Dims for blank or finished board?

General Discussion
1

I know this is a really KOOKY question, but I’ve been running into some discrepancies I’m trying to a handle on.

  1. Are the dims listed for a board usually the dims of the shaped blank or the dims of the finished board? 

  2. Do glass schedules and/or sandwich construction add significantly to the thickness (like 1/16th on each side putting overall thickness up an 1/8th)? 

  3. So if I wanted a finished board to be 2 5/8 thick, would I shape the blank to 2 1/2? 

I’ve had boards that were supposed to be 2 5/8 being 2 3/4, and I’ve seen at least one Boardworks sandwich-job listing the thickness at 2 1/4 when it was AT LEAST 2 5/8…

Is there an industry standard for listing dims (based on the shaped blank or based on the finished board)?

Thanks

2

Dims are shaped blank dimensions as far as I am aware.

3

Dims are off the shaped blank.

A glassed board may be upwards of 1/8 thicker depending on the glass job.

Most surfboard measuting tools are not very accurate. Most are as accurate as your eye and a ruler.

There are no industry standards for measurements and no standard of calibration. Your 2.5 is the next guys 2.625.

Its art- not rocket ships.

4

Like Wideawake said, all factory dim’s are off the blank. However, I disagree that measuring tools are not accurate. I and a lot of my colleagues work with measurements that are + or _ 1/32" and a lot of the scrubbers are + or - 1/16".   A variation of 1/8" can make the difference between a dog and a magic board in  many hpsb un-glassed blanks. There are industry standards, and standards of calibration. Guys that measure a glassed board or rip off a template of a glassed shape can see the difference that glassing/sanding makes as they often shape a board that is totally unlike the board that they “copied” from. Why does Andino get 130 + boards a year to test ride? That’s not due to the shaping so much as to the glassing/sanding part of the process. The average guy (shortboard) can’t tell the diff. If you are interested in shaping/finding a magic board or have had one in the past, taking critical dims is really important. From that point you can “back-engineer” what was working for you and the way you surf. This process is what all pro shapers go thru with their team riders (in most part) try to fine-tune their boards. A lot of this is intuition on what your rider likes and some of it is strictly science… Just my 2c…

5

+/- 1/32 is not what i would call very accurate. Those are big tolerances.

Also what is this industry standard you speak of? Who came up with it and who enforces it? How can one be sure that they purchased a board made to those specs?

Many shapers may have their own standards they live by or generally accepted ways of doing things but nothing that covers the industry itself.

You can calibrate a shaping machine but you cant calibrate a scrubber.

No body sticks a board on a cmm machine to measure it.
Most grab a set of wood calipers with a standard ruler measurement on it and run with it.

6
  • for thickness measure some take it before concave shape, an old standard for handshaper, others after concave, they take the software measure. There was an intersting post about this on Simon blog.