard about. But there’s many more majestic trees that were fallen and chipped into extinction with little fan fare. I’m being esoteric but with the history each growth band may have witness over its lifespan its blasphemy that it now resides as chips in the land fill. But maybe that’s just the cycle of life.
But it is enough wood to make compostsands/timbasands/hollows/and solid olo’s or alaias for generations and many green public school projects to keep kids out of trouble…
Sorry about the soapbox but you know me…
Anyway we did and still do what all that two bozos from the desert flatlands could do to make difference. In the end no one cares but we feel better… Personally I know the tree has brought alot of smiles and its treasured by many folks who’ve received a small part of it in the form as wooden trinkets/gifts from me.
Yeah the fins are from Brian’s blanks (carbon 3/8")
I bought a bunch for stringer material but cut up one for make 5 sets of 5 fins.
I like greg’s idea of of doing glass on’s by leaving a large tab and routing in a groove into the bottom of the board inserting the tab in them glassing on the fin with no rope build up. You could use texalium or carbon fiber to glass them on and end up with a much lighter if not just as stiff as G10 type of fin that wasn’t removable. But if you know Chandler’s philosophy you don’t mess around with the fins once on. The weight of the boxes and fins can be alot…
That’s why I like H2’s, Xrated and any other RTM/Carbonfiber honeycomb core stiff and light fin for off the shelf products.
I had never heard of Greg’s glass on idea. I can’t imagine that being very strong unless you put some kind of insert there. 1 or even 2 lb. eps would not provide much resistance to lateral stresses. I’m thinking about trying a glass on version of the 5 fin with either ply, balsa or bamboo fins to save weight. The exact placement I’m not too concerned with as I’ve tried mine with maximum spread and minimum spread and can’t tell much difference. But I guess I’m a dumb surfer. Everyone else says it’s so critical. I could, on the other hand, tell a big difference between Greg’s G-10 fin and a FCS glass flex fin. Huge difference. I guess I like stiff fins.
try a mix of the FCS carbonlite fins maybe some GX/GS type in the rear and some AMs up front.
or some S2’s up front and the AM set in the rear. The AM profile is the closest to Greg’s profile. Some one once told me they were clearing the line out.
The H2s are nice but they have 10degree of cant and Griffin has his boxes set for (secret)degrees of cant already.
Xrated has a similar profile to the H2s with out the 10 degrees of cant built in various sizes like the H2s (light too) so you can put two of the largest ones up front and the smallest set in the rear. They run about 1/3 to 1/2 the price of the H2s. Greg say the H2s have a good efficient release profile.
Xfin copy and H2 texalium
Carbons