I’m shaping my first board, I got the 9’4"B blank, I got this blank because it fits fully in my car, I would have prefered to have a little longer of a board, since I’m 6’3" 190. But anyway I have what I have now, so my question is, by making the board wider and thicker what are the disadvantages (Its about 19"-23.25"-15" right now)? I basically have the board shaped, but I’m looking at the profile and noticing that the nose looks a bit thick. I dont have anything to accurately measure thickness with, or else I would write it here. What will too thick of a nose do? More float I would think and more weight, but is there any major problem with a thick nose I need to be aware of?
Almost all logs have much thinner noses than WPoint, or turning area. If you keep the float in the nose, it makes the board sluggish and heavy to turn (balance of forces, not actual weight difference), if you thin the nose a bit, it paddles almost the same because you have to balance a little bit of the nose OUT of the water when you paddle to catch waves.
You can’t add thickness to the mid or tail areas, since you said your board is shaped. Keeping a thick nose only makes for a sluggish board.
However, if you plan to ride that log in overhead waves sometimes, it’s better to crown the deck and roll the bottom, keeping stringer thickness and decreasing foam to thin and lighten the nose.
i’m not entirely sure why this happens, but the first board i ever made i left the nose too thick and if i don’t sit a little farther back and take off early, it’s pearl city. the board paddles great, but the takeoff is a little tricky, and it doesn’t really noseride the way i had intended. fortunately, that one board was my entire learning curve…#2 and up turned out great…and now i use #1 primarily as a paddle board.
Thanks for the info guys, I think I will make the nose thinner.
I made some make-shift calipers out of plywood, so I can measure the thickness somewhat accurately. What would be a good thickness for a foot back from the nose and tail?
Right now I’m at about 3" at the thickest point. I’m thinking i would like to put a concave in the nose maybe about 1/8".
Thick nose make the weight balance forwards. It allow you to paddle from forwards. All that forward makes you pearl.
So you paddle from back, levering that thick heavy nose out of the water…inefficient.
You catch a wave, and the balance point is forward, but you are back (since you caught the wave from waay back, you are standing waay back), so now the balance is not between your feet, it’s out in front, ready to dig rails or pearl.
If you’re going to put a concave in the nose, go for 1/4". Then you’ll achieve a 3/8" difference in nose and tail thickness. Provides for an aesthetically pleasing thickness flow.
thanks, lee…makes perfect sense to me. fortunately, it’s still a fun board to play around with…and it got my father’s lazy ass back in the water after 5+ years on the beach.