Next project hyper-performance shortboard, Please scrutinize and advise.

General Discussion
1

Hi Swaylockers.

 

  After having decent success with my boards I have made so far I am asking for some advice and ideas about how to recreate the feel of my favorite ever board that I was riding about 8 or so years ago.

   Back them I was just post grom and would have been around 138lbs and now I am about 155lbs.

 

   The board was based around a Feral Dave (now known as Diverse) Turbo Model,  I had bought the Feral Dave after snapping my board while in Indo, and then after snapping the Feral Dave board a few months later I asked my local shaper to make me something similar- I think i had email Dave from Diverse at the time to ask about shipping one of his board to me but the shipping would have worked out way too expensive)

  As far as i remember the board I had shaped was 6 1’’  x 18 1/8  x 2’’        and it was the only board that I have ever owned that had a light performace glass job on it, I think just 1 layer of 6oz on the deck.

    This board surfed amazing, and it surfed amazing in anything - small waves, bigger waves the board had everything.    However after 8 months I snapped this board air dropping and landing pretty flat while holding the rail on a late backhand drop . - the board was then thrown in the garbage so i have no reference of what bottom contours it had etc

  8 years on I have never had another board like it, so here comes my next project…

 

   I want to keep it light, with just a 6oz on the deck, maybe a 4oz oval deckpatch to help protect the deck??  Then sand the board down really good untill the weave of the cloth just starts showing (obviously without going through the weave) and sealing it with acrylic to make sure no water gets in.

  6 2’’ seems a little extreme these days for my local small and mushy waves (shortboard design had moved shorter and fatter and although I still want to keep in mind recreating the feel of my old board I feel I should move with the times alittle) so i was thinking about going for 5 11’’  or 6 0’’  ???

18 1/8 wide seems a little narrow for me these days, although fit Im a little bit slower than I used to be so maybe scaling up to a standard 18 1/4 width?

Bottom contours - I really have no idea… this is where it would be so handy for Dave from Diverse to send me a quick pm because i’m guessing it would have been similar to the turbo model- so if your out there Dave!   otherwise any ideas from swaylockers will be welcome.

Thickness - there is no way that I’m going to ride a board 2’’ thick these days so maybe pad it upto the standard 2 1/4  ???

Hips? Bumps?  Angle of rails near the tail? …    I have noticed a lot of boards being ridden by pro/semi pro surfers have a very slight hip where the  front fins are and then the remaining rail towards the tail is fairly straight (obviously not completely straight but I hope you get what i am trying to say)- I presume the angle of the rail after this hip affects the angle of attack possible when turning???   i can’t remember if my previous board had any hips or bumps.

Tail shape- I’m open to suggestions- I cant remember the tail shape of ‘that’ board.

Rails would have been quite hard, I have always had a thing for harder rails and I would never have selected a board with soft rails so i’m going to stick with harder than average rails.

Wide point… I have no idea?  In the middle of the board?

Previous board was polyester, would you guys reccommend epoxy?

 

  Sorry about the waffle but any Ideas thrown my way will be appreciated - I know this board won’t surf the same, but remembering ‘that’ board has inspired me to try to make something special.

 

2

While i think of it.   Advice on fin positioning, cant, toe, and nose rocker tail rocker all welcome

3

Mate, you’re off your head!!

So you had an awesome board 8 years ago but you can’t remember much about it? And that means you’ve been riding shit surfboards for the last 8 years?? What?

I would either A: Ring Diverse and order a custom Dynocore, improve your surfing and learn what a good board is. Or

                 B: Make a board, ride it, figure out what you like or dislike about it, make another one.  Then make another one, ride someone else's board, buy boards learn from them ect ect.

It’s a long learning process, your post is too long and blabbering, no one will seriously answer so many ridiculous questions all in one go.

Use the archives.

4

To answer your questions:

No
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
Yes
Perhaps
No
No
No

5

So you want to recreate the feel of a board you had 8 years ago but you want to change all it’s dimensions?

6

Marsh, no I havnt been riding shit surfboards for the last 8 years,  although I believe I made some bad choices and rode shit boards for 2 out of the 8 years. I cant afford to import a diverse dynocore and anyway i want to challenge myself to make something really good. Thanks for your help. 

 

Mako, probably more useful but still not really the in depth help i was looking for.

 

Hans, i know you were being sarcastic but thats pretty much what I want to do- take a board I was riding from the past and try and to take the characteristics I liked and morph the ideas into something awsome that suits me. The problem I have is making sure all the little details work together.

 

 

7

Why don’t you use AKU and recreate the board as close as possible to what you remember and then just change to overall length, width and thickness until you get a volume number comensurate with your new weight?  The curves, foil, volume distrubution and proportions should stay similar.  Be very careful of the fin set up and sizing.  Maybe try 4WFS for a bit of versatility in that regard.  That’s what I would do.  

8

I dont think you can go back (unless it’s a mal), if you had the exact same board now you might find its not quite  as good as what you remembered. 

Perhaps your question has too many variables to sort out all in one hit? If I was in your situation I would go find some shapers, ask a whole bunch of questions, ride a few of their boards and then buy one from them that fits your criteria. That way you can make a similar one once it’s reached it’s used by date, and you can tweak it as your surfing evolves.

9

Hey funny thing is i have done the same thing this week. Old fav board from ten years ago only i still have the beat up old board which has made it a lot simpler. But i did chop 2 " from the tail and added a little volume under the chest.

I think tail shape may be pretty important [img_assist|nid=1074505|title=old 6,1 new 5,10 web by|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=75]to how your board will feel. Was it a squash tail or swallow.   

10

Hey guys, thanks for the input.

    The tail was shape was a round tail.

 

 Bankswar, have you had chance to get your newly shaped board in the water yet?   And if so how does it feel compared to your old one? The answer I would like to hear would be that it feels similar but not exactly the same. I would be very interested to know.

 Diffucult to tell from your pic but after chopping off 2" did you try and keep the nose and tail widths the same, or at least very similar?

 

I have tried loads of boards over the last few years, some I liked, some I didn’t like but nothing that has made me want to go out and pay alot of money for… So thats the mission - to make a magic board!

 

  I do agree that the perfect board 8 years ago might not feel anything special now- I remember when Rob Machado said he dug out one of his old favorites and had it replicated then said that it was completely different to how he remembered it.  

Better to try and fail than not to try at all.

11

So far.

5 11"     18 1/4    2 1/4

round tail

Harder than average rails

 

 

  The two things that I feel I will struggle with most are -:

 Where the approx wide point should be on a board that was originally inspired around a turbo model?

How much nose and tail rocker you think it should have

 

  I’d really appreciate if some of you guys could give me a little advice on these two points even if you choose to ignore my previous babbling.

 

 

 

 

12

Out of curiosity, where are you, and where do you usually surf?

13

Gotta say you’re being VERY anal. At this rate no matter what board you get, it will suck. If you’re in the US try getting your hands on a roundtail Lost Driver or a CI T-Low/Fred Rubble.

14

Speedy i did literally just chop two inches off the tail so the nose stayed the same, the tail may be a touch wider a foot from the tail and the swallow itself.

And i have not glassed it yet still waiting to go the waves are pretty good around here at the moment. My magic board had glass in fins from Fluid foils so i am going to get them to try to make another set of fins that are similar. Good luck i will let you know if it works. i have notice have much more tail rocker in the model. 

oh well all in the name of fun anyway.

15

magic boards are rare.
What makes them magic is almost always the rocker/bottom profile,
the engine of the board that worked perfectly for that rider.
If you can figure out the ‘magic’ rocker/bottom that worked/works so well for you in a HPSB (mush boards much less so, mostly flat planers and rarely magic, cause the waves sure aren’t) ,
that becomes the baseline for all your builds/orders going forward.

Figure out the rocker, and everything else will feed into it.

16

ICC, thanks, that sounds logical and makes sense to me.   I will make sure I try and get these right.

 

Bankswar, keep us updated on how your board goes, feel free to post how it goes on here or perhaps start your own post about it?  It would be interesting to know if you get more ‘cork effect’ while catching waves with the wider tail and if you lose any bite while turning hard off the back foot.

17

This board is coming along slowly

[img_assist|nid=1074727|title=5,10 web by copy new Alia fins|desc=FIns from fluid foils Alia fins|link=none|align=left|width=500|height=400]