Let me first go ahead and thank you in advance for sharing your hard earned knowledge. Im a back yarder and Im trying to put together my up-coming blank order from the US blanks catalogue. It will be the first time that I will order blanks with custom rocker and in particular a good blank from which to shape a good nose-rider at a length of 9’6. I was thinking of using the 10’ 2" B Longboard blank.
The stock rocker in that blank is 4" 13/16 Nose rocker and 3" 13/16 Tail rocker. In my limited experience this is roughly the opposite of what you want a nose-rider rocker to be. I would like very little rocker through the nose / mid and accelerating into the tail , creating almost like a kick tail.
So, from my understanding if I reduce the nose rocker by roughly an inch and increase the tail rocker by the same I would have a decent starting point?
In the catalogue it gives the option of -1N / + (plus)1T … Would this be a good idea? Am I on the right track or way off?
If there are any experienced longboard shapers out there who would have a minute to give me any advice/tips on this subject your time would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Consider, ‘‘thinking outside the box.’’ Look at possibly using the nose of the blank, as the tail of the board you template onto the blank. Rocker will be what you’re looking for, and the finished board won’t know that you swapped ends of the blank. Simple, eh?
Order that blank in a “reverse rocker” and you will have what you are trying to achieve. They will know what you are referring to. Shaper since it was too late.
This is my noserider rocker that I’ve used since the Clark Foam days. I would order the 9’9” Y with this rocker as my standard for boards 9’4” – 9’6”. You can order the US Blanks 9’8”Y with this rocker and get what you want. I would not waste money ordering a 10’ blank. If you give them these numbers, they will glue it up exactly how you want it and keep it on file for you. Flipping the blank around can create foiling problems if you’re not real good at it, and ordering the right blank with the right numbers will save you time & headaches. Just my 2c…
As I said order a “Reverse Rocker”. This will give you something extremely close to what you are talking about. By ordering the blank this way the width dimensions, thickness flow, rail etc. will all be the same as the usual 10’2 B. You will not have to think the blank to death to get thickness, flow and rail to come out the way you want them. Those parts of the puzzle will already be there. Only thing different will be the Rocker. Calvani, Jimmy Lewis and others order blanks reversed all the time. US Blanks will know exactly what you are talking about. Wish I had taken a pic; I recently picked up a Millennium 10’2” P Reverse Rocker for a shaper up here in the Northwest. Looked very cool. The P series at Millennium are great blanks as is their 9’5. Most of my LB’s are coming out of Millennium’s these days. Here’s one with the”Dark wood”. Lowel
Unless you are the type of surfer who busts a lot of turns, roundhouse cutbacks etc. In that case their stock foam density. I haven’t looked at a US Blanks Catalog in so long, I don’t remember their color codes. Stock is what? Red? But if you want something that glides and cruises, go with the “Classic” like Huck said.
The reasoning would be that the heavier the density, the harder the foam and therefore more ding resistant. You would think so but out of the three big Poly foam makers it’s my opinion that US Blanks is less like the other two. So I can’t assume much about their heavier densities.
