Well after 3 years of occasional lurking here and many years of composites experience I finally had a go at my first board.
Its a mini simmons style tomo vanguard inspired design, using a template i modified off a blending curves template (a 5'8x22 3/4" mini sim).
It was shapped from a burford 7'7 mini mal blank. 6oz bottom, with a 4 and 6 oz deck. full length concave with max 1/4" concave under the front foot, into channel tail max 3mm vee. about 1/8" concave in the nose between the points. It doesnt have the funky nose couble concave as per the tomo design. Insidentaly I only saw my first vanguard in the flesh yesterday after i'd done all but the final graphics on my board!
Is a fairly hard rail until mid board. then softens up a fair bit.
front fins toed at 1 deg, rears are parallel.
Final dimensions 5'9 x 22 1/4" x 2 15/16"
I've had a great time making the board and am fully pumped to make some more as soon as I get back from my annual windsurf/surf trip to Gnaraloo!
nagualshaper that looks mad! I bought a 2nd hand tomo 6'x19"x2 3/8 of a similar fashion but its a more pointed nose than yours. How did you get the finish?
Barry thanks for the advice. I have a few sets of fins but thought i'd throw those in for a pic. even if I do run the wavefins I think i will run some some quad trailers in the front boxes. I've also got a controller set which look like they might.
Chrispy I had a few close moments but ive learnt a lot in the process too.
Onwards and upwards. They can only get better from here!
Well I’ve had the board out now quite a number of times over the past 2.5 weeks up at gnaraloo in the small stuff both at tombstones (a left) and at fenclines (a right).
The biggest I took it out in was head high fat stuff, and the smallest was knee high.
I tried 4 different fin combos.
Riding front side the controller quad style fins went very well. The board was super fast in the big stuff with this setup but didnt like the chop on the wave face. It did feel very skatey when ridden off the front foot.
Twin keel in the rear, very average. but maybe the onshore breeze and the bigh waves at tombies made it tough. I’m not sure I like the profile of the fin though. but the fat leading edge = drag= control on a super fast board.
Twinzer with kelly rears in the front, wavefins in the rear and a numbster went quite well. I found it quite loose (almost unrideable the first few waves but then warmed to it and somehow made it work.) I like the setup!
I guess because of the reef I was wearing booties the whole time so feel and feedback was a bit numb but overall I’m very happy with the performance.
It didnt go so well in pitching chest to head high waves. Often i could paddle in early and pop up but the wave would steepen and I would nose dive (maybe I needed to take off on more of an angle). But hey thats what my 6’3 diamond tail is for!
I wanted to try as a twinzer with the kelly rears in the front and the mark richards 78s in the back but the swell picked up too much and wasnt game to try the board in well overhead dredging barreling conditions.
I also need to try it with a set of PC7 quads.
I did struggle riding backside a little, but I think it is mostly because I’m not a great rider and I dont surf often enough.
