Basically I’ve been buying the 1.4lb and 1.8lb molded EPS blanks from Jim Richardson at Surflight.
So far I think I bought 6 of them.
He used to charge $45 without a stringer and $65 with a stringer. So I bought half with and half without cause I didn’t really want to shape them too much and ruin them. I’m sure the price has gone up since then.
They came out of the mold as Jeff Johnson 7’6" funboards with a slight singet to double to vee bottom about 21.5" wide and 2.75"thick. Like Jim told me if you like the design just clean off the mold and pour marks with some light sanding and you’re ready to go. The board will lose their rocker if you don’t use them right away or when you lam or vacuum them without support.
I built two wood lammed funboards with nothing but some light sanding before putting on the skins… I believe it was 4 under and 6 over on one and 6 under and 6 over on the other. Both came out super light especially the balsa one. We did one in all balsa and one in birch and mahogany. We even took the balsa down to Jim and Jeff to show them our hack work…
Eventually I found I didn’t like the ride of that shape in that weight…
You can re-rocker their stringerless blanks anyway you want if you glue in your own stringer which is what Jeff did to create a 6’8" he wanted to machine on Eric’s machine as a test but I bought that blank and made a flyer out of it. The other two stringerless 1.4lb 7’6" blanks I got at the same time, I built a 7’4" Stubb-Vector design with a more pulled in nose instead of the classic big round nose fun board design and a full on round pin 7’2" minigun I haven’t even used yet… The 7’4" is purpleheart/bamboo/sycamore and the 7’2’ is balsa/bamboo. I like to use the bamboo now as a deck patch cause it’s hard as rock after glassing.
I haven’t done a board without wood skins yet cause it defeats my goal of getting something stronger than the average bear from something wimpy like foam. So I can’t relate to what you and Meanshapes are doing. But Jeff Johnson did show us some boards they were building for Andy with no stringer under 4lbs one layer of 4oz glass on the bottom and 2 layers on top with a deck patch. Good enough for at least one heat or contest which is all the pro’s were interested in anyway… I think they are trying to get away from 1-2 heat poly boards the pros are using and get something with the same weigh and performance that lasts a couple of contests.
We also make our own blanks out of .75-1lb Lowes roofing insulation (Insulfoam) and those boards come out way light a little too light for my liking which is why I’m double layering the sandwiches now for added strength but also for more weight. We haven’t had any breakage but some delams when we used spackle versus not using it. The DAP spackled boards do come out lighter…
Everyone told me I couldn’t go bigger than 6’6" for a stringerless but we’ve gone a foot bigger. I don’t know about 8’ and above though…
In all honesty, I’m a firm advocate of a this new “composite” structure kind of like Airframe and Greg’s new blanks.
Soft real floaty inner core surrounded by a tough skin and a perimeter stringer and higher density rails to push the weight out to the rail line. In the 70’s I used to tape lead fishing sinkers to the nose of my boards to get a pendulum effect out of those big bottom turns we used to make. It looked stupid but I thought it worked great… The perimeter stringer high density rails and strong flexing skins I think are a modern version of that lead sinker technique we used to use… There’s another version Jim’s doing at Surflight which is the exact opposite which is even more intriguing but alot harder to pull off.
I think 2 bottom 3 top with a deck patch with 4oz would be fine for a stringerless shortboard. Look around for some of this new glass you can get from places other than surfshops… The fine weave airplane stuff is pretty good if you can get it…
Don’t worry though cause nothings permanent…nothing