Greetings all. I’m sorry if this is just another “noob question”
thread, but my head kinda feels fuzzy at the moment from reading and
reading, and I believe it’s time I bother the guys with the experience
with my questions. Not that I have much experience in surfing, but
recently I’ve been thinking about trying to shape my own board. Mostly
because I think it would be fun.
I’ve been reading up on it at
Swaylock and surfersteve’s website. I think I understand the very basics
of the steps I need to take, but I have some questions.
Buying
blanks and getting them shipped to where I live would be a bit
expensive, so I’ve been trying to find what I can use. Polystrene and
polyurethaneseem to be preffered choices of material, but so far I can’t
seem to find a block that I can shape down to the required dimensions.
How do you go about making your own blank? Would glueing smaller pieces
like carpenters do with wood and applying pressure work?
Should I
try to put a stringer in my first board? What are they used for? I read
that they help with preventing the surface sagging into the foam… or
something closer to that. Is there any other reason?
The stringer in a blank is (almost) a necessity because it does provide some rigidity, allowing you to shape without having the blank bending all the time between racks. Now, people will tell you that a stringer isn’t needed in an EPS blank because glass itself will bring enough rigidity, but I wonder how they can shape it first…
Now, you can find EPS (and maybe PU, too) in Home Depot style stores, but those were not formulated for surfboards so don’t expect miracles…
I live in Turkey at the moment… not really a surfing spot. And having blanks shipped over would be a bit expensive. My only choice is at the moment is trying out home depot kind places for materials.
And the foams I could find today were of small sizes, so I’ll need to glue some together (assuming it’s something that would work). I might as well try and fit in a stringer.
You sure you want to do this?.... you will start down a road you can't get off.. (writing this looking at my latest creation wondering if I lower the rocker in my next one...)
With your situation use EPS foam probably the easiest to get..
And yes... I'm one of those guys that Balsa is talking about who thinks stringers are not needed. you just need to go slow in shaping (recommend hand tools when you are first doing it) and the good old rasp tool is your best friend instead of the electric planer.
With the quality (or lack) of foam would screet/spakle the blank with a expoy resin and q-cell mix this will make the skin of the blank stronger when glassing and a bit more ridgid.
Good luck and remember to post photos so you can get advice as you go along.
Hahaha, I’ll probably regret ever doing this. But I’ve always wanted to turn that empty space in the house into some kind of workshop. So, why not try shaping boards?
At the moment, I’m pretty much planning to stick to surfersteve’s stuff for refence (sorry, if this sounds like an advertisement.) No stringers, EPS foam, nothing fancy probably. (no paint jobs etc.). And I’ll use hand tools; among other reasons, I don’t want invest into electric planer etc before knowing I’d like to continue doing this. From sculpting, I have gained some experience in working with dirty stuff, using tools and getting frustrated trying to make it all symmetrical. Hopefully, it might provide some help or at least patience while shaping the board.
I’m at the stage where I’m trying to gather the necessary materials for the shaping phase. Meanwhile, I’m trying to decide on the board dimensions. The last board I used was a 7’6" funboard, so I’ll probably go with that. I’ll post pictures as soon as I start glueing and drawing outlines.
Thanks for the tip by the way. Did you ever use EPS? What was the density? At the moment, most EPS I can find are of lower density, with bigger grain sizes. (Need to be a bit careful while cutting and shaping in case a few grain dislodges and leave behind an annoying hole.) Beside mental health reasons, is there a reason to try and find one with smaller grains (like material strength etc)?
Im very interested in know a bit about the waves there.
We know about waves in Israel, but not so good in Egypt
and Lebanon?
anyway, you finally will use that big cells polystyrene foam cause will be the one you find
I mean, the closed cells are not selled in the hardware stores.
My advice is to try the yellow pages and call a factory (at least should be one eps factory there…) then buy a billet of eps so in that way you can do the rocker (with a hotwire) and no problems (and not functional thing too) glueing pieces, etc.
for the stringer you can use 1/8 PVC (sentra) sanded a bit to have better bond.
use polyester resin that is better than a non surboard epoxy resin. Before that and after shaped the board, you can use vinylic glue (like the carpenters white glue or what the school kids used) and cover all the surfaces, that is a cheaper way to prevent eating from the poly resins and to prevent nightmare bubbles in the lamination due to those spaces between the big cells.
actually I said that use poly instead of non surfboards epoxies.
The guy seems that is in a budget so I suggested to use that white glue to cover everything and prevent the melting
In the past, that was the cheaper and easy way to go
“hardware store epoxies” are kind of yellow and generate lot of trouble in the end, but still he can use it for the lamination and hotcoat, then sand with no less than 60 grit then you can do a final finish coat with poly.
