Costco carries a soft board about 6 ft. long, but I forget the name; there are also blue styrofoam boards that are about 6 to 7 feet long. Both of these have some sort of fin on them. I dislike the prices they charge, but they are certainly good soft starter boards.
You could use some HD insulating foam, seal it with something flexible, and junior will have a board.
My daughter, who had been going out with me since she was 2-1/2, got onto her own board at age 13 or so, and rather promptly got hit by her board a couple times. You gotta tell 'em and tell 'em again, to come up from a wipeout with one arm over their heads. And don’t pop back up instantly; the board may be still flying around.
A while back someone has posted a similar question with the hopes of making their own tractions pads. I wasn’t able to find the post, but I think the material recommended was called EVA foam. Might be worth looking into.
Howzit 4est, Back in the late 70’s Steve Bigler had a model that had a soft deck that was like the rubber they put on padded pingpong paddles. If you could get a hold of that stuff you could adhere it to the deck and fur the edges to blend to the deck.Aloha,Kokua
McMaster-Carr sells a whole bunch of different kinds of sheet foam that you could use. Some is already adhesive backed. Or you might try traditional contact cement although I’m not sure of the water-proofness(pardon the bad English).
Here is a link to check out there adhesive backed neoprene. They sell it up to an inch thick.
I have done some looking in the archives, but not finished looking in the archives yet.
So a couple more questions…
do you just glue/stick the pad onto a laminated fiberglass board?
I don’t know anything about vac-bagging, but could you use closed cell foam and vac-bag foam straigt to a blank. Similar to how some talk about vac-bagging veneer straight to a blank without using fiberglass. Would this work to make a softer board? would closed cell foam be sufficient to seal a blank?
Someone I know got some big sheets of the foam they use inside of boogie boards. I’m not sure of the technical name for the type of foam - polyethylene maybe? He shaped a paddleboard from it using a serrated bread knife for the most part followed by surforming.
The surfaces were covered with several thick coats of “Tool Dip” stuff - no cloth or other reinforcement. He contacted the company via info on can and bought it in large size containers.
As far as I could tell, the board was nearly indestructable.
check out NSI they make all sorts of faom for surfboards, windsurfboards, kayaks… . they sell it by the roll, not cheap. it is the eva meterial used as tail pads. they have tons of textures and colors. it is very popular in windsurfing right now to cover the decks of beginner boards with this stuff… but i wouldn’t ride a surfboard covered in it while wearing trunks…wetsuit no problem. email them for more info.
kids are tough. teach up to come up with their head covered… i think soft edge fins and a nose guard would be enough, maybe glue some pipe insulaton to the tail…
I used a thin closed-cell yoga mat and some rubber cement to make an old sailboard into a multi-purpose-kids-in-the-lake-screwing-around toy. Works ok as a paddleboard too, in a pinch.