eps you cut the rocker into the foam as you cut the foam, then glue it up. I guess with Home Depot foam, you’ll be using those styro things . .
glue the foam slabs into something thick and long enough to put your rocker templates on both of the sides and hot wire it out. Split it and glue in your stringer and they all should match provided the stringer was cut along the rocker templates you used to hotwire it out. Hotwire block technique, archives has this.
you get your stringer, glue it inbetween two halves with thickness enough to accomodate all the stringer curve. Then cut or plane out your blank. This is very hard as you can’t see the stringer since is buried and difficult to cut imaginary horizonal planes, which the hotwire method above uses the block and tenmplates on each side to guide the hotwire.
Normal tri fine is good drive / speed, or you can also go single fin.
I didn’t mention bending rocker into foam as you clamp / glue in stringer because you can do with with urethane, but the soft HD foam won’t allow it unless you use a rocker table and weight the foam down . . . but then you get compression dents from the weights unless you use door skin on top . . . ah just gets complicated with a rocker table . . .
i think you want something on the flatter side so i’d just stack up the sheets and glue them together but put something like a door skins on the bottom and put books or anything flat under the nose and tail and in between then put anything heavy on the deck of the board but spread the objects out.
as for the dents in the deck of the blank ,from the weights, you can very easily just “skin” down the blank to get a flat deck with no dents.
but thats just what i do, its easy and you don’t have to hot wire anything or do very much
and a 2’ x 8’ x 4" thick slab is $30 around here. Hot wire the rocker, cut the outline, shape it (I shaped mine with 120 screen only–it was sweet and slow, about an afternoon’s worth of shaping–I’m not sure I would do my first and second blanks any different than that if I did it over again)
i just finished a pair of biscuit type boards…one is a thruster and one a bonzer, so far i like the bonzer best, it drives really well off of bottom turns, but i havent tested it too extensivley so i cant say much more…but they are really really fun to shape!
thanks guys this helps…i think im going too glue the blocks of foam together and set up some books under the tail and nose…but still real flat…then once tried cut in half and glue my rocker in…seams the most uncomplicated cuz i dont have a hotwire setup…
thanks for all the help guys any other info is greatly apreciated…
go get or rent a CI biscuit or something similar and make your outline template
go down to lowes or homedepot and buy:
one 4’x8’ sheet of 1.5" thick roofing EPS
one roll of plastic stretch wrap tape in the moving section
one bottle of Gorilla glue, ELmers PU or Sumo(My current favorite from Lowes)
rip the foam sheet into two 2’x8’ sheets
using the glue, foam sheets and plastic wrap do this:
you can cut the template outline first or later but if later make sure you aligh the board right down the middle
2-3 hours later you have a rockered stringler less blank to shape
if you use 5 minute epoxy instead of PU glue you can have a rockered stingerless blank ready in 15 -30 minutes but the glue line will be a bitch to shape thru and fine sand.
you can skip steps 2-4 if you just start off with a Marko blank
but it does open the doors for any fool to make be able to make a surfboard just about anywhere in thw orld there’s access to a HD/Lowes instead of being dependant on anyone or anything related to the surfboard manufacturing industry…
Make sure you have GOOD rails that are HARD atleast 6" from the tail if you want drive. I’ve rode a Pod shape with a beautiful template but shitty rails that made the board like a little hull and believe me you get no drive.
well guys i was a lil angry lst night and it is very hard to peel off the reflective side, but i went agaead and glued the non reflective side together then put it in a rocker table…made of books and weights…i realized when glue started dripping to the side becuase of compression that the two surfaces a glues toegther had a clear thin plastic almost suran wrap material on it …but fudge i already glued it together … u think this will affect shapping on the rails??? im going to go about shaping anyway…but how should i remove the reflective sides…im thinking of sanding/planing/surforming it off…without doin tomuch damage…
What kind of glue did you use? If it was epoxy, you have have a hard time. Most other glues won’t be as bad, but take your time along the glue seem and try to avoid gouging out chunks. That would be the only drawback for the spiced foam. You’re going to have a scarf joint somewhere and that’s where it may tear a little. Just go slowly over the glue line and you should be OK.
I just worked with my shaper to get a similar shape going for east coast surf. We ended up doing a 5’5" X 20.5" X 2.5" groveler that is similar to a biscuit/fishcuit but the tail is a winged squash with a 5-fin set-up. I’m hoping this will be the board that excels in small bumpy surf.
