I was surfing the remnants of Hurricane Dean and having a hard time catching the little dinks coming through that evening on my fish. I got to thinking about what I could do to catch waves easier and settled on making a rounder nose fish than what I’ve been riding. I was down to my last bit of foam, so I cut the rocker into what was left and glued some 1" thick XPS sheet foam on the bottom and shaped that mess. It’s 6’-3" x 22" wide and no stringer. Rode it this morning in conditions I hoped it would ride in. It performed way better than my expectations. I was able to catch waves sitting outside with the longboards!!! Hell, the thing even turns! Thanks to Drewtang for advice on glassing the blue foam.
I know you said it didn’t have a stringer, so i am curious, what is that line down the center of the bottom, i see i doesn’t have that on the deck. Awesome that it rides better than expected, it is a lot better than the otherway around.
I know you said it didn’t have a stringer, so i am curious, what is that line down the center of the bottom, i see i doesn’t have that on the deck. Awesome that it rides better than expected, it is a lot better than the otherway around.
The line is a seam. The sheet foam was a 4x8 sheet that came pre-cut into 16" wide strips. The edges weren’t perfectly even and I started to true it up, but figured I’d be alright without making a tighter joint (and I was).
Yes, you’re right, better to be above expectations than otherwise!
The board looks great, doesn’t look cobbled together like you describe…How thick? Bottom/rail contours?
JSS
Thanks,
Didn’t measure the thickness, but I’d say it’s a tad over 2.5", soft rails til the last third at the tail where they’re hard as hell! The glue-up went really well, love that PU glue! Just used the cutoff as my rocker template and clamped the EPS onto the XPS with bar clamps and 1x6’s. A vacuum system would have been nice, but not really necessary. I wish I would have put my rocker template back on it and cut the excess off of the deck. Would have saved a lot of milling with the planer.
Thanks, the rocker shot didn’t work for some reason, it took on a skewed, twisted look (not unlike my outlook on life!). I toed the fins 1/8" with the trailing edge 1-1/8" from the rail. I set the cant with a bevel, just put the tips out over the rail edge. I made the fins out of some left over balsa.
Forgot to mention, I “bogged” the EPS side with a mixture of Kilz primer and q-cell thickened to the consistency of funky mayo. Nice and white! It’ll be interesting to see how well the bond does…
Kilz has worked out just fine. However, in ensuing boards, it tends to be a little darker in the bog areas on boards that I only spackled once. I’ve used it on about 5 boards now. As for the glass bond, it has held up really well. Glassed with RR epoxy BTW.
