In my quest to blatantly rip off the shape of my beloved Cooperfish, I went a little overboard, ok a LOT overboard on the tail area (could’ve been the beer, not sure ;)…Anyways, I was going to go all out on the glass job with 10oz. Volan, tint, etc…But now I’m not sure I should because I’ve made the tail so damn thin from about 18" back. I’m not sure what effect this will have on the performance of the board, if any, so I’m consulting you, the experts! I love the shape, and the rails turned out exactly how I wanted them, very pinched throughout the entire board. Nose is nice and thin as well, but I like it like that. Almost like an extremely mellow step-deck, without a step…?? Anyways, here’s a few pics. Think I should scratch this one and just do a quicky 6oz. job or stick with my original plan and go full-on? Looking at my Cooperfish, the tail comes in very thin too, but not from that far forward, it’s much more “abrupt”, for lack of a better term…
hey tenover - it’s hard to tell from the photos just exactly how thin you’ve gotten it. But, it looks like you’ve managed to not only thin the board but do it in such a way as to add significant tail rocker. I think you could do one of two things: go with a light glass job (6 oz bottom, 6+4 deck), to try to end up with more of a “performance” board, or stick with your 2x 10 oz volan plan, which might prevent you from snapping the thing in half where you’ve thinned it out so much.
IF you’re going to try again to duplicate your Cooperfish (which it sounds like you are) I’d go for the light version on this board, then make the thicker copy with the volan.
But hey, it should be fun no matter which way you go. I like the outline a lot…
I think it looks like a real performance oriented shape - yeah a little thin but I’ll bet it surfs great. Changing plan to the 6oz probably makes sense but I’d be tempted stay the volan/tint course - mainly because I’m stubborn and don’t deviate from original planning real well. A bad trait of mine for sure.
Hey tenover…not sure about longboards but i recently made a 6 2 fish with a super thin tail …on my fish paddling was seriously affected but wave catching ability seemed to be fine (a little comprimised maybe but still acceptable). Performance however ----well it seems to fly — very very sensitive oh yes i like it…
If I were doing it… I’d stick with the original plan to learn as much as possible from the results. Why make another board now using only a hypothesis–do what you set out to do and evaluate the results.
It does look like you’ve significantly moved the balance forward–could be really fun on big, down the line type days.
Thanks for the input guys…It’s not very “high-performance” at all. Not sure what makes you say that. It’s a 9’6", 23 3/4" wide, 3" thick, with a 19 1/2" nose and a 17" tail if I remember correctly. It’s just that damn tail…Oh well, I compromised and just bought my cloth- 7.5oz. Volan. Now to decide on color and if I want any splashes or swirls or anything like that…Decisions decisions…
My favorite longboard right now has a really thin tail, starting to thin out pretty far up. It rides really good and is really responsive even though it is thick and wide. You may think about making a fin and glassing it on, because with the tail so thin you may have to put the box too far up, or run the risk of routing through the glass on the deck. Glass the fin on. Lots of swirls and splashes, they are fun.
Oh yeah, definitely a glass on. I was going to do that anyways…I’m sitting here in the heat contemplating a swirl of some kind or not. I know it would be fun to do, but I tend to really like “clean” looking board…We’ll see.
One of my favorite longboards is only 3/8" thick in the tail. And thats with glass. As I’m looking at it on the rack across the room, it the rocker looks rather similar to yours - more of a continuous curve, rather than flat center and kicked nose and tail. Turns better than just about all of my other boards, and I almost want to say it’s because of that super thin tail - you can really get it on edge and dig in. Yeah, I’ve broken it before. Not once but twice. But not where it’s thinnest. It was about 3 feet from the nose. And it was because it took a heavy axe from a rather large barreling lip. But I still love it to pieces. Which, of course in time, it would probably become. I surfed it so much it’s about ready to break in about 3 other places. So it sits, revered, on the rack so I can try to copy it as a whole rather than in parts. Glass it and ride it. You never know - you might actually be really stoked with how it came out. Oh yeah - it was 6+4 top, single 6 bottom. And heavy Hawaiian waves…
Tenover, The tail may have come thinner than you expected, but I’ve seen many that are just as thin. Guy Takayama makes several of his boards with thin tails, and they perform great. (At least when he surfs them) Doug
Thanks Doug…Now that it’s glassed and hotcoated, it doesn;t look to bad. I also added an extra layer of 7.f volan on the bottom of the board from about 3’ back for al ittle added support. Lookingreal good so far, but I’ve yet to sand, which is where I ALWAYS end up screwing the board up.
Ten-over – nice looking board. Is the tail thin due to overshaping? The photos are interesting… this photo below has a shadow line on the stringers. Are you using side lights? If not, this might be a good time to think about being able to see better and eliminate the high stringers (get the book on sharpening tools), or overshaped foam. I like your enthusiasm.
No, I just laid the board there for the pics…Those lines along the stringers are a secret procedure of mine which induce drag when coupled with a Tunnel fin setup…Ok, ok, just kidding…For some reason, ever since I saw the JC shaping video, I always do that to my stringers. You just rung the edge of your finger plane down both sides, and it creates a little “trench”, that supposedly adds a touch of added strength when filled with resin, and also looks super cool if you do tint jobs (shows up a little darker and makes the stringer(s) look thicker). Probably just a “gimmick” move, but I like it.
