Deck and hull skins done. Time to join them together with a few tabs around the perimeter.
Remember this is the inside of the mat that you see now.
When it comes to joining material the best tension is none.
Close to 100 handmade mats now and it’s clear that building the best mats is more than just sticking things together, it’s about the materials, the glues, planning, preparation, even how you approach the build.
Know your design, your tools, your self and move forward with purpose. Have confidence in yourself.
Here’s the 105 I-beams or posts that I use to connect the deck to the hull, they form a very light and flexible system inside the surf mat.
With 105 different points to design with I can plot and create all the bottom contours - Single into double concaves, concave into Vee, even asymmetrical, whatever. It’s created innovation into surfmat design becuase I can customise surf mats into a thousand different designs. Just takes a bit more brain power to work out all the number so the curves and concaves are smooth.
When it’s at low inflation it’s flexible but when you grip the corners it fills out to create the contours.
Very cool looking. I agree about materials/glue/prep. I started messing with 200D but quickly went to 70D. Now that I think about it, I really liked the 200D, maybe I’ll go give that another try.
Glad you dropped in John, We’ve got 2 weeks of school holidays here so I’m hanging with my sons and then I’ll start your mat. Gives me 2 weeks to do some minor R & D too. I’ll make yours and then stop hogging this thread.
( Second pic is from the inside of the inflated mat. You can see the strips are perfectly straight, perfectly aligned.)
Then pop in an inflation valve.
Then reinforce the perimeter with a vinyl edge strip. The strip completely changes the rail shape, instead of an inflated curve it becomes a peaked rail that allows the water to shear of with absolutely minimal drag.
Please guys, drop in with a comment or two so I know if you like or not or what you want to see, thanks.
One thing I dont get though is how you glue the top layer on?..i.e what’s the sequence? do you work from one end to the other in a “reverse peel” fashion?
Both techniques work, if you attach the deck and hull skins back to back, connect the strips to one side and then do the “reverse peel” to slowly turn the mat right side in and then attach each row of strips as you go.
On the other hand if you do the strips or I-beams from the inside to the outside as Monkstar said and then seal the perimeter.
There’s another way with both sides being one piece and wrapping it around and sealing the ends. I’ll do it that way next for Johns mat.
Thanks for the props guys, I’ve never seen anyone else do surf mat design like this but I hope the pro makers try my designs because they do work.
Especially the tapered/ rounded outline or plan shape. John Mellors surf mat is next so I’ll do a completely clear model for him. Here’s a pic that shows why all performance surf mats should be pulled in at the tail.
I’ll do John Mellors mat now, it’s a much simpler design, easy to build and bulletproof becuase there’s less glueing.
Pic 1/. I have my designs on pieces of ply so I lay the vinyl over the design and mark with a pen where everything goes like the connecting strips and the apex of the rails and the overall dimensions. I’ve used tape so you can see where the positions are.
Pic 2/. Then cut out the single piece that going to be the top, bottom and rails. And the connecting strips. There’s 45 of them for this mat.
Pic 3/. And here’s all the pieces ready to glue.
Pic 4/. At the end when you fold the sides over to create the top, the strips align with the positions on the bottom. Then you seal the ends and it’s done. I’m timing how long it takes to build this one. This is 36 minutes.
Hi Josh, here’s the stuff I use , it’s from the US so should be easy to get for you. You must use the primer as well, it’s clheap and you can get the primer from any hardware store.
