I am hoping for a little input into a mini long board for my wife. She has mostly surfed single and twin fins (6’6†and smaller) but after back to back kids is looking for something a bit longer. She came up with a mini long board shape around 20.5†wide, 7’6†with a full nose and a diamond tail. She also wants to knee paddle it. She is intermediate level and surfing mostly under head high beach breaks with an occasional point break.
I have a 1lb eps blank I am planning to suck a 3 mm corecell top on, high density PU rails and bamboo veneer bottom. I am shooting for a light weight strong board for her to get back into surfing on.
Having only shaped and surfed shorter boards I was hoping for some input into the mini long board.
I think it’s easier to knee paddle a shorter board if you have lots of experience knee paddling a true long board. Just an opinion.
Personally, I learned to knee paddle when all we had were “long” boards. So, I cannot speak as one who’s only ridden the shorter end of the scale. Having said that, I own an 8’0" noserider and I can knee paddle that with no trouble, at all. I also have an 8’0" Yater Spoon and that is pretty easy to knee paddle, as well. I weigh about 145. With enough width and thickness an experienced surfer should be able to knee paddle a 7’6" if they weigh close to 100 lbs.
There are lots of boards you could knee paddle but not be able to actually knee paddle into the wave. For that she may need a bigger board.
I have some movies of Skip Frye in spring of 1969, knee paddling a 7’6 roundtail at PB Point. Yes he is knee paddling into waves on it. But of course, that’s Skip.
Howzit slashzilla, Back in 68’ I had a 6’10" William Dennis that I could knee paddle catching waves. The trick was to be in the right place on the board, 1" back and it plowed water, 1" forward and the nose was under water. Can’t remember the thickness but it wasn’t that thick. It did have a heavy vee in the tail area ( Aussie influence ) and it was a magic board. Aloha,Kokua
I finally got all the supplies and am ready to get this baby done so the wife can turn the turtle.
I wanted to ask yall about perimeter stringers. I have 1/8 bass for the stringers. I was planning on gluing the stringers to the core outline as in the image below (red = stringer blue = 5lb pu 1â€).
After researching other blanks I have not seen anything (long) with stringers completely around the core perimeter. I am mainly using the stringers to hold form for the vac bag (I don’t have a rocker table or space for one).
I already cut out the core and was surprised at how soft 1lb eps is. I figure 1/16†deep vert cuts in the top 2 feet of the stringer will allow an easy bend around nose.
Does anyone have input into this perimeter stringer style or suggestions for a better solution.
Do you really plan on bending the wood around the nose like that? What is your plan of attack? Steam it? Seems like it would be easier to run the stringers off the nose. Also having the stringer round the nose like that probably doesn’t do anything on the technical side of things except add weight…would look bitchen though if you could pull it off. Can’t say i’ve seen that done before.
I was planning on shallow vertical cuts into the stringer to easily bend it around the nose but I agree it will definitely add weight. I was wondering if there was an advantage to the build to do it this way. I just completed my 1st compsand (posted at the bottom of this page) with the same basic rails (WMD) so I started #2 to out the same way (short board approach to long board shape? Probably a bad idea).
Maybe I should post on the WMD thread since this is the direction of the board.
“I have some movies of Skip Frye in spring of 1969, knee paddling a 7’6 roundtail at PB Point. Yes he is knee paddling into waves on it. But of course, that’s Skip.”
I finally finished the board. It ended up 8 feet tall 21 inches wide. 1lb EPS with 1inch 4lb PU rails (no stringers). Corecell deck with 4 oz on both sides and a few 4 oz patches and bamboo veneer bottom with 4oz only on the outside. With the fins (no wax or pad) she weighs in at 8lbs 6oz. The goal was a very light board for the wife to surf mellow waves and knee paddle. She broke it in last weekend and is stoked she can knee paddle it with no prob.
[img_assist|nid=1030340|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=206|height=273]Second board I bagged, I tried to suck the rails to the core and bottom skin on a makeshift rockertable all in one go.
I had to cut the rails off, rip the veneer off all large voids, and redo the outline. Once I got a solid shape again I tried to suck the corecell around the rails which led to the $h1ttiest rail of the year award. After many faring experiments, a 60 grit block worked best.
The deck feels super strong and passed the grom drop knee test and a few others.
Thin coat of spray paint to hide things, a few paint pens of the bottom and 2 coats of UV acrylic.
[img_assist|nid=1041890|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=480|height=640][img_assist|nid=1041891|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=480|height=640]6” Orca and side bites
[img_assist|nid=1041892|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=481]
Waxing it up for the chicken.
Thanks for the input.[img_assist|nid=1041893|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=481]
