Out of interest for shaping surfboards, I have been lurking this site for quite some time now. Being landlocked (I live in the middle of Germany…) I spent most my time saving money and time to get to surf, so I haven’t really had the opportunity to try to shape my own boards. After a 2 year spell of not surfing for professional and personal reasons… I finally have the time and money to start shaping. I have spent extensive amounts of time digging through various forums on this site and others and the knowledge and moreover how this knowledge is put into beautiful crafts is astounding. What also is astounding though is the amount of information. Of course I have a rough idea, but I’d like to present my projects and possibly get some opinions on here. In the last years, I had 2 go to boards (which I both sold before teh aforementioned 2 year spell), a 5’8 keel fish as my every day driver and a 6’4 single fin for the good days. Just as an orientation…
I will have lots of time come april and may before I will embark on a classic euro roadtrip: france-spain-portugal-morocco. That will happen in a camper i converted myself, which is great, but which limits me also in terms of space, so I won’t be able to take a quiver of many boards
I am just laying my ideas out here, you are more than welcome to chime in if I am on the wring track.
So as my first project, I decided to shape a mini simmons. My old fish was great, but didn’t help me on those really tiny days. Plus, if I am not mistaken, a mini sommins is not that bad of an idea for a first board. This might make the more experienced shapers on here cringe, but the two vendors of surfboard blanks here in europe also offer a shaping service (you send them a file of the desired board in whatever format, they preshape the blank), which I really consider using. I am leaning towards an EPS-blank without a stringer, which should work given the length. As for glassing, I am really really interested in all those alternative materials that have been emerging during the last years. However, I am not quite sure if it would be a good idea to experiment with that on my first board. I am especially interested in carbon rails and/or using linen or hemp clith instead of glass. Carbon rails wouldn’t be for mini, rather for another project. As I will be on the road for at least 6 months, I am looking for durability rather than lightweight re. glassing.
Other boards I’d like to build are a Lis Fish and something eggy for the lady and another single fin around 6’4-6’6.
In case there are also some euros on here: do you know of any other blank suppliers than altuacore and homeblown?
So am I on the right track here? Simmons as first board? EPS stringerless ok is it easier to work with regular PU? How about linen or hemp cloth?