I’m building a few boards for the neighborhood surf gang and myself.
The first one is a fish for a guy that rides a chippy thruster, but wants something that will grovel on mushier days.
He wanted a fish.
This board is 5’9" x 21 x 2 5/8
His current board is 6’3 x 19 x 2 1/2
GIven the added width, the slight increase in center volume and the difference between the EPS blank and the PU one he rides now, I really wanted to foil the hell out of this thing, leaving him with a nice down rail that he could still lean in to.
This board has 2.5lb rails and a 1.5lb density core…stringerless…I’m going to do 4oz with a 4oz fin patch on the bottom and a bamboo veneer on the deck with 4oz + a 4oz deck patch over. I may include some 2oz reinforcement under key spots on the deck…I also plan on coordinating the fin patch and the bamboo veneer so that they don’t overlap and leave a hinge point just forward of the front fins…I want to try to build some flex in to the tail by minimizing the glass (including rail wrap) in a focused area.
built the blank and the template…coordinating wide points, center points, rocker apex…
drawing
rough cutout
foil foil foil…I’m notorious for flat decks and fat boxy rails…really forcing myself to go deep on those bands…
I think I’m going to get away from this PMD stuff…I think I may just start using a 2 - 2.5lb density foam core…I don’t really like how the board shapes out with the epoxy glue line and I’m loath to use foaming PU glue given the expense
ultimately, my boards are getting smaller, and so the weight savings by using the lighter core becomes less compelling as the core itself becomes smaller in size.
plus there’s the time and materials…having to do everything in two’s is costly…more epoxy that mostly gets cut and shaped away, etc.
further, my finishes are already pretty minimal…cj inspired me to do what I’ve been considering: eliminate the deck hot coat. all this together means I can go to 2 or 2.5 with a trivial amount of additional weight…net net, I’m probably still cutting weight off the finished product.
some artwork for the board…one hand by his daughter and the other by his son.
it’s tempera…should I spray some clear coat on it or do you think it’ll be cool when I do the lam?
I’ve got the deck patch done on this one…I got it out of a single sheet of veneer…going with oneula’s (I think) tip of leaving the tape on the inside…I always get a little gap here or there so at least the bright white won’t shine through.
this one is spackled and ready to go…bagging deck tomorrow and lamming next week so I can do both sides all boom, boom, boom.
While it takes the two blanks worth of foam to make, the only usefull dual density blank I've used is the parabolic configuration. Why not just shape the whole thing out of 1.5 EPS? On a parabolic note. My buddy is in Hawaii is surfing on my parabolic board over there for the first time. He's in love with the parabolic thing,........so as we get all lovely eyes over the Timberflex build, let's not forget about one important aspect of the design. And that would be the parabolic rail system in either stringers, HD foam, balsa, etc.
Also PU glue sucks, it doesn't sand down on finer grits at all. Just put the blank together with epoxy.
WMD is no longer available. I don’t want to double the cost of my blanks (presently about $50) just to make the HD rails curved as opposed to the parallel glue up I’m currently using…lots of waste…plus, I’m not using stringers, but even then, Kelly’s new rig is using dual parallel stringers that exit the rail before the front fins. I’m focusing on compound curves, veneers and lam schedules as a way to tune and tighten the board up.
you’ve made me thing about something…it would be nice to try to quantify twist in the veneer’d/stringerless compared to a plain parabolic ( and/or timberflex parabolic).
Both options below cut better than PU the best cutting PU is Sumo and it drys white
Option1: Back in 2006 CMP was gluing up his stringers to his Insulfoam EPS blanks with this. He said you could eat it. He even colored it with different colored food colorings so he could tell what density each EPS blank was.
I've made a couple of boards with tempera handprints. Eighty something greasy little nosepicking Kinderkids. No sealer. Worked beautifully. It was PUPE (no pun intended), though. Mike