I just finished my little shaping shed in the back yard last week. Lights, stands, vac pump, action.
Recycled two offcuts from a local shaper. A little gorrilla glue later and I had enough foam to make a fish. My intentions were to practice on this foam using the planer, new stands, and side lights to work out the kinks of the shaping room and my shaping. This is my second attempt at mowing foam.
After spending a long evening blowing foam all over the place a surfboard actually materialized.
6’4" 16 1/8n x 22.5 x15t x 2.25 thick 9.5" point to point and a 6.5" butt crack
Well it looks better than I thought it would and I think it might actually surf.
Here is where I am looking for some ideas.
first off the rocker is 4" at the nose and 1" at the tail. That is all I could get in the tail without running out of foam.
Next because I had not intended to glass the board, only practice on it, I did not put a stringer in it.
My thought was to glass the bottom with 6oz e and then on the deck vacuum on some 1/16in balsa with 6oz on each side.
Would I need to put more rocker in it when I glass and vacuum?
4-6 oz Carbon fiber cloth all around should be solid as a rock. Spray paint it white like an Aviso after…
You can also groove the deck rails and do the deck rail channel reinforcement thing.
With a good glassing schedule Greg said stringerless will work out fine.
So go for it…
got a 6’2" x 23" x 1.75" fish in the back I’m gonna try(at 195lbs) as soon as I finish and mount the custom quad fins.
It’s Bert’s thin and wide theory. Started as a 20" wide stringerless till I added 1.5" of corecell around the perimeter.
I think his favorite board was a stubby 6’4" x 23" x 1.75" or something like that in one of the thin/thick threads way back.
Oh BTW
I’m no shaper by any means as my work speaks volumes for itself, but with that much outline curve I don’t think you needed all those wings in the tail. I usually see them on fish designs like my mandala and gemini that have a much straighter outline in the midsection… Gonna be loose as a goose and maybe a tad too pivoty…I think the line would be prettier just flowing into the swallow with maybe one bump at the most. You’re gonna rail drive that curve anyway… But what the hell do I know…
would you put the carbon fiber under the balsa a few inches in from the rail or is the carbon used instead of the balsa. I would like to use the balsa on the deck. I have my vac pump ready to go and I am itching to use it.
Have you done balsa on the deck only without the balsa rails. I know meecrafty has done balsa on the deck and rails with good success using 1lb eps and no balsa on bottom.
I am very new to the fish thing and have no idea what really makes these things fly. So I am taking your comment about the curves to probably be on the money. I may want to start with proven outline before I make my second dog.
if you’re gonna skin it with wood then that’s a whole nother animal…
go 2oz under and 4 or 6oz over and it’ll be pretty rock solid if you wrap the balsa over the rails it’s gonna be stiff if you don’t then you should do a balsa perimeter stringer while you are at it. Just glue up strip by strip till you build it out. 1/2" should be enough.
You can go meecrafty’s way too I think it’s the way to go with a flexible bottom and strong deck but you have to remember he used Dcell not balsa and Dcell is rock hard after you glass it while balsa will flex.
Bert’s theory is to evenly transfer the deck load to the solid rails so the shear doesn’t cause the bottom to fail. And Meecrafty eventually snapped that magic board of his…
Hey but this was a freebie and boards are meant to be snapped sooner or later, so just go for it you’re bound to learn something out of it no matter what.
If rail laps(fibreglass) are done correctly (enough width and very few relief cuts) a shortboard like that should be strong as any.
I built an EPS stringerless 9’2" longboard and I feel no difference between it and my other PU/poly longboards.
The orange band is a XPS band glued just for some stiffness added for the shaping process.
Just go for it in a standard glass layup (1x6oz bottom and 6+4oz deck) and forget about carbon and balsa, unless you are particulary interested about these.
Stringerless is my cup o’ tea. I hate stringers…I think that they are worthless. They, as Greg and Bert have said, are not in the right place for optimum flex characteristics, and as far as break strength, a slightly wider lap, as someone mentioned, more than accounts for a stringer. Or lam a 4 inch wide horizontal stringer…or shape in some rail channels…lots of ways around it.
Don’t over glass it! I have done a buch of stringerless boards in the last month, after a thread I started called EPS stringerless vs. stringer. Search for it, lots of good info! The first one I did I glassed triple 4 top, double 4 bottom with rail channels, and it is too stiff. about 5.75 lbs, but stiff…I lightened up the next ones…
I just glassed a 2# shortboard with 6 + 4 top, 6 bottom. Stringerless, 5.25 lbs finished. Flex is super nice, and it seems plenty strong! Maybe pressure dent prone, but the customer wanted a light board, so they got a light board, with the understanding that it may not be super strong.
I talked to a local guy that glassed a 2# core with single 6 on each sideas a test…you can pull it off, but durability will suffer.
I also currently have a guy doing a 4+4 top, single 4 bottom on a 6’2 stringerless single fin. 2#. We are hoping for 3 go outs on it before it breaks…he was willing to test the “how light can you go” theory, and we are gonna use left over materials and such, so total cost will be like 40 bucks…I will report back here of course when that one snaps of is pressure dented to hell…
This has been a great board to help improve my shaping. I have changed the out line twice making it a lot less curvy and more fish like. Thanks Oneula. Each time I got to reshape the rails. 1 free blank 3 shaped boards.
Because of the thinness of the board and because I want to test out my new vac pump, I am going to sandwich balsa on the deck only, and leave the rails and bottom with 6oz.
