I’m finally shaping my #2!! A while ago I was able to get a blank from Mook (fellow swaylockian, thanks for the blank!) but I couldn’t find a place nor the time to shape a board. Now I have a place underneath my house that I reorganized and made a shaping bay out of it. Me and a friend of mine are shaping two boards… They’re both gonna be 6’2"-20"-2.5". The only difference is gonna be the outline. Theyre both gonna be fitted with lokboxes (thanks mick and jim!) for a quad set-up…
I have a couple of quick questions:
How should I position my quad fins? I’ve ordered speed dialer cutaways… I can only seem to find fin positioning for quad fishes in the archives… I imagine the placement should be slightly different for the outlines that we have…
I’m going to glass with epoxy. Last time I shaped an EPS board, and the guys at atuacores recommended me to use 2 layers of 6oz on the deck and one 6oz layer on the bottom. This time I’ve shaped a PU blank with a stringer, and I imagine 2x 4oz on top and 1x 4oz on the bottom would be normal with polyester. Since I have epoxy it’s gonna be a lot stronger. Do you think I could get away with 1 layer of 6oz on the deck and 1 layer of 6oz on the bottom? Or should I go with 2x on the deck and 1 on the bottom with 6oz glass?
Can’t give you any advice on the first question. Still working on my first board and it is gonna be a thruster set up. About the second question: I would use two 6oz layers on the deck and one 6oz on the bottom, like the guys at atuacores said. I asked the people from polyservice and they said the same (or use 3 layers of 4oz on the deck and 2 layers 4oz on the bottom)
give Lokbox a PM on sways about the dialers, I am sure he will help you out.
I’d go for double-six glass… simply put, it’s just stronger, your board will work fine with 4oz, just be prepared to have more dings quicker (pressure dings)…
I’m gonna go with the 2 deck 1 bottom. It’s also the fact that I have 30m of 6oz glass lying here, and I don’t wanna spend money on 4oz if it’s not necessary.
I also bought pigment from polyservice. I bought red, green and yellow to give it the rasta colors. I’m thinking about making nice horizontal swirl lines across the entire bottom until the cutlap at the deck, and leave the deck transparent…
A quick questions about pigments: If you wanna get a nice, let’s say, orange color, how would you mix your red and yellow pigments? Would you mix the pigments first and then add them to the resin, or would you just add them to the resin and mix thoroughly?
EDIT:
btw, here’s a pic from the tail of the board… I’ll send Lokbox a PM…
mixing pigments for epoxy can be a pain… you can try and pre-mix some pigment in your hardener (it’s low viscosity makes it easier) just prior to setting off the batch. just account for slight decrease in colour opaqueness when adding resin. (basically mix the pigment full ratio into the hardener) and record your colour ratio when you have found the right tint you want, you may end up needing to make additional resin in that colour. A trick i did recently with powdered pigment was to put the pigment in a coffee filter and drip acetone (i know dangerous stuff… be careful) so the resulting acetone was richly pigmented, this I subsequently mixed in the resin (not the hardener, acetone can react with it!) and then mix thoroughly , the acetone evaporates leaving the pigment… hehe (coffee filter was mook’s trick, he dripped the hardener through the filter but that takes forever… acetone is quick and has added benefit of removing any residual greases/oils that may or may not be in the mix…)
You are in good shape though because the polyservice pigments are very good quality paste pigments that give good “rich” tints.
I glassed the bottom and the deck. I did the bottom first, and I had an Idea of how to do the colors. It turned out a little bit ‘dirtier’ than I wished, but I kinda like it anyways. Here are some pics (I apologize for the quality, they were taken with my mobile phone):
This is the bottom. Originally I wanted to get three nice bands, but somehow the green and red resin started to mix with the yellow resin… If anyone could explain me how it should have been done it’d be really helpful for future projects…
I wanted to continue the bands of the bottom over the deck, but since they looked so ‘dirty’ I figured that they would give a nice contrast with a clear deck… I’m planning to do a black pinline…
I got fin positioning info from Jim (lokbox) Thanks again!
I still want to do some drawing with black paint on the bottom. Should I paint it now or should I first hotcoat the board and then paint?
Today I could finally get my hands on a router, and I made the holes for the lokboxes…
I dunno why, but I always get a very rewarding feeling after you put the fins into place. It’s one of the final steps, and you get a better feeling of what the board will feel like in the water…
Still, does anyone know what I should do with regard to the black paint (pinline)? (see last post)
I finally finished my #2… I shaped it in may, but I didnt have the time to finish it (glass, fins, sanding, polishing) before the summer. Now that I got back from spending 5 weeks in the US I finished the board.
It’s a 6’2"-20"-2 1/4"
Here’s some pictures:
Bottom
Deck
rocker shot
Speed dialers, maybe not the best fins for this board but i’ll give em a try before judging…
So thats my number 2… Well actually I think I already shaped 6 boards together with friends but this is the 2nd one that’s gonna be mine :P…
I actually polished it after I took these pictures so its shinier now… Still no poly gloss coat (its epoxy) but im happy with it…
Yeah in the end I’m really happy with the accidental art!
I took the board out today for the first time. We were all checkin out each others’ boards at Swayday Holland, and the waves weren’t too bad for Dutch standards. I only went out for 30 minutes with my board (we were all swapping and riding each others’ boards) but I managed to ride a few waves. First impression: It accelerates fast off the bottom turn, the fastest I’ve ever experienced at least… It’s also easy to steer up the wave and hold a high line. I’m planning on bringin this board to Morocco next winter, I have a feeling it will hold up there just fine.
Wish I could have been there on the Swayday. Was planning to go but there were some last minute disasters at home while painting the walls / ceilings, putting in new floor, changing a door into a wall so I couldn’t go. The #2 board looks great! Would have loved to check it (and other dutch creation) last saturday but I guess I’ll have to wait till next years swayday
Yes, the only day we can’t have an exam is on sunday.
But it actually doesn’t make a difference, in the exam period you normally don’t take a day off ;). But if it was sunday I could have been there, because my next exam is the first of september. Let’s hope for next year.
).