I
had to use epoxy for the gloss coat because of the finish on the
bottom, poly wouldn’t bond, and I wanted to try and polish this one as
i hadn’t done it before but i’m pleased with how it has come out.
It is my first attempt at a polish, so be kind!
Massive props to those who can polish so damn well!
This board is super flexy, i hope it isn’t too flexy when i get it in the water.
looks like the tail will flex extra as you have not carried rails all the way fully to the back of board due to stingers, ill be interested as to how it rides too.
Im working on something similar ( top paulownia veneer and open bottom) as soon as I get a vac pump sorted…
first surf - med-strong offshore wind, head and a half to doh beach break, closing out a bit.
paddled ok, seemed to get into waves well.
My main concern before surfing, was this board would have too much flex, but this didn’t come into it at all.
On a doh drop the board felt like it just stuck to the face (almost like suction) and dropped in so smoothly. Only got a few waves that i could get some turns on, but it was fast down the line and really maneuvrable when i needed it to be.
second surf - onshore/crosshore lumpy, waist to shoulder high reefbreak with shorebreak.
paddling seemed ok but didn’t feel as good as previous surf. Seemed a bit hard to catch waves, couldn’t tell if it was the waves or me or the board. probably the waves, it was pretty lumpy and doubling up a bit. I got a bit frustrated.
found it to be really maneuvrable I could do everything I wanted to, cutbacks, reos, made it out of a small barrell on the shorebreak and did a few punts and floaters.
In conclusion - I couldn’t really find anything about the board that stood out as bad or really good, it feels similar to the boards i usually ride. Mind you i’m still getting used to riding compsand and using the flex to my advantage.
I’d like to surf it nice clean waves with some wall so i can draw out some turns to see how it holds through a nice arc, I might be able to give a more accurate report in better waves, here’s hoping!
Cotton is Muslin cloth, 100% cotton. Got it from a fabric supply store - Spotlight. It’s really light weight open weave cloth. I just used this to glue the skins to the blank.
Very, very beautiful. Love the paulownia(wish I could get some), love the gloss. Wow! Out of the ordinary construction too, hope it holds up well. Did the cotton suck up alot of resin? Been thinking about the epoxy curing for quite some time, I wonder if it helps for a good gloss on the epoxy to let it cure for a while?
Yep, Dcell is on the bottom skin, I had some scraps which i bandsawed into 3mm pieces and then glued together to make the skin, hence the coloured bottom to hide the ugly joins.
I think there probably is a fair bit of resin in this board, I hand lammed the cotton to the skins which was a mistake as the Dcell/cotton combo sucked resin like there was no tomorrow. I should have wet the cotton out on a piece of plastic or something first. The paulownia/cotton wasn’t as bad. I used a fair bit of resin on the gloss coat too to ensure I could get a nice finish.
I’m still learning, these techniques are still reasonably new to me, so I’m not too fussed about weight or anything. But I was happy to see it under 3kg finished.
When you say .75 should come out around 2kg is that with fins and boxes? I’d be stoked to get a board come out at that weight.
glassing with the bamboo cloth is pretty different too, i keep getting tiny air bubbles or something trapped, they don’t seem to show up until you hotcoat or gloss and start getting a smooth surface. I didn’t seal the wood first though so that is most likely to be the culprit.
I just used kinetix epoxy for the gloss no additives or anything, applied it with a brush, it may have been a couple of days before i got around to sanding though.
I wouldn't see 2kg as a target. Some bods don't like really light boards. That's just what one of mine came out at.
I've played around with 0.75# and 1.1# EPS cores, 2 & 4 oz glass inner and outer layers, 2.5mm to 3mm balsa and more recently bamboo veneer, all with the same board design and dimensions. The weights of three boards without fins have been between 2kg to 2.4kg.
I can't feel much difference in performance with those differences, but maybe a pro could. So far durability and flex seems about the same.
I realise some people don’t like em light, but i’d like to see if i could hit that target just as a personal challenge and to see myself how a really light board rides. Without fins makes it a more reachable target too. Is that how everyone here is weighing their boards, without fins? I can post weights on my next boards like that, if that is what most people are doing.
Hey Resinhead,
I don’t have anything against fibreglass, a while back now, I bought quite a bit of the bamboo cloth, so i have to use it all up, after personal testing i have found it not to be as good as i expected from the reports i had read and not as strong as standard fibreglass weave. It tears easily, and punctures pretty easily too.
On a personal level, I want to try and make a ‘more sustainable’ surfboard hence the natural fibres, and I have read that the boo cloth isn’t as energy intensive to make compared to fibreglass but using divinycell kind of defeats that purpose on this board, but i did use leftover scraps that i had lying around from when i used to make a few skimboards. The whole ‘sustainable’ thing is such a hard one to nail, because of durability and longevity and all the other factors that everyone already knows about, so i wont harp on about it.
My next board that is in the works will use regular 6oz fibreglass due to it’s strength.
