Greg, here’s something you can go to help with EPS/epoxy adoption.
Post your methods for creating rocker templates and sell copies of your existing rockers. Outlines are easy, rockers are hard; make it easy for us.
As someone mentioned somewhere recently the Clark Foam catalog helped a lot of people out my having so many options to choose from. Anyone can order an EPS block and build a hotwire cutter. It’s the rockers that will slow down the flow.
Everyone needs the methods to construct metal rocker templates. Even better would be if you sell, for a nominal price, copies of your templates.
This is similar to Gillette giving away the razor in order to sell more blades.
Rob - if you have a copy of the clark blank catalog - you’ve got the natural rockers and foils for all the blanks. If not , you can go to the clark website and download the pages you need ( if clarkfoam.com is still online) You can then take your stringer material and plot your rocker and foil measurements, use some long piece of slightly flexible material (like a 1/4" x8’ plastic rod) clamp it to your stringer and trace your curves and you’ve got your stringer template after you cut it out.
The easiest way to make a rocker template is to buy an EPS blank lie it on it’s rail and trace.
The next easiest way is to buy a urethane blank cut it down the stringer lie it down and trace. Then glue it back together and sell it for a thousand dollars.
The next way is to buy a piece of plywood, a thin peice of wood stripping, a roll of butcher papar and some 4d or 6d nails. Lie the paper on the plywood and plot your measurements on the paper. Now pound a few nails in to the plot coordinates (just in enough for the nails to stand upright) and then bend the wood to lean against the nails. Trace the line. Do the same for the deck. To finish you’ll probably have to use some other curves to get the nose and tail to look just right. Mostly I just kinda sketch that part in by eye. Now pull out the nails and spray glue the paper to some masonite, cut out and copy a second one and you’ve got a set of templates.
you can even use an opaque overhead projector with the Clark catalogue and get your favorites with no problem. I like the idea of getting some butcher paper, but make a master out of masonite or similar, would love to use pvc but can’t find it yet, any help Greg? p.s. Imperial had the 2#, hadn’t heard of the 2.5#, but thanks for the lead!! Who has the 2.5???
And you can always use computer software to make the rocker curve you want (and foil as well) and just send the file to your eps foam supplier and have them cut it for you. No hotwire needed - well maybe if you want to use one for cutting the outline (but I bet the foam place would do that as well).
We should move this to general discussion, as it would help alot of people out knowing that they can have their eps cut to their specification. I’m sure it would make some people less hesitant to try eps as it eliminates some of the investment required to try shaping eps.
We’ve used overhead projectors before on airbrush. Good idea. Lots of good ideas here. There are four EPS plants in Central FL. They are:
Carpenter - Lakeland
Cellofoam - Kissimee
Imperial - Ormand Beach
Insulfoam - Lakeland
All make 2.0. I’ve heard that Insulfoam FL won’t make higher. I’ve heard that Cellofoam does. I don’t know about the other two. The info I have is second hand so you need to check for yourself.
Just so everyone knows, any one of these plants could supply the entire surfboard industry worldwide by themselves. There are over 100 plants like these accross the US. We can NEVER run out of foam.
I just finished making my rocker templates out of masonite and I was wondering how perfect do these rocker templates have to be? I just used a copping saw and sanded them to 600 grit. it looks good but I guess I could do better.
how do you make your rocker templates? I saw a pair you used in cerritos and they look pretty perfect did you use a cnc machine to cut it out? or just power tools? Thanks.
take all of ex-Clark foam templates (catalog) to your nearest Kinko’s (or copying center)
have the technition explode all pics to full size.
Hint: any ex-Clark foam under 9 feet is on a scale of 1:12
any blanks over 9 feet is on a scale of 1:16
blank templates are perfect now, just cut and paste on your stringer material. (make two, to help hotwire the rocker out). keep them for templating future boards.
also, take the template to your nearest metal machine shop…they can mill out rocker templates real easy. (now you have rocker templates made out of light weight metals) keep these for ever!
take home message: now with rocker templates…you can make any size (width) board,why? after hotwiring rocker template…now you can cut your outline anyway you want. Unlimited ways to shape a 10-1Y rocker.
Don’t be afraid…nothing is too small to hotwire (check my thread on “fishboard layup help”) thats…14 feet long x 4 feet wide x 6 inches thick.
"When I built Fiberglass Supply’s web site(years ago, I was bought of the out of company out last year), one of the questions I asked Clark Foam was how accurate the drawing were. The answer, I got back was the draws were a collection of images that were close by not accurate. In other words never scale off an image, only use the measurement numbers.
Anthony"
taken from the Accuracy of Clark Catalog in general discussion.
This might pose a problem for creating rockers from clark website?
i am fortunate enought to live in lakeland florida where two of those eps manufactures are located. i went on mapquest to get directions to carpenter foam. and no lie its off of clark road. pretty crazy
I’ll measure my rocker templates with my “mint- 1st quality never touched 10-1Y clark blank”. I’ll use my rocker measuring tool to see any difference. So, far thickness and length is dead on! and rocker is very,very,very close to my copied template.
How close tolerance did you want? sounds like your milling heads for a drag car?
Take home message #2
Have fun with what it is! how perfect can you hand shape anyways?
What kind of file do the foam places use? I’m thinking about using some of my free time that I’ve got to model up the clark catalog in something like autocad or solidworks.
I’m sure different places accept different types of files so it’d be better to check with the place you plan to buy the EPS from.
To me, it makes more sense to design the board with the exact foil and rocker you want and have them supply you that instead of modelling something off a clark “blank” that is still going to need to be shaped down a little or a lot.
Very true but I was thinking about posting the files for whoever on here wants to take to their local EPS manufacturer so they can get blanks made up as I don’t make enough boards to warrant buying a block of foam. I think it would help a lot of people make the transition to EPS if they had blanks similar to clark precut… no rocker templates needed.
