There are a lot of methods to maintain volume in a surfboard while keeping the rails thin. What do you like? What don’t you like? What works better for performance boards vs. grovelers vs. longboards? Would love to hear some thoughts.
I tend to dome the deck a lot, keeping the volume in the center of the board with a smooth arc to the rail. This tends to work for the more performance surfboards. This tends to work but takes a lot of time to get the dome smooth and flow with the foil of the board. This was especially the case when using blanks that didn’t already have a dome to the deck (sled cut eps for example). I usually add the dome as part of cutting the rails bands. Just a lot broader bands along the deck.
I have tried less dome in the deck with a more angled attack to the rail on some fish surfboards. It flowed well into the beak nose and out to the thinned tail. This required a lot less rail bands and was relatively quick. It took a little time to make sure the “top edge” of the angled band was even for both sides but allowed for thinned out rails while maintaining a lot of volume in the board.
I believe the stretch “skate deck” boards keep a flat deck with an obvious angle to the rail. This is similar to what I do with my fish boards but much more pronounced and the volume goes all the way out to the start of the angled rail. I haven’t tried this on a board (haven’t seen one in person and haven’t surfed one) but people seem to like the feel of the concave deck.
I love nose bump, I use it on twin fins and quad and also some single fin.
Excuse me if I load a lot of pictures but my english is not good and I can’t explain correct.
Love the nose bump and the angled rail line! Keeps the volume through the front of the board. On a recent canvas fish there was a ton of volume through the front with the nose bump and a really thinned out tail with rather squared off rails.
Huck I totally forgot about the step deck…Not found often in the wild. It’s an elusive beast but certainly keeps the volume up and the rails down.
Thank you Huck,
I like learn right technical words like this.
Technical language is very different of slang language…
I learn on swaylocks site many " way of saying"
huck, i love the style you use with the deck concave, reminiscent of a skateboard. i’ve always wondered why this wasn’t done more often on surfboards. one of the posters above mentioned a domed-out deck, but IMO that seems like it would suck out performance and grip on the board. toe/heel movement would have to be more exaggerated to get the board to transfer to rail b/c the deck surface is lower than center. w/ concave like you have, huck, you get quicker feedback from toe/heel movement and the benefit of the “cupping” of the concave which should mean traction/less slipping.
these are all just theories of mine based on skateboarding and snowboarding. i’m a hobbyist at best who came into surfing late in life, but it’s fun to think about. burton added the “gas pedal” to their snowboard bindings some years ago. it’s just a raised lip of the binding, propping up the toes to make edge-to-edge changes that much quicker. i have a firewire (gasp) w/ a concave deck (very mild), but i love the way it feels compared to my more normal boards. could be placebo, could be real.
i don’t know why deck concave seems to be generally ignored as a performance booster in board design. maybe it’s just way to intricate to build in on a production scale? is there a benefit to a domed deck that i’m not understanding?
