I’ve been reading pretty much everything under the sun about the compsands. Ever since bert first dropped that bomb on us (what an exciting and confusing time) I’ve been eagerly awaiting my first crack at making one, and it looks like that time is rapidly approaching. I’ve just finished building the joewoodworker venturi set up and picked up a new compressor, balsa is on it’s way via ebay. So it’s only a matter of time. Whenever I have downtime I hop on sways and brush up on knowledge. That being said I’m kind of curious about how people are shaping their compsands. I’d say that 90% of posts are on internal structure, and I know that this is far more important than shape (I’ve even read someone saying that they wanted to shape a door like board with square rails just to see how far the benefits of a good internal structure can be pushed) but I was curious what dimensions people were using. I know generalities: thinner, wider outlines, less volume in the rail. I was actually hoping for specific dimensions vs. people’s height and weight surfing ability etc. and maybe what dimensions they’d ride with poly construction. I’d also be really stoked if someone could pull a measurement at the midpoint maybe an inch in from the rail, because exactly how thin is thin? I’ll mostly be doing standard 6’3" thrusters, but my mind is oh so open.
If anything this would be a good place to post pictures of your beautiful creations with some general info about them, and maybe interesting learning experiences you had along the way.
shape and design are the most imprortant thing you could focus on than materials
shape and design can compensate for any type of materials enhancing the end product
focus on those two things and get them down so you can understand all the nuances of how they impact a boards performance and no matter what you build them out of you’ll come out with a winner.
this takes years of trial and effort though but it’s the truth believe it not.
I know that people have been doing many different types of shapes, I was just speaking generally from most of what I’ve read.
Thanks Silly that’s the kind of stuff I was looking for here, but also I thought this would be a good place for people to showcase there work. Post pics and maybe some info on what they were going for, and most importantly things they learned along the way that could be useful to others.
im with the dudes…design is still King of the hill.
everything youve said in your opening post is correct Child.
Unless youre an accomplished foam shaper its gonna take a while for you to get were you want to be.
What I would suggest is to build very similar boards, tweaking this and tweaking that, until you build a majic one. Bulk design changes will only frustrate you.
There’s no single best way to do it. A good starting point is to simply make a design that you know works for you (your favorite pupe) and trim down thickness and rail volume. Sounds simple…and it is.
Silly knows his shit…and I really like what Im hearing from Oneula these days.
Been thinking about the sharper raisl thing a bit recently and I have (yet another) question.
Is this because the balsa rails (typically around 15mm thick) where they meet the skin tend to result in EPS showing through if the rails are too round?
Or does the material and construction actually result in a better product with sharper rails (all else being equal)?
Is this because the balsa rails (typically around 15mm thick) where they meet the skin tend to result in EPS showing through if the rails are too round?
answer.
no. build technique can prevent this
Quote:
Or does the material and construction actually result in a better product with sharper rails (all else being equal)?
answer.
i dont know
i feel that sharper rails you can get more drive from burying the rail and releasing .and so less reliant on fins
as opposed to speed from volume and planning area
but these principles would apply to any materials
what would happen if your rails were a kinda knife edge?
would you get more drive?
perhaps the stiffer wood ,allows thiner rails than a pu/pe,
with the same (or far more if desired) stiffness
alowing more drive from the thinness, without your rails flexing like noodles
slightly thinner rail volume for better rail set with a more buoyant board…inspiration from Greg. If you put wood there, thick railed, combined with compsand const and youll get a stiffy. I dont like thin knify rails cuz theyre too sensitive…I like about the size of a pingpong ball but down.
My take was on volume which is theoretically different than profile geometry…if that makes sense…i dont think it does ???..hmm you can make a thick railed board with knify rails…like Brewer did back in the day hey…like a wakeboard rail on steroids.
the one thing about design I’ve learned from my all talks with griff comes down to two words…
“think release” , where as I used to believe it was “think pink” (staying relaxed mentally no matter the situation)
think release… as you envision the outline
think release… as you envision the rocker
think release… as you envision the bottom contour
think release… as you envision the tail
think release… as you envision the fin placement and design
think release… as you envision flex
but inorder to do that with any sense you have to first under stand how all these pieces are going to work togethor as a single unit factoring in the materials you’re going to make it from and THEN…
try and comprehend what the movement of the water will do as the board travels sideways in relation to the waterflow because as griff pointed out to me, your board almost rarely travels in a straight line linear relationship to the flow of the water which kind of blows wave tank and wind tunnel models used to design a surfboard.
I can see why it takes years to truly master this craft testing endless variations before you start to comprehend what you’ve built is actually doing in the water and then having the hand and eye skill sets to translate what you see in your mind into an exact not an almost exact reality.
The other important component is being able to test out your stuff yourself so you can directly feel the result and then have others not like you verify those results independantly before you can really start to believe your own hype. So a surfer who can really shape clean who has a wide variety of good surfing friends has the best opportunity to make a break through but it takes years perfecting this craft and to believe otherwise is kidding yourself. just ask the best of them. Cause in the end there’s no shortcuts even though we try and try to kid ourselves tha there are.
Just my take on the importance of design and trying to understand design wholeistically versus breaking everything into isolated components.
should i try a stepped rail on the new fish shape ?
thats 2 3/4 i could step down to a 1 inch rail
Hey Silly,
Do you think that if you did stepped rails that you’d leave a small gap between the PS and the top skin. It seems that if you mold the top skin around a step in the rail it would make the board incredibly stiff. The other alternative, using a thicker stringer may have similar results.
Some people have been using concave decks with some success. Kind of the reverse of what you were going for, but to make up for the thinness in the middle of the board you’d have to have thicker rails. This seems to counter what translate to the materials well. So am I missing something? What are the benefits of this design?
