Novice Questions...

General Discussion
1

I’m new to the whole shaping thing, but there are some little things that I don’t understand.

What is a lap?

What is a tucked rail?

What is “POD” (board measurment)?

How do you determine the width of the nose, tail, and the board? I know how stupid this sounds, but I don’t know where you are supposed to measure on a curve.

Is the center the widest point or is it just the middle point?

What’s a double concave? Single concave is just one smooth rocker curve, right?

What is toe/cant?

Thanks to any help… I’m sure I’ll have more.

2

hey MMouse…try reading up on those terms in the glossary… I think almost all of the words you mentioned are in there…

3

Hey Modest Mouse,

I’m sorry if I state the obvious, as I’ve seen you post here before, but take some time to delve into the swaylocks archives and glossary. All your questions are fairly straight forward and should be answered there, and more.

If you then have more specific questions, there are more than enough knowledgable people here willing to give you answers.

As a guy once said to me of tuberiding…it’s not something mystical, just relax, and keep surfing. I made many more tubes after thinking about that for a while.

Your new board, when you decide to make it, will be the best fun learning experience and eventually all your questions will be answered.

Nothing hard about that if you really want to learn.

4

I’m really just a novise too, campared to a lot of the swalocks crew, but I will try to address some of your questions. each one is really a wide and indepth subject in itsself so I can’t really give you a full explanation, will try to keep it short and sweet, but there is plenty of info in the archive (sorry you’ll get a lot of that)

  1. the lap, the bottom then the deck of a board is glassed seperatley, each layer is overlapped onto the other side, so there is a double thickness of glass on the rails giving strencth, and this leave a lap line. there are many ways to do a lap and lots of diff techniques, mainly free lapping and cut lapping.

  2. nose and tail with is depentant on many factors and will affect how the board rides, mainly the length and style of a board should give a rough idea, but there is no golden rule, try looking and riding other board to find a prefrence.

  3. the widest point is usually 1/2 to 1/3 from the tail, moving this further back from the mid point will affect the boards abbility to catch wave and the drive, (see berts comments on his S-curve)

  4. concaves are on the under side of a board and are different from nose and tail rocker, they run inline with the stinger, and are hollows to allow flow under ther board and lift the belly slightly out of hte water, they affect responce, drive ect.

  5. toe in is the angle of the fins, in a vertical plane, ie how much the point in toward the nose, again this affects the drive and responce.

  6. cant is the angle of the fins on the horazontal plane, i.e how much they point off off a vertical 90 degress straight up into the air (when deck down), again this affects the drive and responce and holding abitiy

like to stress that each has a sutble effect on how a board performs, and is offten down to personal preference, I’m sorry if these answer are real vague but ther would be too mush to explane in one post, so I hope the summary or over view is of some use. also a lost of stuff like fin theory, toe cant, concaves I am still learning myself and from my experience every one has a dif idea about what is best,

hey guys guess I took my time typing this and you all beat me to the punch.

5

ModestMouse, woody_waverider is correct but I’ll add a little here…

Quote:
2. nose and tail width is depentant on many factors and will affect how the board rides, mainly the length and style of a board should give a rough idea, but there is no golden rule, try looking and riding other board to find a prefrence.

nose and tail width measurements are made 12" from each end

Quote:
3. the widest point is usually 1/2 to 1/3 from the tail, moving this further back from the mid point will affect the boards abbility to catch wave and the drive, (see berts comments on his S-curve)

widest point is usually found at the center but maybe infront of or behind center. each has a different affect and will vary on board design/style

Quote:
4. concaves are on the under side of a board and are different from nose and tail rocker, they run inline with the stinger, and are hollows to allow flow under ther board and lift the belly slightly out of hte water, they affect responce, drive ect.

Concaves refer to the contour of the bottom of the board. if you turn a board with a concave upside down it will have a bowl shap side to side. The center is lower than the edges. A double concave just means that there are two concaves side by side (often inside a larger concave running from rail to rail). The idea of the double concave is to get a concave area closer to each rail for when up on rail. For short boards they tend to be in the back third, while on longboards they tend to be in the nose area. Same physics, direct water flow, but different goals.

Hope that helps. Like everyone elase said. When I started reading your post I thought check the glossary. It has become a good source of info (Thanks Keith and Doc for getting that going).

6

Glossary. I didn’t even know we had one, sorry. But thanks for all the replies. I didn’t even do a search cause I figured it wouldn’t help me a whole lot, because it would just give me alot of threads using the term.

7

MM

Thnk of Swaylocks like a library…every answer you need already exists…you just have to find them…but sometimes they find you my friend.

The archives can be a bit of a pain in the ass, especially with some of the more basic questions…but there is always an answer and sooner or later you’ll find them.

My advice is to read every thread and when you find what you are looking for, copy and paste the answer in a word doc for later reference. I also do this for current threads. Every day here you can find answers to questions that you have yet to ask, and one day, when those questions are asked, you will realize that you already have the answer.

ONE MORE WORD OF IMPORTANT ADVICE…questions get answered best when they are asked in as specific a manner as possible and not grouped all in one posting…

But here’s a few answeres anyway.

The nose and tail are ALWAYS measured 12" (inches) from the top and bottom of the board. Nose: take a tape measure and put the end at the tip of tail and pull it down 12", then that is the where you then measure the width of the nose. Same thing for the tail…only do this at the very end of the board and measure up 12" and then that is where you measure the width of the tail. Width of the board is simply how wide it is at the widest point of the board…Turn it on rail and and find the highest point in the arc of the rail…that is where you measure the widepoint of the board.

There are actually two centers of the board. The literal center, and the outline center. The literal center is simply taking the total width of the board and then dividing in half…so if your board is 10’ then the literal center is 5’. The outline center (outline being the template of the board) is determined by finding the wide point of the board. The outline center, depending on board type, can be either in front of the literal center or behind it…all depends on what you want the board to do. For instance the 60’s longboards pretty much had their outline centers several inches behind (towards the tail) of the literal center. Whereas the 70’s single fin type baords were mostly centered in front of the literal center.

Lap is the amount of fiberglass that gets tucked under the other side of whichever side of the board you are laminating. For instance if you are laminating the bottom, then the lap gets “overlapped” to the deck, or top of the board, by about 2 or 3 inches. This creates a stronger rail when fully glassed becaue there are several layers of glass “overlapping” on the rail.

Tucked rail is when the bottom point of the rail is literally underneath the top rail. Hard to describe, but go look at any modern shortboard and notice the back 2 or 3 feet of the rails. That’s a tucked under rail.

POD board measurement??? Point of distance?? Got me…never heard this term before

Double concave (actually all concaves are on the botoom of the board) is in the tail section of the board. if you put the nose of the board on the ground and then take the tail end of the board and hold it up to your eye with the bottom side up you will notice that there are two semi-valleys in the tail section each peaking at the stringer.

Single concave is either in the midsection of shortboards/modern single fins and is usually blended into a double concave in the tail. IT is also found in the nose section of longboards. True, concaves do slightly affect rocker profile by slightly adding some, though it is not pronounced and not very visible if you simply looked at a board from the side.

Toe and cant relate to fins…specifically the side fins on boards. Toe is the degree to which the base of the fin is angled on a board. For instance 0 degrees would mean that the toe is literally parallel to the stringer. Usually side fins begin their angles from 4 degrees…so in effect they are pointing in to the nose of the board.

Cant is how a fin is angles in relationshipp to it’s vertical rise from the bottom of the board. If you looked at a board from the tail at eye level, you will see the fins are are angled pointing away from the center fin.

Drew

8

There are several references to concaves and what they are. I agree with most of the descriptions except for the generalization that they are always on the bottom. Photos of Bert’s vacuum bagged PVC Veneer board clearly shows concave on deck as well. (Photo taken from Swaylocks and used without permission)

9

i agree with john… as i do lots of concave decks like berts pictured one. also POD i think is being refered to as the tail with at the end of the outline. ps check the glossary as well as the archives when you need some info