Internal Stiffener Help.

General Discussion
1

Been a busy B this weekend and cut out 6 new boards from my home depot/lowes cheapo foam slabs.

6’3" retro fish (from the fishexperiment design)

6’6" waterskate (from grant’s website)

6’8" merrick flyer (from my surftech)

7’4" Parmenter vector(2) (from my vector)

8’ double ender

Each “blank” consists of a 2" slab glued up to a 1" slab with a 1mm sheet of woven bamboo veneer to act as horizontal stringer… Even with this and a bottom wood lam the 1lb floppy foam is still way to flimsy. So I need to now do wood rails and use 1/4" thick balsa on the deck for strength… We glue up the foam slabs under vacuum attached to a board we want to copy the rocker from so that the two sheets adhere to the horizontal bamboo stringer with epoxy with the rocker attached from the board we’re copying like a portable rocker table. Since I’m copying some of my poly boards it’s pretty easy for now…

But is there any way to strength the foam internally with carbon/fiberglass rods or 1/2" bamboo sticks to stiffen things without having to cut things in half to put in a stringer?

If I go 6 under and double 6 over the 1/16-1/8" thick balsa will that be enough without having to do the wood rails on a stringerless 7’4" or 8’ .75-1lb EPS board?

2

stiffeners… was just thinking about this with respect to a stringerless paddleboard blank I have.

Your choices are, in no particular order of preference…

  1. simply glass the thing stringerless and see how flexy it is.

  2. use some carbon tape lengthwise under the glass (don’t want to be around if you’re sanding carbon fiber).

  3. wood rails

  4. perimeter stringers, cut into the blank about, ummm, 2" in side the template

  5. stringer(s) the regular way

3

Thanks Charlie

I was think of routing out some 1/2"-3/4" deep channels in the 2" and gluing some 1/4"-1/2" diameter 8’ long bamboo sticks into the channels like those curved stingers. then lam the two slabs to the lauhala woven bamboo sheet.

Doing this I might not have to do the perimeter balsa rails witch no matter how you slice and dice it are a real B* tch to glue up one 1/4" sheet at a time to build out to 3/4" to 1.5" rails bands you still have to shape.

I was hoping someone could validate that double 6oz or triple 6oz glassing shedule with a 1/16" wood skin would make a stringerless EPS board ultra stiff even without doing the wood rails. I thought Greg Lohr said something a while back about not using wood rails and a thicker glass schedule with deck channels to make an almost indestro board out of 1lb EPS. Having to glue up two sheets and then cut it in half again to insert a stringer as well as put in the rocker kind of defeats the whole home depot slab foam attempt in my eyes… Might as well start with a standard blank if you have to go through all that trouble. I probably don’t know what the hell I’m doing anyway venturing off into this cheapo home board building experiment.

The silence most likely means that stringerless is just too flexible and not a good idea…

4

Oneula,

I have at home a catalogue from GunSails2003. They built also a batch of sailboards under the brand G-sailboards. They were EPS stringerless, but they had 4 (2 on deck-2 on bottom) halfway routered “channels” (approx. 5mm wide X 40mm deep), along the entire length of the board, which they filled, before glassing, with 1 vertical layer of carbon-epoxy. I don’t know if this “half-stringer” was cured before being inserted in the channel or it was wetted and pulled into it with a thin squeegee.

I’ll try to scan the “tech-specs” drawing for you.

5

All my EPS boards are stringerless. I just glass them double six on top and single six on the bottom. But all my boards have a concave deck, which adds stiffness and strength. You’d be surprised how stiff your board is going to be, especially with the balsa and extra glass.

You don’t really need the wood rails, but they do add torsion stiffness, springiness and a more balanced feel with the extra weight at the perimeter. They also make the rails more durable. You definitely don’t need to put in a stringer. You are right, it totally defeats the purpose.

6

stringerless…

yeah i wanted that too and made one from #1.5 and d-cell/balsa top…the board is insane in avg surf but took it out by mistake in one of my local baby cho-poo spots and buckled it about 18in from the nose tip…i wanted to surf the board again so I routed a 2ft long slot on the deck and put in a 1/4 thick balsa stringer about 3/4in deep…adhered it with foaming pu…it stiffened the buckled area immensely…man i love that board

there’s a mass produced epoxy board maker online somewhere that uses partial depth stringers routed under the deck skin…they push the stringers in with fg cloth wrap around its length and bonded to the deck skin

i also tested a more heavily laminated rail and that works too…too bad cf is so dark and darn expensive!!! i havent been able to make bamboo sticks work either and believe me I’ve tried and so have others

bottom line is that you could go stringerless on your shorties but not without some risk, esp where u live…1/8 balsa deck would be much better than 1/16…on the longer boards its pretty darn dicey…overall board thickness has a huge impact too…if youre not making thin chips then maybe its ok

im still grappling with deck contours…

hey Kenz whats up with that concave deck being stronger thingy???

7

Thanks Kenz

and I was afraid of what meecrafty said…that you need to stay short going stringer less and that he buckled his.

Benny did a big one but he used big thick balsa rails. If you ever do these you know wthey aren’t alot of fun…

Seems like this is the final missing piece if someone could come up with a way to do this in a very simple one step peocess.

I can’t see doing it easier without a jig table like Paul Jensen’s or some type of bendable metal rail clamp which you could bend two of hem around the rail and bolt togethor at the nose and tail somehow… But the compound curve makes the metal bend pretty tricky.

thanks again everyone…

8

Oneula, I’d be scared of going without anything on those 7’ boards. But any of the above should work.

I’ve been wondering if you could route two grooves in the top of your blank, the same place the ‘perimeter stringers’ go. Then glue/epoxy/whatever two vertical strips of wood to the underside of your deck skin when you’re glassing it all up. You’d probably have to push in the vertical stringers first & plane them to level with the deck foam. Then cut your first layer of glass oversize so you can push it down into the slots with a squeegee once its wet out…push in the stringers, run a bead of epoxy over them, lay on your wood skin and bag it all down. You could then do a skin the CMP way and just let the bag wrap it around the pre-shaped foam rails…

I’ve got one in the bag right now. I’m doing it the CMP/Oneula way, but I have some questions. Its a long (long long) board - 11’10". 1# EPS. I cut in a 3/4" kiln dried redwood stringer and added straight balsa pieces to both rails - just 6’long pieces so they are about 2" thick at the wide point and taper to nothing at each end where the template curves in.

Then I skinned the bottom & shaped the bottom side of the rails. Haven’t touched the top yet.

Laid out the veneer - I’m using regular 1/16" wood veneer this time instead of ripping down my own balsa. Cut the veneer 1" to 2" bigger than the outline of the board so it would wrap the rails. Wet out a layer of 6oz with epoxy, laid on the skin, and stuffed it in the bag. (With a 12’ board, that’s a whole 'nother story!) Pulled about 5" Hg and stopped to make sure there was not twist to the blank (there wasn’t) and to pull the bag out from where it was going between the veneer & the rail. Then turned the pump back on and pulled up to my pre-set 10-14" Hg.

The veneer developed bumps & lumps around the compound curves, especially where there was no balsa in the rail, just EPS. Oneula, how much of that is normal? I think I saw one of your photos with some of that, but your end results have been so good. CMP too. You’ve mentioned adding nose & tail blocks at the end to ‘cover the spots the bag can’t get’ - does that block work sometimes become pretty extensive? When you’re cleaning up the bottom veneer before bagging on the top, do you do it all with a sander or do you hit the edge with the planer? (I’d worry about chipping pieces out.) But, I’ll have the planer out because I still need to skin the deck & turn the top of the rails. Thanks…Ben

9

I did a stringerless board of XPS - 2" + 1" glued-up to rocker. Used a CF strip under the deck lam (routed in 1/8 and epoxy). 2x6+4 top and 2x6 bottom - 7’6". It flexes but the flex is not lively - it feels like it does not have snap/memory, like wood flexing does. The CF may lend some stiffness to it, but it’s hard to tell for sure.

Maybe routing a channel in the bottom from the center fin box area to about a foot from the nose… inserting 2-3 bamboo strips, with some chopped fiber and epoxy and capping with a strip of foam. and reglass the strip…?

The internal stringer idear (ala Bert and Greg) seems the way to go for the HD/Lowes foam. It would be my choice if using #1 EPS too, but set up during the rocker glue-up.

FWIW.

Eric J

10

well for whatever its worth oneula, surftechs dont use stringers

youve got lots of options and lots of blanks…enjoy the journey

Regarding Kenz comment…a wavy deck contour would stiffen things up similar to metal hurricane window paneling…i also think CF layed flat under a deck skin is a waste of money unless it was layed on really thick…a thicker deck skin core would be more effective and less costly…have u considered combining dcell and balsa into one skin?

11

Thanks everyone I think I’m getting the idea.

Meecrafty just to clear things up the bamboo poles/tubes or carbon graphite tubes aren’t worth it?

Dcell is just too expensive for me at this point with the interior bamboo sheets and all but dcell would’ve tightened it up for sure. That how surftechs do it I guess.

I was going to insert the rods/sticks somewhere in the middle of the board’s core next to the 1mm flat bamboo full horizontal stringer in a “C” shape to the center line. I was hoping to do this in place of the wood rails which are much harder to do.

We recently lammed a 6’2 modern fish with 1/8" balsa on the bottom and even with the bottom lam and the full length bamboo horizontal stringer the board flexes something awful so it looks like wood rails and a thick wood deck is the call along with a heavy glassing schedule.

Everyone advised me to just throw away all the foam I bought go and buy 2lb and start over which got me pissed enough to spend all sunday cutting out all my base blanks out of the 12 slabs of foam and bamboo sheets. Now all my blanks are saran wrapped and ready for glueup and rocker setup. I like the idea of just going in the stora room and grabbing a pre-shaped foamcycle from the fridge and finish’er up with a hand sander and wood lam.

I might even preshape and wood lam the bottoms before storing them away for later use. That’s why I’m trying to build the extra strength during this rocker glue up phase.

Mr. J

Since I’m doing slightly concaved decks (for thicker foam in the rails) on these maybe the 1/4 balsa deck is not needed but the board even with wood on one side is really floppy at this point. Thanks Kenz for the heads up on your successes too.

Benny

we pretty much manually perform as much of the deck rail bend as possible using tape over the wood in those key places and alot over the non-stick release plastic before bagging and the constantly smooth out the vacuum pull over the top and rails during the draw. Lots of tape on the nose and tail section as you pull and bunch your release bag as tight as possible. The vacuum is just to pretty much just hold everything in place (we use the slow hardener on the deck) and squeeze it even more. Even then you may get lots of rail cracking if you don’t pre-stage your wood ahead of time using the most flexible strips long the rails and especially around the nose and tail. Patching is just part of the process and we don’t use the vacuum to do patches. Just sand things down and cut out any really bad parts to clean it up. Cut out your patches epoxy them in using blue tape to hold them in place and sand them flush and you’ll find it hard to see them later… Some times patching end up being the most time consuming part depending on the flexibility of your rail wood strips. Bottom lams are easy but deck lams are a definitely harder work but still way easier than trying to make 1-1/5" wood rails from 1/8" or 1/4" strips. That’s why being able to use 1/16 or 1/32 thin veneer/strips with interior glass makes the deck wrap more enjoyable. The cheap bleed through tape underneath made this possible for us. We don’t try and get the complet nose and tail either just cut them off and put on a block when you’re done with the deck lam.

And this is all CMP’s technique and probably Bert’s many years before I’m just CMP’s helper/student here.

The wetout tabled, interior glass to wood is also a misunderstood secret to enhance the flexibility of the lam during vacuum. I think you and a bunch of others here already understand what that light glass layer underneath does for the wood sandwich flexibility and strength.

Maybe CMP or Bert can add some more insight on doing the deck lam with out alot of rail breakage on the nose and tail…

12

i think you can make the bamboo work but making a normal stringered board is easier…the prob with bamboo is that 1) to get the stiffness you need you gotta go with bigger sticks that dont bend easily which is counter-productive if you gotta put some rocker in them for placement and 2) attaching hard/stiff members along side softer surroundings is not reliable without some serious reinforcements…i know the pain your feeling…im in the same boat…the strangest thing is how bert makes his boards and still turns a profit…???

oh yeah…to get the desired affect you gotta sandwich skin both the top and bottom of the board

PS - ive made several blanks/boards in the last few months and have only glassed and finished two…EPS foam is cheap and scraping is no biggie…glassing finning and finishing is much more costly so i dont waste my time finishing stuff i know i wont like

13

Thank Meecrafty…

like the avatar says sometimes I wonder if this is all some evil temptation being thrown my way.

Hey Benny…

lightbulb went off again.

Step 1. finish the bottom as a flat 1" sheet on a flat table

Step 2. epoxy the two EPS slabs to the full woven bamboo sheet as a horizontal stringer attached to the board you’re copying the rocker from WHILE you lam on the bottom balsa layer with the 6oz under lying glass to the bottom of the shaped 1" EPS.

Step 3. start to finish shaping down the 2" deck slab to build the profile and rails. If the foam is too floppy use the board as a stand to shape on either a flat table or shaping rack.

Step 4. before finishing the rails(still flat and square) draw out the rail/rocker profile on some 1 mm woven bamboo and cut out two thin and narrow rail/rocker strips. The need to be about 1/2 the final rail thinkness 2" inset from the rail line. (you should get alot of these cuts from one 4’x8’ sheet)

Step 5. after shaping board route out a thin groove 2" or more from the rail line and epoxy in the two bamboo cutouts into the grooves as perimeter stringers. The woven bamboo will bend longitudinally against it’s flat side but not at all against it’s thin 1mm edge which is now vertically oriented.

Step 6. lam on the deck balsa with 6oz glass underneath and finish sanding and glassing the blasa exterior like normal. double 6 deck single 6 bottom or double 4 deck and single 6 bottom.

This way I only add the step of routing and gluing of these cut out thin but curved bamboo strips into the deck as you’ve indicated. It should be easy to put in and should stiffen up the 1lb EPS along the rail ine longitudinally quite a bit. It still might have some torsional flex though unless the deck and bottom shells will take care of that…

ahh

another red delicious just bounced off the noggin…

14
Quote:
Each "blank" consists of a 2" slab glued up to a 1" slab with a 1mm sheet of woven bamboo veneer to act as horizontal stringer..

I was wondering why you put the woven bamboo veneer in between the two layers of foam. If it is for strength? It would add more strength to the board if it were put on the top or bottom. If the woven bamboo is layed out at 45 degree angles, it won’t add very much stiffness at all. If you put the bamboo on the deck and have it running at 0, 90 degrees, and with the balsa and glass, you will have a very stiff board.

Sandwich core composites get their strength and stiffness from the skin material and the distance of separation of the skins, not the core material. Of course, surfboards can’t be made solely on this premise as the core must prevent shear and the deck needs to be durable enough to prevent dings. The bamboo would be good as a deck material for this reason.

Here’s how I would do it if I wanted a stiff board. From the bottom up: Glass, balsa, glass, EPS, glass, balsa, glass, bamboo, glass. And if that wasn’t stiff enough, I might throw in a 4 inch wide strip of uni-axial carbon fiber down the middle on the top and bottom between the inside glass and balsa.

No need for anything else.

15
Quote:
hey Kenz whats up with that concave deck being stronger thingy???

It’s like a U-channel, except much less pronounced. You can try it with a piece of paper. When the paper is flat it is floppy. When you form it into a concave it’s much stiffer in the longitudinal direction. They use it in skateboard construction for strength and stiffness. The other benefits are a lighter board due to less foam, but with the same displacement. And it feels good under your feet. Everyone should try a concave deck at least once.

16

Kenz

The bamboo after the epoxy hardens feels like steel and shreds your hands like razor wire if you have to sand any part of it. So the thinking was since we’re bonding a 1" and 2" layer of soft EPS to get a 3" thick piece since this stuff only comes in 2" at the thickest off the shelf, then the cross weave would adhere to each foam slab with epoxy glue and act as a “steel-like” wooden spring horizontal stringer. After glue up it does hold the glued rocker well with no flattening but the blank still flexes too much.

If what your saying is true then all I need to do is glue the two slabs togethor and use the bamboo as a shell with glass under and over it. The problem is you can’t get it anywhere near the rail cause you just can’t sand the edges of the stuff once you epoxy it. The cross fiber structure just shreds into razor sharp needles if you try and cut back or smooth out the edges. If you could inset the bamboo sheet on both the deck and bottom and then do a separate rail band out of a CG 4" roll or wood strip then maybe it might work but again you lose hull integrity cause the top and bottom layer don’t wrap over each other at the rail line to create the composite “shell” effect.

The thinking was that a thin strip oriented vertically and glued into a curve arc sliced in the upper 2" slab would butt up against the internal horizontal piece and the deck lam creating almost a wooden box inset within the foam. Seems like a couple of slice in the deck as Benny mentioned is all the extra work I’d have to do to accomplish this…

But if all I need to worry about is beefing up the shell then just a better shell structure as you suggest is all I need and the foam can remain floppy like a sponge. Unfortunately using divinycel or honeycomb nomex or corex, airex etc etc would make a very stiff “surftech-like” riding board I’m not lwanting to copy.

Seems like solid rails are key to getting a stiff but springing or some type of perimeter stringer config with the springing composite shell of glass and wood… It get all so complicated when you use the cheap stuff. Using a close tolerance machine pre-shaped urethane foam blank and putting some wood and glass on it under vacuum with epoxy is so simple in comparison. Definitely an easy bake cake option versus one you make from scratch.

17

Awwwk, redirect, close tolerance blank, danger Will Robinson…

Is the internal stringer really just a stiffener?

Bert said, take three playing cards, instead of two, and pinch the ends - now you have a structure! Balance the snap of the balsa and the shear properties of the eps? With one pound eps the desired effect is suspension and shear rather than traditional rigid resistance to compression. Is the purpose of the internal stringer more of a spring load limiter than a rocker retainer like a rigid vertical stringer?

I liked my skateboard flexy. The main reason for a horizontal stringer rather than a stiff full-width layer is - when rider weight flattens the rocker of a concave deck board, fore to aft, as the deck flattens it transfers the concave shape to a flat bottom. More surface in a curve equals more volume inside that won’t bend as easily as that thin concave area, so path of least resistance, it will just push the rail downward and create a side to side curve. Here’s where I start to lose sleep again - using the shape of the deck (or a certain panel?) as a DYNAMIC ACTIVATOR of bottom contour. Now that’s brilliant, Bert! The rider re-shapes the board bottom by pressure from the top. What else can we design for the rider to change by pressure or a subtle weight shift??? All flaps up for the speed run. Hope I don’t step on the whoopee cushion.

If I was using bamboo as a floating internal twanger I’d let it grow into a form that had the curve of my desired rocker, then harvest my curved beauty. Obviously not a path for the early adopters. Then as kenz has suggested, it must be tied into the surface skin for the desired energy transfer. You’ll start to see a skewered (balsa) spine if I painted this vision correctly. Tie one end of this spring into your tailblock, hope your fins are holding on tight! Or split a stick down the middle then re-glue it back in the proper config. or glue a half round to the bottom side of the skin? Just guessing.

Dynamic rocker, now there’s an idea worth pursuing. A longboard that’s more like a longbow? Almost dead flat for paddling speed then step toward the middle and draw back that arrow - automatic transmission switches to high performance continuous banana rocker but walk to the nose to increase the tail and drop the nose rocker?

Pardon my ramble, I can’t make it any clearer yet, but we’re just getting started.

18

I don’t know, reading through all these ideas, a traditional wood vertical center stringer seems easier than all the rest. I’ve done 5 blanks now with 1# EPS. All but the fish have had center stringers added.

I actually find it very easy to do - layout the rocker & thickness I want on a piece of wood or plywood, cut it out with the bandsaw (or jigsaw) a little larger then the line, plane it smooth. Then I duplicate it on masonite.

Take the blank - the solid block of it and split it in half - 2 12" pieces. Drill 3 holes in the stringer & the masonite, sized for 16 penny nails. Push the nails through the stringers onto each side of one of the blank halves. Use that as your hotwire guide. I also shortened my wire bow from 28" to 16" because I’m only cutting 12" wide foam. With the shorter wire, it cuts hotter & more accurately because it sags less…

I’ve done this 3 different ways - a) 2 2" pieces of EPS, glued first (with Elmers) and bent to the stringer; b) one 4" piece of EPS, bent to the stringer; c) 5" & 6" pieces of EPS, where the stringer fits within the profile of the block and the blank isn’t bent at all. c) is definitely the easiest and the block comes out less floppy. On the first one - the “$14 blank”, I didn’t even use a hotwire, just a grinder with an abrasive wheel. Dust everywhere, but effective to reduce the blank to the same shape as the pre-made stringer.

Just picture this, Oneula, instead of a storage room full of blanks, you’d just have a storage room full of stringers, each one the length, thicnkess, and rocker profile you wanted. Any time you want another board, you just select a stringer and cut away. On the longboard, I made the stringer out of 1/2" d-cell, so it dosen’t even have to be wood if you’re worried about weight. d-cell bonds to EPS extremely well with gorilla glue.

After cutting, the stringer is attached into the middle of the 2 foam halves with Gorilla glue. 3 hrs until ready to skin & template, quicker & cheaper than any epoxy. Clamp with blue tape. I think, if you tried it, you’d find the splitting, stringering, hotwiring, and gluing much faster & cheaper than messing with epoxy, flat internal stuff, 2 boards together in a bag, etc.

I don’t really understand how you reproduce rocker from an existing board. Because of the difference in thickness from center to tips, baords have different rocker on the bottom & the deck. If you form the deck of a blank to the bottom of an old board, won’t it come out with much more rocker by the time you shape it? Or do you then shape all the thickness out of the ends from the top & not the bottom? I think I’d rather start from scratch and make a stringer/rocker stick for each new board.

I also find that if I make the stringer to the finished dimensions I want, then planing it smooth to serve as a wire guide takes a little bit off, skinning the blank once its glued up takes a little bit more off…and adding the sandwich skins puts just the right amount back on. It happened by accident on the first balsa, I let it happen with awareness but not intereference on the second, and I’m actively managing it on the third.

My Home Depot carries 1/4" redwood as garden bender boards, up to 10’ long. If you let them dry out for a while, they’d make fine stringers - very cheap & lightweight. I’ve used plywood once, d-cell once, and kiln-dry redwood 1x6 twice (surfaced to 5/8" thick).

19
Quote:

I don’t really understand how you reproduce rocker from an existing board. Because of the difference in thickness from center to tips, baords have different rocker on the bottom & the deck. If you form the deck of a blank to the bottom of an old board, won’t it come out with much more rocker by the time you shape it? Or do you then shape all the thickness out of the ends from the top & not the bottom? I think I’d rather start from scratch and make a stringer/rocker stick for each new board.

Yup Benny, kind of it in a nutshell…

I cut out the two foam slabs to about 1/8"-1/4" of my outline template. Attach them togethor with a couple of big nails and smooth out the sides with a 24"x4 80 grit sanding block as one piece flush to the outline.

I then preshape the bottom 1" while it’s still a flat slab of foam on a a flat table… I use one of those sticky foam wood working pads. Very stable and easy to work on…Just draw out your bottom contours on the slab and sand it down by hand with your various 80 grit blocks.

I then vacuum or tape the shaped 1" to the 2" with the woven bamboo in between with 2-3 inches of clearance between the edge of the bamboo and the foam edge. This is fastened to the bottom of the board I’m trying to copy the rocker from. If we vacuum then I place the foam attached to the board’s bottom with its bottom balsa wood shell all in the bag and suck it down using the other board like a rocker table.

You then need to trim the bottom and at this point you can add on the wood rails and vacuum again since you have the rocker now locked in.

Then its a matter of shaving the 2" top slab down to match the deck contour and board profile I want. It’s a pretty fast process in all and since the deck slab is 2" thick from nose to tail I can leave it fairly chunky up to the rail and build in some concave in the deck if I want. I like the idea of thicker foam in the rails and a concave deck if your riding somethign springy. Seems like it would enhance the feel. All this also doesn’t require any power tools with the exception of the vacuum set up.

I use this plastic drywall sanding block I found with holes in it and various drywall screens attached to my big craftsman shopvac to sand the foam. It does a good job and leaves very little foam dust in the front yard. It’s somewhat cumbersome with out a hose hanger compared to a plekunas grit block or the 24" 2"x4" with stick on sandpaper but I don’t have to vacuum the surrounding area every 5 minutes.

Seems like foam dust and EPS pebbles are significant environmental pollutants in my opinion I don’t see how they could be biodegradeable as you see all the little white things still in the lawn and dirt surrounding your garden plants weeks and even months later… Gotta be a better way…

Hotwiring is a good solution just not something I want to get into with all it’s the components required. It probably cuts down on the mess quite a bit.

This all seems so silly at times struggling through this when I can go down to the factory where the machines are at and get a preshaped blank from any of a dozen or more “name” shapers for around $100-$200. It’s just lam and glass at that point…

It may be alot of fun doing this but it’s definitely not easy and it’s definitely a very messy and potentially environmentally damaging hobby, in reference to the foam shaping and fiberglass sanding part.

Regarding your suggestions:

for strength I’m gonna split the 8’0" into 3rds and glue in 3 rockers I’ll cut from 1/8 luan door skin and then use the rest of the door skin as the deck lam and the bamboo as the bottom lam.

Love to see your 11’ when she’s done

I getting ready to lam over my 10’ Jim Turnbull restoration project too.

cut off the fins and sanded it down to the glass on both sides

Need to do a microballoon filler run to smooth out the potholes and sand smooth

1/64" hardwood vacuumed veneer over the splotchy ugliness and 2oz over the wood using epoxy (Maybe CMPO will let me use some of his RR that stuff’s hot coat is shiny slick)

should be definitely a heavy but beautiful board (triple to double 6oz on it already).

My other two projects including the stringerless wood railed modern fish should be done with in the next two weeks. I just need to glue on the wood rails and lam on the balsa deck and glass it.

20

daddio , you just made my day …

your comments showed an understanding of whats happening …once you ride a morphboard , well lets say you now understand why others are doing things on surfboards you cant …

kenz , im not sure if you were just offering advice to oneula on stiffening up his board or if you advocate a more structually sound style board , but creating a stiff structure just kills the whole performance aspect of a surfboard …

having a core that transfers load onto the skins does have certain strength benifits in a static enviroment , say for wall panels or a floor in a boeing jet …

in a surfboard it has no place , remove shear = no flex = no spring back = limited ability …

one of my team guys , seen in a few pics here and there that i post sometimes , wont even ride a board if he thinks it wont bend far enough , he was onto the whole flex thing years before me , he was complaining about spring issues and flex when i was still trying to overcome the problem with static shape properties …

it wasnt till i started riding my flex longboards mid 90s that i got it …

hows this , hes about 17 , 10 years ago …

im making him a board and as im laying up the glass that went under the wood the roll ran out , so i started another roll , so there was an area across the middle of the board where the glass over lapped by a few inches , once the board was complete and there was more glass on the outside of the bottom and of coarse all the deck glass , you had your finished board …

about 6 weeks after he got the board , hes telling me " i dont know what it is ? but something is going on in the middle of this board , like a kink in the rocker or a stiff spot or a funny slow bit i just cant get the same speed when i load from the centre " i said it was his imagination and didnt say anything , i came away from that conversation blown away by his level of sensitivity , it was like the princess and the pea under all those mattresses …

to work with such a gifted surfer has made it so much easier for me to tune in these areas , and even tho hes 10 years younger than me , ive learnt alot from him , coz hes doing stuff on boards that i cant do anymore without facing serious injury , so it allows me to continue fine tuning the same concept …

oneula , your doing some great stuff , it may be flexy now , but wait till youve finished glassing it , dont over do it early , dont make a judgement on flex till its finished …

meecrafty , systems …

once youve done something thousands of times you get a routine …

anyone ever make there first board in 3 1/2 hours ???

i know it goes against logic , but a stiff woody is a flop , and a stiff board of any other kind is an even bigger flop …

flex with positive flex return …

daddio has peered into the realm of the hidden booster … just build it and they will awaken …

regards

BERT