First board, a curvy 7'6"

General Discussion
1

Dear all, my name is Axel, I am French and I live in North Germany. This is one of my first posts here after several months of reading the lock.

First thing: I am a beginner and I won’t be riding anything else than foamies for the next 1 to 2 years 

(I was more about Windsurfing). I would like to shape a board because in my 20’s I met a shaper and since then it’s been in my mind. I always have enjoyed water sports and I have worked with composite materials professionally earlier in my career. However, life being life I wasn’t able to scratch that itch during the past 8 years and now I’m slowly coming back to this idea (still have to find a local though). So while I have a newfound interest for surfing I am at least equally attracted to the craft itself, even if I don’t ride the board right now. (The pandemic also gives me some extra free time)

I would welcome feedbacks on the shape I’m slowly gravitating toward. I realize that I don’t know much, I also realize that trial and error is the best way to learn and that my first board will probably be something between a plank and a door. I however hope that, with your help, I can avoid major design mistakes, get some tips and tricks and overall learn a lot about this craft.

The goal of that board:

  • Be used by me somewhere down the line when my foamies days are over (I am 155lbs/5”11)
  • Travels ok (less than 8’)
  • Capable of catching weak (North sea) and strong (French Atlantic coast) waves from waist to head height
  • Paddles well
  • Turns decently
  • Ideally could fit in an intermediate/good surfer quiver (not me) meaning being a good and fun option to ride in 2-5ft mushy waves

Here is my current status and the ideas behind my choices, I am trying to start with a very consensual and common type of shape (this is where feedbacks would be good on both the design itself but more importantly on the reasoning flaws):

  1. 7’6”x 16.9”N x 22.5” x 15”T x 2.8” 
    1. Wide board + Wide nose + max width forward for ease of use, good floatability, paddling
    2. Not TOO thick to make it kinda compact (I think?)
  2. Rocker: 4”Nose 1.6” at 12” & 1.8” Tail 0.95” at 12”
    1. Relaxed rocker for ease of paddling and speed
    2. Is it too relaxed for the length??
  3. Epoxy + EPS: a resin I know (albeit not in surfboard glassing). I also read that the Floatability of EPS is superior to the one of the PU which could balance the “lower” thickness of the board?
  4. Bottom contour:
    1. Flat in the front: To keep it simple
    2. Light double concave in the middle to improve speed without dealing with too much difference between rail and stringer rocker
    3. Light vee in the tail to improve the turning capabilities
  5. 2+1 fin set (8” future center box at 4”/tail + 2 side bites at 11” future) 
    1. Versatile for mid length board
    2. because I read somewhere here that it cannot be bad XD
    3. I don’t really know which boxes I should use for a 2+1?
    4. Comments on their position?
  6. Rails:
    1. Round 50/50 full in the nose 
    2. Round 40/60 full in the middle 
    3. Hard in the tail for good rear foot reactivity

 

Basically, what I am trying to do is a first board that is usable by me down the line and that maybe… maybe… I can keep in the longer term if it’s not a rock… I give it a flat rocker, a lot of width and EPS so it is stable, easy to paddle and catch wave with. Then I choose the bottom contour and the rails to make it  a bit more more lively.

Please fire the feedbacks and criticisms. I find it hard to harmonize the different parts of the board to get a coherent whole especially without experience. (This is my first go at it). I know, trying to shape without knowing how to surf and therefore evaluate the shape behavior afterward isn’t the common way. I still hope to be able to build a board. (the best airplane designer aren’t always the pilots…)

I’m pretty sure there are glaring mistakes that I cannot see despite quite a lot of online research. I will come with other questions down the line. 

Any major mistakes that would make this un-surfable (even before I touch anything)?

Thank you for reading me.

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2

The board design looks really good, although for a 2+1 with the wide point forward I’d suggest bringing in the width at the wide point a little, to maybe 22", or even 21.5".    Keep the other widths and you’ll get get a little flatter curve in the middle but it will be plenty curvy for control. 

Singlefins can go wider at their wide point because that style of surfing involves shuffling forward and setting the board in trim more so you’d be standing closer to that wide point, but with a 2+1 you’re working the tail more actively so you need to stand closer to the fin cluster, which means you don’t have as much leverage over the wide point.    

For the side fins you would use a normal full depth box, not the 1/2" centerfin boxes.   Future makes the SB1, which is a good sidefin for a 2+1 setup.   Your tail rocker is fine and should work well with your design because you’ve already got enough curve in the template.  If you had a tail shape with hard corners then I might have suggested adding a little more tail rocker.  But you don’t, so what you’ve got will work fine.   2" would work, too, and might be a little more forgiving.   

I’d surf it.  

3

hey Gdaddy, 

 

Thanks for the feedback, I adjusted the tail rocker to 2" and the outline as well. (at least on the blueprint!). Regarding the fin boxes and their positions I am really throwing stabs in the dark based on few read I had… I changed my “plan” for the full depth ones as well. If I may ask, what is your opinion on their positions?

4

“Floatability of EPS is superior to the one of the PU”

Floatation (buoyancy) is a function of foam density.  All other variables being equal, foams with the same density have the same buoyancy.

Density = mass divided by volume.

A pound of cork is less dense than a pound of lead.

5

of course, my apologies for the shortcut and therefore inaccurate statement.

6

It appears to me that you’ve spent a lot of time and effort in doing your research and you have put considerable thought into what you’re triying to do.  As far as I can tell, the design you came with was really good.   If you can build it the way you planned it the design you started off with will produce a very surfable board.    I only suggested that you narrow the template a little in order to make it a little quicker rail-to-rail because you’re using a 2+1 instead of a singlefin.   

With respect to placing the cluster, you have options.   Some builders like to cluster the trailing edge of the fronts even with the leading edge of the main fin.   Some like those two points to overlap and others like to spread them out so there’s a gap between those two points.    Your stature (and how much leverage you can assert over the main fin) and where you think you want to stand on the board will be of effect on where you put the main fin.  

There’s a fin layout chart on this webpage that shows the conventional layouts for quads, thrusters and 2+1 setups.   Personally, I do toe-ins for most clusters at 3/16" regardless of the length of the board.  TO ME, drag is drag regardless how long the board is.  However, MANY other builders go strictly off the tip of the nose or beyond the way you did, so again, what you started with is very doable.  

  https://greenlightsurfsupply.com/pages/how-to-shape-and-build-your-own-surfboard

 

7

thank you for the kind words! I did quite a lot of research over the years indeed, but as you say now it’s all about execution!

I’ll be honest, for the sidebites i’ll probably go for a happy medium… this board will be a first try and my level doesn’t requires me (or even allows me) to refine those nuances yet.I however can understand the “drag is drag” statement and migth reduce the toe-in. I guess I can still ride it as a single fin if I want even with a 8" box?

that greensuppluy page is pretty cool and full of good info, I’m a bit surprised about the resin quantity chart but it forced me to revisit my numbers and redo some research on the glassing schedule part as well. Thanks for sharing… I guess that I never came accross this page because I try to focus my supply sourcing toward europe.

thank you overall for your feedback, it helps with the confidence to start. just have to decide where I do it!

8

I have a couple more suggestions that are aimed at your level of surfing and your abilities as a shaper:

For your first board and considering that you’re an adult novice surfer, I suggest that you keep your bottom contours very basic.   Flat with a subtle chine (maybe 1/10th or 1/8th)  blending into a subtle vee (maybe 3/16" or 1/4") in the tail.  Those chines will make for a little smoother rail-to-rail, enough to remove the twitchy factor.   

In general, a little contour goes a long way.  You don’t need concaves in a midlength and as a novice surfer you won’t have the skills to make use of them even if you were on a narrow board.  Flat is fast and flat releases well.  Even with just the basic bottom setup the board will still be able to do a lot more than you can do for many years to come.   It’ll be a long time before your surfing progresses to the point where a basic bottom layout will be holding you back.  As a matter of fact, I’ve been surfing a long time and I still can’t outsurf a basic bottom layout, so I don’t do complicated bottoms on my own boards.  .  

And since you’re also new at building and especially because you’re using epoxy and EPS, I suggest you refrain from trying to do color.   No paint, no resin opaques or resin tints and no gloss.  Just go with a clear/sanded finish and focus on getting a nice waterproof glassjob.  Once you get your glassing clean then you can add the embellishments.   Color will highlight every flaw in the shape and in the glassing.   For my own boards I don’t even bother with sanding the deck beyond taking down any bumps.  I’m surfing the bottom and rails, not the deck and an untouched deck will hold wax better and be stronger anyway.  

9

So, what are chines? I put a very light double concave probably just to put something and trying to make it lively, however I have no doubt that my level wont be able to benefit from it at all.

the current situation is that I might have a place to glass… however I still don’t know where to shape (the local isn’t good for that). so I’m contemplating, for the first board, to order a CNC preshaped based on the design I “created” and start with just a light finishing before glassing. not sure yet though I’m still looking around for a local! That is a bit of a set back but I will see what I can find.

 

My main mental weakness will be avoiding the colors for the glassing job… I know I shouldn’t do it! but the syrens are strong, mainly because I glassed a deck clear with the shaper I met 10 years ago… (even if it was Poly PU it gives me some unwarranted self confidence…) I have to chew on that.

10

Yeah, I kinda figured you had intended to do color.   Not because of anything you said, but simply because it’s common among new builders.   

I would say that trying to do color on your first glass job it the #1 most common mistake new builders make.  It NEVER turns out the way they planned - there are just too many moving parts.   Moreover, you want to do color in epoxy (which complicates it by 3x) over EPS (which complicates it even more).     

If you don’t have anywhere to shape then you also don’t have anywhere to glass.   

Here’e what it would take to do a clean resin color in epoxy over EPS:

  • you would need to be good enough at epoxy to mix your A/B ratios completely and accurately every time
  • you would need to get your tint or pigment ratios consistent from one batch to another
  • you would need to be able to lay a clean lapline with your tape, with ZER0 leakage.  Doing that over EPS is 2x harder than doing it over a PU blank.   If you don't get that line sealed the resin will soak in a bit under the tape and then you'll have to do a big fat pinline to cover it.  
  • your glassing technique needs to be even, clean and efficient because you need to get everything wrapped up before the epoxy starts setting up.   
  • your lapline cutting technique needs to be on point and you need to time it correctly before the resin completely sets up or it will be much much harder to cut.   

In short, everything has to go right to get the retail look that most new builders are going for.   If you’re too slow with your resin and it starts to heat up or if you pour it into a puddle and try to work it the way you work PE resin then that’s just not going to work.  If your spreader technique is uneven the resin will look splotchy, even moreso because of using EPS instead of PU.   It’s simply harder to get epoxy to look as even as PE resins.    

Think about this: This is your first board, and you’re trying to build it in order to surf it.  Next to that the cosmetics are strictly an afterthought.    And as far as attracting envious looks from the people you surf with or near you’ll get more appreciation from people who understand surfboards when you’re carrying a clean self-shaped board in clear than when carrying a looks-like-it-came-from-a-Chinese-factory looking board with the generic retail finish.   Meaning, you should embrace your cosmetic imperfections as a sign that you’re working the “built, not bought” program.   

There’s nothing wrong with being a new builder or with toting a board that’s obviously self-shaped and glassed. Just making the attempt puts you among the tiny minority of surfers who do their own.    Besides, you’ll get better at it as you do more of them.   

11

I concur with gdaddy’s above statement.   But such sage advise is almost never heeded by Sways first time builders.  It’s a Quantum Leap from your very nicely done computer generated graphic design to a hand shaped blank that looks anything like that conceptual design.   Of course you could always forward your design to a CNC cutting house and let their machine do the work.  They may even have an in house finisher that could sand the blank so that it is ready for a glass job.  You could then have it sent to a glasser to glass it for you.  You wouldn’t even need to see the board until they sent you an email notifying you that is done.  It’s your design, so it’s your board.  Right?

12

I hear you, first and foremost I need to get that local topic figured out! I live in the city and it’s not the easiest. Basically I have only, not ideal options so this should be the main focus for now.

For the color well… your analysis is accurate! But I also hear you there and I will reevaluate. 

 

for the resin/hardener ratio I intend on using a scale, I did it for 2 years, with or without charges, I’m not extremely worried here. However I know that the type of pigment I use may impact (or not) the ratio based on the component inside. I Would also need to ensure the compatibility.

would it be possible, in order to avoid the job “cleanliness” concerns, to just drizzle some tinted epoxy into the clear one and do the the job as if it was just clear epoxy? Let the color lay out randomly and use only clear epoxy for the rails? Only on the bottom?

this way a poor tape job and cut lap wouldn’t be critical?

If it doesn’t cut the difficult enough I’ll just go clear then. I don’t have a specific scheme I wanted to do… just a bit of color for the fun of it.

 

The working time (around 20mn) is indeed the “scary” part. That’s why I wanted to keep it simple enough maybe I need to make it even more simple.

bonus difficulty, I have only one hand so I need to practice a bit I think :) 

 

thank you for the time you take to answer. It is very much appreciated and I am really taking it into account!

 

13

Exactly!

As of right now I feel like trying the glass job myself, I am not completely sure about the shaping part that seems much harder and much more nuanced. Baby-steps. I’ve seen a shaper work and it was almost mind boggling to see how symmetrical and on point his work was using only measurements, tape and hand-tools. I hope to be able to do that someday! But I also hope to have a rideable ride board. Maybe if I had a place where I could shape with unlimited access, take my time, leave my tools… it would be a bit easier. It is still in consideration though. The good thing is that it is not a big deal. If I can I will, if I can’t I’ll just borrow a friend’s garage, protect it from top to bottom for one or two weeks. I will glass and sand my CNCed design, learn improve in those area and be very happy about it! until I find a more  suitable situation and work on my second board. From a virgin blank. :slight_smile:

14

What some backyarders do with glassing in epoxy is to break it up into sections. Mix enough resin to do one side completely, spread that and wrap the rails, and then mix/lam the other side after that.   Or mix enough for the flats and then come back with a fresh batch for the rails.   Another strategy is to use a slow hardener so you’re not on the 20-minute clock.   Or to do your glassing when the temperatures are lower (like early morning rather than early afternoon).   Or some combination of the above.   

The pros need to work quickly and efficiently, so time is money.   That beautiful 8 minute per side lamination that you see them do on the vids is the result of practicing their craft hundreds and thousands of times.  Backyarders will never do enough boards to develop that rythym.  Besides, we tend to have more time than common sense, so in some ways going slow is better for us.  

As I say, if you’re using an EPS blank then the bead pattern will be part of your look unless you do a solid opaque to cover them.    I’ve never done it, but I saw one builder use a colored spackle to seal the board and scrape it extra flat before fine sanding it back to the foam - the effect was that the colored spackle filled the voids and left the white beads of the form.  I think they used red and blue spackle to do it; and then they laminated in clear.  The end result looked like confetti.  Another way is to use a light tint lamination without sealing the EPS, so the tinted resin pools a little in the voids.  I haven’t done it in a long time, but I’ve drawn in chalk on foam and laminated over that. Obviously, some people do paint over EPS but that never seems to completely cover the beads, either so you still get that.      These are examples of what I would call incorporating the imperfections of the foam into your cosmetics.   

 

But ideally, all that is later for you.  I still think you’ll have more than enough of a challenge to work on just trying to get a clean waterproof lamination in clear.    

Full disclosure, I did a resin opaque on my 2nd board, so I did the same thing I’m now advising you against.   And yes, it ended up looking really bad.   Far, far worse than if I had just stuck with doing a clear.    So again, I urge you to be smarter than I was.  

15

One more thing, there’s something to be said for the aesthetic of novice surfers sticking with clear boards until they develop the surfing skills to go along with the showy cosmetics.   Trying to blend in as opposed to drawing attention to themselves.        Leastwise, that used to be a thing.   

16

This is actually an angle I didn’t think about… cuz “my” foamie screams kook anyway so I didn’t really think about the showy/skills correlation on the next board. I still appreciate the knowledge shared on the coloring regardless of your point of view on wether I should use colors or not. I still learn! even if now I’m not so sure about colors anymore I will still keep the info for later.

 

the way it stands i’m not planning on sealing the blank. didn’t think that the beads pattern would be so proeminent but it makes sense, I’m probably going clear. I wasn’t planning on any art work on the foam, just randomly mixing color in the resin… but that was before!

 

out of curiosity why your solid color ended up looking bad?

17

That’s a brutal question because it pains me to look back at that one, but here goes.  

It was a 6-10 singlefin egg I was doing for my youngest kid, and he had to talk me into doing color because I didn’t want to even make the attempt.  Red opaque bottom with a clear deck over a PU blank using PE resin.    This was long before I came to Swaylocks so I didn’t really have any resources beyond the “glassing 101” video and what we had seen of mixing and using resin colors in a couple of the longboarding videos.   

So here’s some of the steps where I went wrong:

  • I taped my lapline, but I didn't use the right masking tape, I didn't get a great seal and I didn't mask off the rest of the dry side.    So I got some bleeding under the tape and I got a couple splotches on the deck.
  • One reason I didn't get a great seal was because I didn't adequately blow off ALL the dust on the blank - if there's dust under the tape then the tape sticks to the dust instead of the blank.     I blew some of of the dust off, but not all of it.  
  • I also didn't get a clean curve when I taped the lapline. It took a few boards before I learned how to more effectively stretch the tape to get the curve I wanted and before I developed the eye for laying the line parallel to my rails.   So I ended up with flat spots and uneven sized lap lines.    
  • I used too many relief cuts around the radius of the nose and tail (I was doing a rounded pintail) so that when I wrapped them these sections overlapped the edges of each other, which intensifies the opacity of the resin (meaning you could see every cut.).  I didn't learn to pre-stretch the cloth around the curves prior to laminating until later on.   Do it right and you won't have to make any relief cuts at all.   
  • I took so long to laminate the resin that I left in the cup started to exotherm, and some of the pooling that I hadn't adequately spread during the working time of the resin started to kick, forcing my to rush the rest of my lamination.   (next time use less MEKP so as to leave more working time).   
  • I didn't cut/wrap the points at the nose and tail right, so I had bare spots on the tips, and again, overlapping edges.  
  • I had a couple dry spots on my rails
  • I came back *several times* with repairs over my tips and to attempt to straighten out the lap line, and I spent at least a couple hours with a razor blade trying to dig out the "bleed".  Then I came back with filler to backfill the foam I had cut out.   It still didn't look right.    
  • I didn't get the right proportion of pigment in a  couple of these repair batches to the opacity didn't exactly match.   (I'm probably the only one who ever noticed that, though)
  • I sanded through everything in a couple spots (BTW, sanding a resin tint or opaque puts colored dust everywhere including your tools, your clothes, your hair and everywhere else)  That's because my sanding skills were just as raw as my laminating skills
  • just bringing the lap line down put a bunch of red dust over the dry side because I hadn't masked it.  So I had to go back and try to get most of that off.   
  • I made a mess that was so epic it took several hours to clean up.   I looked like a crime scene where there were no survivors.    Cups, stirrers, squeegee, paper towels, spreaders, multiple pairs of gloves, resin on me, I stepped in pools of resin that had dripped off the laps so there was resin on my shoes, I had resin drops on my clothes.    I was so paranoid about trying to get everything to lay flat that I wasn't paying any attention to working clean.   
  •  

And mind you, this is the nostalgic look back.  I’m probably forgetting some of the other problems I had that day.  

All of the above is why I strongly urge you guys to be smarter than me.   

 

18

some valuable lessons in there! thank you very much for sharing! unfortunately I doubt that it will prevent me from making them but who knows! I might avoid one or two! when I manage to get everything set up I will definitely give this post a last minute read.

19

Some of my problems wouldn’t have been problems if I hadn’t been working in color.   It wouldn’t have mattered so much if my laps were rough or I had bleed through.  The relief cuts and overlaps wouldn’t have been so obvious.   I wouldn’t have spent so much time trying to even out the lamination.  I wouldn’t have gone through so many consumables.   

A few of those problems took quite a while for me to work through.    And that was with PE resin.    Epoxy adds another layer of difficulty over certain aspects of those problems.   

 

20

I understand! if I do clear should is there still a reason to do a cut lap? or a free lap makes more sens then? maybe cutlap for training