tblank, cant find the board in Quiver, link please?
More vents, a little white pigment in the resin makes them look like plastic.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/vents2010001.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/vents2010002.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/vents2010003.jpg[/IMG]
Thanks for those last set of pictures. I’m making my molds tonight. They’re going to be shaped very similar to yours. I can’t wait to try them out.
That’s commitment. I can’t wait to see your feedback on it.
If you don’t like it you can always plug the hole or replace that plank.
Surfoils, There is a board for sale I think in Quiver that has six or seven ports and channels. Check it out you might want to talk to the seller for feedback.
With Summer almost here Im going to whip up a thruster version.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/board011.jpg[/IMG]
Ive got a friend who'll test ride it for video purposes but it'll take a while to get it happening.
I’ll be curious to hear about whether the centre fin causes the same drawbacks as the centre fin in thruster surfboards, in terms of being angled against the flow of water and causing drag. Maybe a quad or twin-fin version will be better suited? Then again depending on quad port placement the turbelence from the front fins may effect the water flow through the rear fins…? Just a thought, I could be completely wrong…
I’d love to have a try of one of these boards, the curiosity is killing me!
Cpt. Id love to have enough used boards to make all the variations youve suggested, esp a quad. And a Simmons.
The results Ive got would suggest that because the vents are on the hull, then side positions are more controlled that being centrally placed because the inside rail is submerged further and the vents on the outside rail will contribute no drag that an outside fin would. So 2 vents on each rail would be super hold with no drag from the other side. Same with a thruster setup, no drag from the outside or centre fin.
Theres still a long way to go before I can claim any of this as fact but some of the results would suggest its likely.
Heres a quick install.
Outline and cut with a scalpel at the angle of the walls.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/bagging002.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/bagging003.jpg[/IMG]
Vent slides in.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/bagging004.jpg[/IMG]
Tape over the bottom edge with polyethylene.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/bagging006.jpg[/IMG]
I cut the foam too well and dont have room to pour the qcell in from the deck !
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/bagging008.jpg[/IMG]
Its just the way weve been doing it, but those routing suggestions look easier.
I'll buy a router off eBay tomorrow.
brett thats doable with the way i sugested but the jig will need to have the angle of the walls
Hi Huie, I have no doubt Im doing it the hardest way but Im more of a 'hand tool' sort of bloke.
Theres been over 4000 hits in less than 2 months on this thread so Im sure there are one or two smart guys out there who are thinking how to do it too....
Hey surffoils
loving this Thread!!
maybe a suggestion to glue in your vents, I have been mucking around with 2 part liquid expanda foam for glueing (heaps more light weight than q cells and resin). you could easily pour it in your small gaps and it would hold it in place for sure! and easy sanding any excess.
cant wait to see the final product!!
After following this excellent thread and having an alaia in the works, I decided to blend both of them by putting “internal fins” to it. I used the templates shown by Surffoils a few pages up, marked the top side and the bottom side with a bit less shift between the two because of the lack of thickness (18 mm only for the paulownia plank). I made the vents with a chisel and hammer and finished them with a file and sandpaper. I haven’t shaped any concave on the bottom of the alaia, so any stability if present should result from these two vents. I can’t wait trying that, as soon as the swell won’t be 5 m high as it is these days…
Have any of you thought of putting numerous smaller holes (ala Herb) in an XTR blank? I was just thinking that you wouldn’t have to worry about glassing them.
edit: meant XTR, not XPS
That alaia looks fun. Let us know how it rides. I have shaped my molds (very similar to surffoils) and the epoxy is curing as I type. I’m debating as to using Suncure to actually create the vent plugs. I’ve also thought about Gorilla gluing them in, using Great Stuff to glue them in, or to go the q cell and resin route a la Surffoils. I’m leaning towards the latter. I’m putting them in a very strange board, it’s 4’ x 19.75" x 3". The nose is shaped like a bodyboard nose and the tail is very Simmons-ish. No concave or vee in the tail. Straight up flat and the whole thing has very little rocker. Basically, it looks like one of those foam ‘Beater’ boards that just came out not too long ago. I’m trying to keep a good amount of volume in it seeing as it’s so short. I’m going for more of a wave skate sort of setup: Short, skimmy, and alaia-ish in the fact that the board will be able to have a bit of slide to it but then also have a bit of grip when the vents engage. I’m really hoping I can do shove-its on it. 
Why the weird shape? If you read the latest issue of TSJ you will see an article on the Lord Boards. It’s these kids that are just surfing billets of square foam, barely shaped whatsoever. Read it if you can, it’s very interesting.
I really think this is the way surfing will go in the future. More skate and snow inspired tricks. If that’s true, people will need boards that can float them and also be able to be whipped around quickly. With no dangerous sharp objects sticking out of it (fins) and the ability to engage and disengage the board grabbing the wave would allow a lot of innovation. Then the next problem would be creating boards that can take that abuse…
I’m guessing channels leading directly into the vents will also have more water rushing in, thereby increasing grab as well. Just another thing to experiment with… One thing I find pretty interesting is that if you look at any of the pictures of the actual port (bottom side), and you look at them on the side, you’ll notice his outline looks a lot like a keel fin, or a longer ‘D’ fin (although facing the oposite direction). Perhaps something to experiment with in the future as well.
[quote="$1"] edit..... I used the templates shown by Surffoils a few pages up, marked the top side and the bottom side with a bit less shift between the two because of the lack of thickness (18 mm only for the paulownia plank). ...
[/quote]
Pierrek, Thats a beautiful board. Good to see the "bright young men" having a go !
Our old dims are 190 mm along the active edge and 55 mm wide at the widest point (on the hull), about 1/2 way down.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/June2010E003ANGLES.jpg[/IMG]
But thats the biggest shape weve used and we are constantly making them smaller.
I think the vents work not only because of the straight edge but also the area of the active wall so on a thinner board they may need to be longer to get enough area to hold. Maybe a little D fin coming down off the edge to increase the area. My son and I have used a few 1" deep D fins... he likes the look, I dont. But it does increase the vents effect.
Shape it for zero drag in a straight line and then maximum resistance in turning.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/July2010A040P.jpg[/IMG]
[quote="$1"]
edit...I'm guessing channels leading directly into the vents will also have more water rushing in, thereby increasing grab as well. Just another thing to experiment with...
[/quote]
If anyone makes them 190 X 55 you'll see theres a LOT of water coming in, even just paddling you can feel the flow coming thru the board. we're going smaller overall, pretty much back to the size we started with on page 1...
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/AUG2010047.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/AUG2010058.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/AUG2010045.jpg[/IMG]
But its about getting the internal surfaces right too. Ive shown but not discussed the 'shelf' (as we call it) on the passive side but you guys might be doing a totally different design.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/shelf1.jpg[/IMG]
The active side is fairly easy to get it to work at a basic level but the passive side is just as important.
Earlier on we did a lot of really thin passive sides to keep a very low angle facing the flow.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/July2010A007P.jpg[/IMG]
BUMP
Okay, my first snag. My vents got glassed to my mold. I guess I didn’t use enough wax. So now I’m a little stuck. Making my vents (unsuccessfully) I kept thinking this wasn’t the best way to do it. Does it work? Obviously, but there has to be an easier way of doing it. I’m going to experiment with the board I currently have, I might just grind away at the mold until the foam is gone and I have some vents. Then I can install them; but that stinks because then my molds were only used once. I’m going to look into injection molding or perhaps a CNC machine of sorts to create the pieces out of plastic. I have a bunch of CAD students at my disposal that could design the specs and then I could have them made somewhere. I think there’s a place online that you can send the dimensions and they’ll create it for you. They even do low numbers I believe. If anybody knows anything about this, let me know. Thanks
EDIT: The Internet is a great place. I found just the information I need. As long as the molding agent I need is at the craft store, I can still use my molds but I’m going to create the vents by making an outer mold and then injecting epoxy. Looks like it’ll work!
Now thats going hi-tech ! Pity about the mold stick, but its led you to CNC.
You young fellas have instantly gone beyond our 7 months of work.... I know when Im outclassed and I'm moving to The Balcony to watch from there !
Just a few words on the theory of all this. Its just my interpretation and comments so feel free to shoot me down.
Whatever the aesthetics of finless craft, the physics of internal fins would involve less drive and lateral resistance than standard fins due to the lack of surface area involved. Surely internal fins could add some level of grip and drive to a board with fins removed , but not up to the same level as a finned board. Or maybe the same ??
But "what degree of grip and drive is possible" is the question for me.
And to what degree is a board 'finless'? If a thru hull vent had a small integrated lip that hung down, is that still classed as finless?
Just generally looking at thru hull modifications, be they holes, slots or vents, they would be sited near the tail of the board in the same area as standard fins to attempt to replicate the accepted "finned" feel of drive and resistance that we all know.
I dont see why thru hull fins should try to radically change the overall balance of board design so putting them at the tail would mean that theres every chance to keep a boards design as it is and just replace fin configurations with thru hulls vents. So, with a boards tail approx.30 to 15mm thick, theres not a lot of room to manipulate the flow so every surface is important.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/sideview.jpg[/IMG]
In practice, water flows up thru all of ther vents we've made. Just working with an oval shape,the longitudinal dim has a minimum value where almost no water rises up and travels to the deck level, and at a certain dim theres a steady flow of some volume.
The lateral dim just magnifies the volume. On our wider vents that were ~ 60mm wide there is a FLUME shooting out of the deck at even low speeds. At about 30 to 40 mm wide theres a volume that seems both sizeable and controllable for now.
The direction of the thru-flow seems mainly front to back with little lateral spray or splay, and the rear shape of the vent can instantly add massive drag.
We tried to limit the flow out of the vent by choking the size of the deck port and we've tried to manipulate the water to stay under the board by having a 'shelf' or forward angle at the back of the vent.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/PB150219.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/PB150218-1.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/PB150217-1.jpg[/IMG]
And on the passive side we used a lot of low angles to contain the flow inside the vent.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/July2010A012P.jpg[/IMG]
Once the water has come into the vent, it doesnt want to be compressed back down and so all of the attempts to reduce the flow with low angles only produced large amounts of drag.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/September2010017.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/September2010012.jpg[/IMG]
Some versions have been successful, but overall, better results have come from allowing the water to take its course and reversing the angle at the rear of the vent.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/PB150222.jpg[/IMG]
The deck port is now larger but a 'click-down' cover or grid will stop toes getting in the way for those worried about that aspect.
Now with most of the water going straight thru cleanly, lateral grip was the only other issue.
Noting that acute angles produced drag, the active wall was angled in at the top similar to the cant of a fin, but we still havent found a correct uniform angle or twist to produce consistent results.
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/AUG2010046.jpg[/IMG]
Now making a set of quads..
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/CS006.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/PB150224.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/PB150230.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/PB150232.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/PB150233.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/PB150234-1.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/PB150235-1.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202010/CS018.jpg[/IMG]
Any thoughts?
