playing with your pu

General Discussion
1

farkn hell what a day

gota bennet yellow for an adventure in pu

first impressions is the blank is heavy as fck

and im hoping i can pull this off cuz ive never shaped a pu before and also most of me other stuff is partially molded

anyway set up the stands and out with the 40$ wharehouse planer and skined the bottom

did a practice run on some polystyrene

anyway huie told me i shoud really take the foil thickess down from the bottom, but after i skinned it and sanded it i was so happy with the way the rocker looked i coulndnt bring myself to go an further so i took it out the deck

interestingly enough the weight of the finished blank was about 1/3 heavier then the weight of a finished compsand blank i guess if you add in the light weights lamming with epoxy thats how you get a compsand thats 2/3 the weight of a superlight PU but obviously 2 to 3 times the strength and maybe twice as dent resistant

this is a compsand blank with skins and glass under it is 1/3 less then the weight of the finsihed pu blank of the same dimension

i think the totall weight of the glassed compsand will only a few hundred grams more then the weight of the shaped pu blank

i **** you not

can say though there is something nice about shaping the pu foam its noice to shape but the dust is very fine, polystyrene has a courser dust and doenst go evewhere as much.

but you can get a far cleaner and better finish on the pu

so here it is

i shaped the rail bands same as the cheap board and rounded it all over etc etc

overall im pretty happy although i can see the foil really needed some more taken out the nose and tail for better looks

however imo the xtra foam doesnt do any harm

so i tried to keep this board in my design philosopy however there is more dome onthe deck then a compsand the ouline is a smooth curve and ive left width through the nose and a snub nose.

boxy rails with plney of tuck under

this board is for a grommet in 4 to 6 ft surf

bottom is flat

i took the stringer down a bitmore with the sharp block plane after these pics and cleaned up the nose and tail

as i was finishing it i was thinking ishould cut my finger nails andjust as had the though my block caught and put a couple of nice gouges in it

so i tapped off the deck and glassed the bottom with 4oz and poly resin i put a couple of football patches under the cloth where the fins go for extra strength

the glassing went a lot better then the last time i glassed poly (the first time) i use a fair bit spare so i wasnt dicking around trying to wet the laps

i started with 400 grams of poly and had a fair bit lft on the floor and bucket

i could have done the same laminate with epoxy and taken my time with about 180 grams of resin

i rekon you could do a pu bennet in epoxy for the lam to make the glassing easier so you dont have the stress of a 10 minute KICK time.

get the heart pumpin thats fo sure

then do your fills in polyester to save some money and make sanding a breeze.

should come out lighter as well

so a few lumps and bumps but not bad for a first effort

2

Really nice shape. I love the baby squash. Hard tucked edge all the way?

3

What do you call it when a compsander goes over to PU? Can’t be going to the darkside, and I’m not sure lightside sounds quite right…

huie was right, you should take as little foam as possible off the deck to stay in the hard foam - straight cuts off the bottom aren’t going

to change the rocker anyway.

Re the ‘‘shapeability’’ of EPS vs PU, I used to laugh at Greg Loehr when he told me he liked shaping EPS better than PU. After I went to the

darkside with Coil, and had shaped a few hundred, I found myself liking it better. I have changed my tools, techniques, and process to adapt,

but now I really feel that I can shape a better board in EPS. It was funny when I got to talk to Greg and tell him that now I understood what

he’d been saying, and realized that he hadn’t been BS’ing me all along.

4

5

…and had shaped a few hundred…

I have changed my tools, techniques, and process to adapt…

Ok Mike, so which one of those is most important?

Beautiful shape there Paul…like buttah.

Oceanrider’s comic is purrfect! Good one.

6
Quote:

…and had shaped a few hundred…

I have changed my tools, techniques, and process to adapt…

Ok Mike, so which one of those is most important?

Hard to say, probably the latter. Our blank tech is so advanced (credit Kirk Brasington) and setting the rocker on a fixture such an

advantage; both those things help to yield a better product. Experience counts also, though. I feel like I’m still gettin’ better at it

every day.

Sorry for the hijack, Paul.

7

nice work silly.

now when the deck caves in quickly… remember what huie told you take the least amount of the deck… any more than two small cuts off the deck and your thru to soft foam… dont go blaming the PU…

8

hey lillibel

the rails are somewhat boxy 70 /30 with not so hard edge is tucked round a bit more

this board is for juice

prollyshould done 60/40

actually i dont know

i didnt measure anything other then the template :slight_smile:

hey yeah feraldave i know, but i figured its got 4 by5 deck so it shouldnt be to bad and wont get much use

next time ill get it right

thanks for the compliments

i do think eps is easier to shape though

dave i was wondering if you are foiling the tail thickness surely you are changing the rocker

i dont know about you guys but that bennet low entry 61 looks spot on to me

soooo glad i didnt do colour

cut laps were foul

also on my deck lam my laps were too resin rich

the board was sliding around on the stand so i couldnt get the squeegee pressure

whats the trick for that!!

btw i dont care about hijaks

more of bump really :slight_smile:

this is my discoveries

shaping nose is farkin hard

its definitely easier compsand method in eps

glassing with epoxy is easier and uses less resin (if you are a begginer)

poly looks ten times beter

surfboard glass is ten times easier to use then boat building glass

pU goes everywhere (the dust)

Poly stinks and you have to cover and be careful with drips if you workat home

one uncured drip will be stinky for ages

so i mixed on paper and wiped down the drum

cleaned everything put containers in a box

glassing in 10 mnutes is stressfull

laps are hard to saturate if the board is moving on the stands

cut laps are hard if you have to much resin in the laps

9
Quote:

the board was sliding around on the stand so i couldnt get the squeegee pressure

whats the trick for that!!

Wrap the racks with good tape (233) sticky side out.

10

great tipthanks mike

used it for the fillcoat

got a bloddy bubble in the tail and one on the nose at the lap

11

…what happened with your rant about pointy noses?

-one point different from PS is the “care” you need to take with a PU foam

because the clear glass process

I see gauges in the tail and in other spots

I see a tweaked nose, etc

may be because you be used to work in other way with PS and wood skins that cover everything…

12

hey reverb the board still has a blunt nose but it is pointier then normal

wasnt that happy with it and wish i did it more blunt

i still believe points are stupid

few gouges and bubbles and stuff

gouges was from my stands moving and long fingernails and inexperience

i play fingerstyle guitar so they are long on my right hand and short on my left

i dont know what a tweaked nose is?

is it just shaped a bit narrower on the tip on one side by the looks perhaps

or maybe just the tape makes it look like that

it certainly is easier shaping polystyrene and no stringer in the way

anyway its certainly not perfect

but the bottom is clean and outline is clean

and im reasonably happy with the glass job as it is only my second ever glass job with poly

and it was very quick and cheap to make

13

…I supposed that you said pointy nose included the outline of the nose

I dunno understand exactly what you mean here: “…it is pointier then normal…” cause if its pointier than normal is too much pointier …or not?

ha, I know what you mean with long nails

I play guitar too (beside others instruments)

a bit crooked nose is what I tried to say (at least in one pict)

14

paul, the trick is to take as much as possible off the bottom, it is best to have the rocker in the blank matching your final deck line…

you would be suprised how quick a deck will sink even with 2x6 oz and a patch…

800×183 24.3 KB

15
Quote:

Re the ‘‘shapeability’’ of EPS vs PU, I used to laugh at Greg Loehr when he told me he liked shaping EPS better than PU. After I went to the

darkside with Coil, and had shaped a few hundred, I found myself liking it better.

I think it depends alot on the EPS blanks. The stuff you get from the building suppliers suck compared to EPS made for a surfboard blank. Had the pleasure of getting my hands on some EPS blanks from Atua Cores and the quality of those blanks are so superior to the insulation foam. On the other hand, every time I get my hands on some PU blank I can’t help thinking how easy this stuff would be to shape and sand…

16

We cut our own blanks, and we’ve worked with our supplier to get to a point where we couldn’t be happier with the foam we’re getting.

The slowdown in the construction business has helped us, we’re a much more valued customer to them now. Our business is growing at

a time when others are shrinking.

There ARE large differences in quality among EPS foams. After you’ve handled enough of it, you can tell the dif just by look and feel.

No doubt some of the ‘‘made for surfboard’’ stuff is top-notch, but you can get just as good elsewhere.

17

hey thanks dave i got it now

mike what size is your bead on custom foam

ive got a guy who will do custom blocks for me

was wondering what sort of things i should specify

like

small bead size and better adhesion?

pm me if you want

or not!

this would be for an unskined eopxy or maybe with just a deck skin

18
Quote:

small bead size and better adhesion?

You got it.

Rest by PM, apologies to the sways crew, but there’s a lot of lurkers out there I’d rather not hand the particulars on this.

19

why not go to biggest beads you could get. but fused really really really tight. this would reduce the volume of water/air that would be able to leak in. and if the cells were fused really really tight then you would have next to no holes to spackle etc…

20

i guess that makes sense dave

but also the surface beads would break apart and your blank surface would be courser

i still dont think the nose is tweaked

it looks good to me

maybe a really tinybit