When XUE spamed all those threads I saw one that was about nose and tail thickness, and it reminded me of something I always consider when shaping a board, the relationship between the nose and tail thickness.
For you professional board builders, is there a simple concept, or even a ratio, that you follow when determining the relationship between nose and tail thickness?
Or is it just dependent on the design? i.e. some designs have thicker noses and some have thicker tails.
I have noticed that on lots of my boards the noses are slightly thicker than the tails (@ 12"), and have thought that with the addition of the fins (extra volume) the nose and tail volumes become equal.
Thoughts?
Maybe Greg Loher could comment with regard to his “Theory of Balance”, or Mike Daniels could comment on how his thinking on this concept has changed with Coil construction.
Thanks.
"Or is it just dependent on the design?"
It is dependent on the design. I've switched things around with good results depending on the design... thicker nose, thicker tail, thickpoint forward, at, and behind wide point, etc.
I don't think I've varied the nose and tail thickness by much more than 1/4" and that was on a huge board. Typically the nose and tail thickness is pretty close or within 1/4".
Greg Loehr's "Theory of Pitch" is in the archives. Look under 'resources'/'articles'... I think it's in there somewhere. Well worth reading.
I’m no pro, but I like to think of nose and tail thickness in terms of overall foil. Thick/wide point back puts the tail thickness a little greater than nose thickness. Pushing the thickest point forward thickens the nose and thins the tail.
For example, a 6’2 with the thickest/widest point 3" back makes the tail about a 1/4" thicker than the nose. If the thick/wide point are in the middle, like on a small wave board or mod fish, their about the same thickness. On a retro fish or single fin, with the thick/wide point 3" forward, the nose is about an 1/8" to a 1/4" thicker than the tail, in porportion with the length of the board… shorter means on the thicker side. Big wave boards (for here that’s in the 7’0 range) the thick point is either in the middle or slightly behind center, so the nose and tail thickness are either the same or tail slightly thicker.
Interval thicknesses are very important, setting the centerline foil. I got all OCD on this when I was doing blank plugs for Clark Foam (early 90s). Blanks have to have a foil that allows a range of lengths, but is still good for going end-to-end. The more thought you put into it, the more successful your blank is going to be. I spent a lot of time and got something a lot of shapers liked, all over the world. I kinda worked backwards from finished board thickness, as this was the beginning of the really close-tolerance blank era. It was fun to have a hand in that, even though I did get some flak for making something ''too easy'' to shape.
Generally I believe very strongly in ''balanced'' shapes. I don't like wide points too far from center, or foils that are nose or tail heavy. So nose and tail intervals are always going to be close to equal on my boards. That said, Coil Construction has allowed us to go thinner in the tails, the staged or "Coil-foil'' is well known here. The balance is still there, though, if you look closely.
See–that’s another thing I like about you.
Thanks Mike.
I like the language: “Interval Thickness”
Since most of your boards are have symmetrical thicknesses from nose to tail, do you make adjustments as the wide point moves? Or is relative thickness pretty much independent of relative width?
Not quite symmetrical, but close... Achieving that overall balance is the goal, so lots of other factors come into play. Wide point and thickest point generally coincide, I wouldn't want them to get too far apart. Whether you ''carry'' thickness fore/aft, and how far you carry it, is an important part of foil design.