Hey,
So I made a couple of boards recently and tried my hand at making a glass leash loop on both… thing is I put them on after hotcoating and sanding but just read on another thread that they may be weak enough now to rip out completely? Anyone have any words of wisdom/experience on this subject? the loops are pretty large as well (more leverage to be pulled out maybe?)
Cheers,
Dan
I’ve done a few, and have always done them after hotcoat. Ran the roving and flared it at the ends. Then put a glass patch over the ends.
Havent had one tear off yet.
Good to hear! Especially as I did just the same 
Thanks
I do all of ours directly on the lam, then grind to feather, hot coat, shape them a bit. Gloss, polish, admire, cry when they leave,do it all again next week.
Very few surfboards had leash loops “back in the day”…
Leash cup $1.75…Drilling a hole through the fin box Free !
Step on a Loop and you will know why I do not do leash loops…waste of time for a “retro” thing that was never cool anyway,
Yeah I wasn’t planning to have anything on there at all but the boards will be lent out to some friends here in Norway who want to learn as well so needed a leash option… Figured I’d atleast try my hand at making them as they’re my first boards ever. I think they look great (my ones unfortunately aren’t the nicest but do remind me of a 70’s spoon I have). I’ll definitely get the sander out if I end up stepping on one!
Yes a hole thru the deck into the fin box is the easy, strongest, cheapest… Piece of cake, once you’ve done it a couple of times.
The leash loops I have done were done on glass on fin longboards (Cooperfish, Tyler, Junod), and didn’t want to cut a leash cup in. A purist some day may want the board in its original state. Easy to grind off and put back to original.
A short sentence, long on wisdom.
There is no good way to do these. I’ve tried several different ways but hate them all.
If you have a fin box, sure drill through. Once you put in a box it’s not retro anyway.
But what about boards with glass on fins?
I’ve used those clear stick on ones on my personal boards and like them just fine.
I do have an idea for a way to do an almost invisible one that could be easily cosmetically removed and may try it on my next board. Will post photos if it works.
I did this one month ago, following instructions of a french designer for a series of boards that will go on an art exhibition. The basic idea was that the stringer, fin and leash loop were all one piece of wood (oak).
That’s a really nice option… wouldn’t mind trying it out on my next board. just the one layer of glass over do you think?
What I did was to drill a 1/4" hole through the wood, then fill the hole with a mix of resin and fiberglass powder. Glass the deck as usual (in this case, two 4 oz layers) then hot coat, sand, and re-drill a smaller hole through the fiberglass-filled first hole. Then gloss over. That was overkill since the board will probably never get surfed…
was it hard getting to lam stage to sit over the wood bump nciely or is it mainly resin around it and glass on the side? And now I’m interested in seeing the whole board, can you post a pic and dims up here?
balsa, that looks awesome. my boards have very weak cores, so the cheap plug is a poor engineering option, and as I’m not much for cool, it is that much better. It is much stronger to put a leash loop on top of the laminate, so I do. I do mine on the lam, then put the filler over. Comes out nice that way. If you sanded underneath where the glass bonded, you should get plenty of strength out of it.
Not that hard to glass over it; not worse than a six-channels, double winger, haha…
As previously written, the board was built from a basic blank but I had to take the original stringer out of it and replace it with a nice piece of oak wide enough to accomodate the board rocker AND the fin. Add to that an oak circle that had to be inlaid into the blank to be used as a logo background and a pigmented gloss finish leaving the stringer visible. But that was the easy part, the board being a single fin…
I had two more to make on the same concept but one had to be a twin-fin and the third had to be more or less “bonzer” looking. That’s nice until you realize that the fins need to be set at an angle, because it means that the stringers have to be glued into the blank with that same angle. Which also means cutting the blank with this angle…
Cutting went OK, thanks to my faithful Makita circular saw which cuts to a 4" depth. But glueing was a nightmare; never again.
Don’t remember the exact dimensions of each board; The single was 6’4" and the other ones were 5’2" and 5’4". Sorry for hi-jacking your thread…
Here are some more photos to explain better:
Impressive build Balsa
Yep, that’s an amazing job! Especially with the bonzer… And not a worry i got my answers already You don’t happen to know any rice paper alternatives for decals? maybe a bit hard to source here in Norway…
Oo-la-la!
Balsa, those boards look really cool! Here’s a recent one of mine
