I recently got into Surfboard designs and had the idea that I wanted to design/build my own surfboards.
Since I live in Germany its not that easy to come by Blank material for cheap in the right sizes. But I do have a possible connection to a technical model constructor who is working with PU and other materials on regular basis. In addition to that he also has access to a 5-axis cnc machine - and I had the idea that I’d design the surfboard and let the cnc machine do the shaping work - but I’m still undecided on that. As a result i started messing about with BoardCAD 3.0 and I’m about 20 hours into working with that. Furthermore I read up on surfboard designs and on heaps of stuff on swaylocks and i’m about 100 hours into research.
As I’m an intermediate surfer that is landlocked for most of the year I wanted to design a board for the mediocre to everyday wave to make the most out of my surfing trips. I really like the design of the JS Blak Box 2 and waned to take that board as my “guideline”. I had something like a 6’ 2" in mind. My general outline is supposed to be 6’2x20 1/2 - 21"x2 11/16" with a squash tail. Wanted to design the bottom as a single to double and maybe just like the blak box a little bit of vee back in the tail.
Now to my questions:
I can’t wrap my head around the nose and tail rocker of the Blak Box or other shortboards with a lot of volume in general. I know that it is probably around the 4"-5" mark in the nose and 2 1/4" - 2 3/4" in the tail but i’ve never read about actual rocker measurements of these shortboards with a lot of volume.
Secondly I’m asking about rails, what kind of rails would you recommend for the type of board? I still haven’t completely figured out how the rails continue from the center on towards the tail and the nose
My third question is about thickness and width in nose and tail. Right now the width in the tail is ~8 1/2" at 1" and 15 5/8" at the 1’ mark the nose is ~13 3/16" at the 1’ mark. I know that the main distribution of foam is around the chest in these kinds of boards. I’m still not quite sure on the thickness throughout the board especially in the nose and the tail. What would be common examples of thickness in nose and tail in that type of board?
If anyone has any hints in general or exact data on the Blak Box 2 or the same type of board sharing your knowledge would be greatly appreciated
Cheers
Edit: For some reason I can’t post replies.
I’m 5’ 11" , 163 pounds. My surfspots are mainly gonna be in Europe: Portgual (Ericeira, Algarve), France and Spain (El Palmar and stuff like that) but it’s mostly gonna be in summertime probably.
Hallo HerrN-
Herzlichen Willkommen.
The folks will need to know your height and weight and possibly where you like to surf to help with the design.
Two things that helped me:
Get a couple files from people that know how to design in BoardCAD and study the slices.
Look at and handle real boards as often as possible.
I am landlocked too and things became clearer after I did those two things. I still have a longs ways to go…
There are some people doing CNC here but not so many. So if you can, ask your questions in general terms and not CNC terms to get more answers.
Macht’s gut, J
If you are using board cad, you can try to copy the board with the known dimensions length, width and height. for the outline you can even use a picture of the board as a background and copy this. If you can find anywhere a picture from the side, you can approximately change the profile to match the conturs too. As one of the results, board cad gives you a volume and if this is not approx. 36l you can change the back and front thickness to match as close as possible.
As far as I remember firewire surfboards have a 3D view possibility. If you cannot find a sideview picture and/or better measures, you still can look at other, similar boards where the measures or a 3D view is given. And finally if you do not compare the board to the original, it still will work good even if you just shape it according to estimations and guesses and some pics.
“these shortboards with a lot of volume” for me, less than 36l for a 6’2 is not really a lot of volume, think of integrating some more liters, which may work good in european summer waves, but I’m not into shortboards and ripping. I favour old school but it may be a question of age…
For rockers, I had the best results using a standard rocker line from the US blanks catalog.
Guessing a rocker by picture can be quite hard as you never know the real length of the board in the picture, it happens a lot that the picture is taken from a board with different length.
If you don’t have enough experience with shaping rockers, the US blanks catalog is your best friend!
