Or the moral could be, what did I learn by what went wrong and how can I recreate it (I think that would be WDILBWWWAHOCIRI). It sounds like Ben’s first board was very stiff and solid. Lessons learned from one board can and should be transfered to other boards.
Check out the - 6 foot balsa board thread…
Austin with Jim the Genius have made a RS style balsa board.
Pretty cool! Shades of retroman?
I just can’t stop wondering what a balsand tuned for KS would do under his feet… but then again remember how Bert said that it evened the playing field out when more surfers we’re riding his boards - he wasn’t bringing home the hardware from the contests like he was at first. Maybe Kelly, cause he is limber, flexible and fit is the best rider of curves, volume and foils and when the boards become more dynamic it will really even out the field and then the differences in rider’s abilities will be more of an artistic and/or creative call.
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don’t forget to start thinking about that darn twanger
My current board is getting one
Some of my all-time favorite bands are Humble Pie, Judas Priest and Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks…
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[ Bert tried to do something like this in regards to design on this thread http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=161821#161821 . Its the best design thread I've seen because it actually give me insite to why he shapes the way he does
Great post Dan. The first thing that struck me in Bert’s board designs in that thread is how wide his longboards are. The narrowest longboard he posted about is 22 5/8 and the first board for the contest surfer for small surf where the pic shows him hitting the lip the board is 24" wide. This is amazingly wide to me (by comparison, my 9’0" is 21 1/4) and I’m wondering why he goes with that width. Is it to get the float back, compensation for the thinness? (the 24" board is 2 1/4 thick while my 21 1/4 is 2 3/4 thick). My initial thoughts were that I wouldn’t ever want a board that wide: I don’t even know if I could carry it under my arm, for one thing (a silly concern but…) and don’t think I’ve ever seen a surfboard that wide in my life (not even 10’6" boards, much less 9’0"!).
Bert also says “it’s not really wide in the nose, only 18 1/2”, but that sounds really wide to me: I know some guys like a 19" nose or so but early noseriders were more in the 16" range and that didn’t seem to bother anyone back then. (my 9’0" is a ‘performance’ shape and is 16 3/4, but it works on the nose fine: for a larger wave longboard I’d want something more like 15 1/2" nose)
What do you guys think about increasing the width, while decreasing the thickness of the boards? Which is easier to get on the rail? The thicker, narrower board or the thinner, wider one?
The most common complaint (and this may just be the usual anti-Surftech propaganda) I’ve heard about Surftechs is “They’re too stiff and corky.”
Has anybody else heard that?
For the do-it-yourself guy who is experimenting… why not add something heavy, say redwood, as part of the forward rail laminate? The perimeter rails that Bert is doing appear to have several strips glued together as part of the stringer system. It doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to incorporate a heavier wood in that forward rail and maybe thin it out somewhat to eliminate the “corky” complaint. If it’s thinner and heavier, it will penetrate and not feel corky - right?
Of course the thinned out tails and concave decks of Bert’s designs are going to add to flex, so that problem is probably out the way.
Has anybody considered molding a thin panel of glass, carbon or whatever with a downward rocker so that it could be laminated horizontally in the tail section under the composite skin with a pre-stressed springiness characteristic built in? It could be laminated into the composite under vacuum so that the designed tail rocker is in place but the horizontal stringer would be under stress.
I approached this pre-stressed condition awhile back as part of tweaking the rocker design of the blank. I.E. if you reduce the natural rocker of a blank, would the pre-stress of the flexed foam as it was glued to the stringer add anything to the finished board?
I’m not sure where the Christ analogy fits in to what I’ve written. Anybody who knows me knows that I don’t think my boards even good enough to keep yet. What I was saying is that I would be much more interested in seeing what people are doing and how the pieces fit together than I am in seeing just a finished board.
MaraboroSlim, I really curious about the width of the board. My current board is going to be 24" wide and very full. When I finish it up I going to take a Sway break and surf it for a while so that I can get a feel for whats going on.
Hi Honolulu The origional post asked if glass reinforcements should be over or under the balsa I thought that I was helpful by giving my opinion of what I think happens with a sandwhich construction and what I do, eg put more glass on the outside. I am quite happy doing it this way and it works for me.
I haven’t seen any posts asking for how people lay up their boards, I’m sure if a direct question was posted it would be answered helpfully by some.
Well to first answer J’s original question (we always seem to get off target)
I’d go under for a deck patch cause the wood gives no matter what and you’d want the strength next to the softer foam. For tail patches I’d go over to strengthen the fin area.
Anyway as far as the rest of the riga-ma-roll as elaborated by charlie…
I think I have a pretty eclectic quiver as my goal in surfing has been to ride and own it all in the pursuit of the magic bullet. I’ll admit it doesn’t help your surfing to have so many diverse types of equipment to try but I’ve always believed in the boyscout motto as there’s always a time and a place for something…
I still haven’t figured out this magic “flex” thing everyone is alluding to in sandwich boards. The closest I guess is my new Surflight sponge board design. When I bought the 9’6" Australian Bamboo mal I was expecting all this snap out my turns pop backs when I applied pressure and acceleration in speed but it rode like all my other longboards just alot lighter and then it delammed. My Linden Recycler I owned in the 90’s seemed like magic too, light and fast but no flex and this was many years before Surftech came into being then it delammed as well and the wood fins came off…
Done the 5 fin full concave disks and hybrids as well as 5 fin rawson bonzers, arakawa reverse vees, parmenter vectors, bushman fishes, twin nose gemini’s, mandala quads, McCoy loaded dome nuggets, horan no-nose, chung fat girls, BK miniguns, Merrick flyers, etc etc… They all have their good points as well as many bad points. And now we have these balsa things and it isn’t any different so is it all just sways induced hype? I don’t know but I haven’t witnessed this magic of flex everyone is talking about.
The one thing I’ve learned after a dozen or so boards in the past 8 months, is that personally I cannot shape a decent board for sh*t and althought it’s primarily environmental as much as its been fun and a learning experience it’s really a big waste of time when I can pay a guy with 15,000-30,000 boards under his belt to pop me out a beaut in a day. It’s then up to me to either bag it as a sandwich and keep it a while or get it glassed by a pro and have it pressured in the first go out. Shaping truely is an art form and no matter how much science we put into it to help make it easier, you either got it or you don’t and even if you think you’re getting close, 30 seconds under the watchful eye of a true artist will highlight how far off you really were… The artists are definitely a special breed…
I guess one day when I ride one of Ken’s or Bert’s boards I’ll finally get enlightened to this magic everyone seems to be in a buzz about… As for now, I’m kind of in Charlie and Benny’s shoes as I just haven’t witnessed this thin and wide non-joined wood skin sandwich “magic” yet… But as I’ve always said the search for Nirvana is an endless road…
The best we can do is putter along and hope in it’s kindness it’ll bless us with a little of it’s light every now and then… I’ve seen it here and then every once in a while with a design but there was always the awakening to their inherent weaknesses and I just haven’t seen it in wood epoxy yet.
And I know many of you won’t like this last observation, and it’s probably cause of my own ugly shapes… But other than the board CMP helped shaped I’ve had much better surfing experiences on all of my Surftech Epoxies than any of my wood sandwhich EPS experiments I’ve built.
It’s definitely an eye opener for me…
I have no talent in this space…
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It sounds like Ben's first board was very stiff and solid.
Surprisingly, not stiff at all. Solid, yes. Heavy, yes (on land). I think, besides surfing great, that board really has illustrated the flex of the balsa to me. I’m glad I used 1/4" thick skins because the flex is for real. Now all I have to do is experiment with going thinner & thinner on the balsa to save weight until I find where the flex is gone.
If you scratch over a set and flop down onto the back side, the nose of the board twangs like a new pupe - you know that perfect bounce they have for the first month you have them? The twang that disappears?
And one clean, glassy day I was surfing with a friend who wins contests and a guy who’s a pretty well-respected Santa Cruz shaper. I was on the nose, passing both these guys at high speed, and they were definitely paying attention. When I paddled back out they were talking about how the tail of my board was almost vibrating & staying perfectly hooked in. Using words like flutter and cavitation. I hadn’t really noticed, I don’t surf looking backwards very much. But the thing really does stay connected with the wave.
So the only problems, to me, with using that much wood are weight & cost. Dan, take it for a spin on Saturday & tell me what you think… 
My first balsasandwich I built a few months ago has started to fall apart on the deck.
I think glass reinforcement is important, but more important I would say is to put the right wood in the right places. I built my skins without thinking at all and the skins came out with soft and hard balsa mixed, and where I put my front foot had one of the soft woods right under so now I’ve got a pretty big dent going on.
and for my back foot there is both soft and hard balsa and it has only failed where the soft balsa is.
so on my current board I’m building I have put the hard balsa sheets on the deck and the soft ones on the bottom. And I have even put extra wood under the high traffic areas,an idea I got from sabs. am going to put extra patches where my feet come also.
And I have to add that my board has lost that good feeling it had in the beginning, think
it must have to do with the deck falling apart…still better than a poopee.
jimmyyoshioshibata.
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Surprisingly, not stiff at all. Solid, yes. Heavy, yes (on land). I think, besides surfing great, that board really has illustrated the flex of the balsa to me. I’m glad I used 1/4" thick skins because the flex is for real. Now all I have to do is experiment with going thinner & thinner on the balsa to save weight until I find where the flex is gone.
To me, this is what building your own boards and composites are all about. Its not a revolution (although it might be for the big time players), but a chance to discover what I like and don’t like about boards the to proceed from there. I would love to give that board a spin. Its funny, but my favorite board I’ve ridden is my 11’3" balsa. It does exactly what you mentioned when you just make it over the wave. The vibration is really noticable and different than anything I’ve experienced. However, nobody is going to mistake it for Thrallkill’s balsa that he brought to Cerritos. While his is a work of art, mine is a work of learning. I’m no master with a planner so I decided to gain experience by pretty much planning it out of block of eps. Theres a couple wave in it, but I still love how it surfs.
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My initial thoughts were that I wouldn't ever want a board that wide: I don't even know if I could carry it under my arm, for one thing (a silly concern but...)
I was talking to a girl about surfboards today and realized that what I wrote above isn’t actually too silly at all. When recommending longboards to girls, I’ve always told them that the width of the board shouldn’t be so wide that they can’t carry it under their arm. This is not because it will be a pain for them to carry, but because it matches up pretty good to how they’ll be able to paddle the board. If it’s too wide, they won’t be able to get their whole arm into the water. (not as much of a concern on a ‘shortboard’ shape of course because of the narrowing nose area, but on longboards that stay wide up towards one’s shoulders it is an important concern).
I am 6’ tall and have the wingspan to match but I don’t think I could paddle a 24" longboard nearly as effectively as my 21 1/4" with 16 3/4" nose longboard.
Comments from those with wide boards would be appreciated. Thanks.
My RBB (really big board) is 24" wide and I’m a paddling machine on it. But then again what would you expect from an 11’3" by 4" thick board. I think a lot of what happens is that you paddle style changes slightly to accomidate the new width. Kind of like a short boarder would wonder how us longboarders could paddle such wide boards. My newest project is 24" wide by 9’. One thing about Bert’s composites are that most of them are really thinned out at the rails. This helps to bring their width into scale. He also puts in a S tail to help it be more snappy in the pocket. I’ll post more on my experience after I surfed it for a while.
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My first balsasandwich I built a few months ago has started to fall apart on the deck
A while ago Bert mentioned that this was one of the problem areas that we would need to address sooner or later. He said that it was an easy problem to fix through pretreatment, but I’m not quiet sure what he meant. I could be pre-saturating the foam with some resin in the high traffic area. This is what I’ve done in the past and it seemed to work well. On this board I went a different route and picked the most dense balsa I had and plained it a little thicker (1/8th+ inch) and used it as sort of a horizontal deck stringer. It really stiffened up the skin. The bottom skin could be bent in a full circle while the deck skin could only manage a smile. I’m curious how it stands up to the impact.
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Quote:I am 6’ tall and have the wingspan to match but I don’t think I could paddle a 24" longboard nearly as effectively as my 21 1/4" with 16 3/4" nose longboard.
Comments from those with wide boards would be appreciated. Thanks.
If the board was that wide, would you really have to paddle “nearly as effectively”?
I noticed the first time I was on a longboard that it was terribly different from the boards I was used to. My shoulders was acking after a surf. Now I don’t notice it at all, but I know I’ve changed they way I paddle(how I don’t know).
Personally, I think that the width for the board for carrying it is very important. Carrying my longboard for half a mile on the beach after a surf in windy conditions is a pain.
regards,
Håvard
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A while ago Bert mentioned that this was one of the problem areas that we would need to address sooner or later. He said that it was an easy problem to fix through pretreatment, but I’m not quiet sure what he meant.
Personally, what I think Bert does is impregnate the skins with epoxy(or maybe something else) in one way or another. I was thinking that due to the cellular nature of balsa, you could soak it in a epoxy under vacuum, then leave it in a high pressure chamber. Hopefully this would saturate the cellulose fibers in the balsa and the pressure would drive the fluid out of the cells, leaving the cell walls reinforced without adding too much weight as the open cells are not filled. I’m not sure this would work, be practical, etc. especially for the small time builder. However, if you could get something like this working together with another step of the process like prefabricating the skins out of two layers of 1-2mm balsa with a really thin layer of glass such as .76 oz or something, then it would be workable. Don’t know what this would do for the flex.
There are also a couple of other ways to pretreat wood, from the little checking I’ve done I’ve found furfurylation and actylation. http://www.bfafh.de/inst4/45/ppt/3furfury.pdf http://heron.tudelft.nl/2004_4/Art5.pdf I checked with the norwegian company www.wpt.no that does furfurylation but they wanted $1000 to do a batch of balsa. Not too bad, but out of my reach(anyone wanna chip in for a large batch???). They did however claim that it would significantly increase the compressions strength of the wood at a weight gain of 15-25%. It does however change the appearance of the wood.
regards,
Håvard
With thin veneer under high vacuum (enough to crunch 1 lb EPS foam) I’ve saturated the full thickness of a veneer. It seemed pretty tough when fully loaded with cured epoxy. Of course, it gained some weight too.
In other tests, a simple cheater coat of epoxy with no vacuum added something of a protective shell to the wood.
Some of the guitar guys are discussing acrylic impregnation on their bass guitar construction threads. They’re using vacuum chambers to really get the stuff to soak in…
how about everdure
if i had the spare cash id deffinately give it a go
it would soak right in without to much weight cause its so thinned