Portable travel mini log

General Discussion
1

OK, I started talking about that board in an other thread, but I don"t want to hijack josh’s thread so I’m posting everything back over here.

Here was my project : make a portable surfboard that fits in a bag I could easily carry in my small car and travel without having to worry about airline luggage constraints.

Since, I’m used to ride longboards, I wanted to keep some glide as well as some paddling power.

Here’s the template :

Deck is purposely flat, so that I can optimized storage while the board’s three parts

are piled up.

Unlike the pope bisect system, I do not use any inner tube. Therefore, having a flat deck

helps also in assembling the parts.

2

I decided to cut the board in three parts rather than two for two reasons :

  • Air France and most airlines require that the sum of the dimensions of

a bag do not exceed 158 cm, else you’ll pay extra fees → This was

not feasible with only two parts

  • Three parts seemed to me less fragile than two

Board is built out of 30kg/m3 EPS. Template was designed using Surfdesigner

and Atua Cores, a french EPS blank company offered me the blank (mahalo nui nui !).

Blank was machine cut precisely according to my template. I then shaped it,

keeping the deck and bottom mostly flat and some 50/50 rails throughout.

Blank was then cut in 3 by Atua, taking into account the thickness of the 3mm

PVC faces plates I addes later on.

Here’re some pics of the cutting and shaping process :

3

More pics. Stephen, owner of Atua Cores, checking the freshly cut blank

:

The board shaped and ready to get cut (I used Atua’s shaping room,

my garage is such a mess …) :

4

Board cut in three parts :

50/50 rails and lots of volume :

To be continued …

5

At this point, I’d like to make a few precision : I’m not a professionnal board builder and I do not want or plan to market this system. What I came up with is experimental. It’s not a proven design. So far it works OK but I don’t know yet if it will last or if some signs of wear will quickly show up. If you want something reliable and more user friendly, I would advise to get a Pope bisect. I would have bought one myself if I had had the money.

6

darn good job

keep us posted

7

like i said on the other thread, pure genius.

8

Pierre dropped by this morning, and I had a chance to see this board for the first time. I’d like to say that it presents much better in person!

While Pierre was a bit bummed by a couple of small details in the finish, I was really impressed by both the solidity of the attachment and the ease at which it assembled. About five minutes while drinking a cup of coffee, and the board was ready to surf. The PVC panels fit perfectly, the rail line wasn’t disturbed in the least… heck, it made me want to try it out! (That’s for tomorrow, in fact)

Anyway, great job Pierre! I am stoked to see this project come to fruition.

9

Here are the pics of the finished board (I’ll take some more sometimes this week) :

10

Once the board was shaped and sliced in three pieces, I used an exacto knife to cut the holes were the connecting

plugs were going to be glue in.

Next, I laminated on the faces a layer of 6oz fiberglass that overlaps on the top and bottom :

In order to be able to laminate the angle, I sanded the edge a little bit.

Next, I reinforced the holes by laminating in each hole 3 strips of 6oz glass, one strip in each direction. Strips overlap the deck/face for about 2" long. This is probably overkill but I wanted something strong. I hope my explanations are understandable … Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures of that part.

Next, I laminated the board top and bottom, using 6oz twill carbon fiber. I used carbon fiber to gain weigth, but if I had to do it again I think I’ll probably just use regular fiberglass.

Next, I built the connecting plugs out of a fin US box. I cut two boxes

in slices in order to get 16 plugs. I then glued a layer of plastic on the bottom

of the plugs (used plastic food plates and cyano glue).

I then protected the 2 opened faces of each plug with some tape and glued

the plugs using resin + glass powder.

Next was hotcoat + sanding. The 6oz twill carbon is quite thick and it takes

a lot of resin to fill the weave (one reason I’m not sure carbon was the best choice).

I didn’t want to sand through and weaken the fiber therefore I added some

more resin with micro spheres and sanded again …

Next I cut some 3mm PVC plates to fit the faces. I cut them with about

1cm margin all around.

Then I prepared some resin with a lot of micro spheres so that I had something

not too liquid.

I then lay down the PVC face plates on a flat table, spackle a thick layer of resin

and then press the board face on it and let it cure (the board piece standing vertically).

The plugs were protected by filling them with modelling clay.

Using the PVC face plates is important in order to get a good contact

surface between the two parts (initially, the faces are irregular because of the different

strips of fiber reinforcement).

More cleaning up and sanding …

At that point I can start to assemble the board for the first time :

To be continued …

11

That is so cool. It would be sad if you didn’t at least license that so someone could make them! I love the profile. Hope it surfs well and lasts.

12

PierreB, Absolutely Brilliant!!! Let us know how it holds in the surf. Bob

13
Quote:

That is so cool. It would be sad if you didn’t at least license that so someone could make them! I love the profile. Hope it surfs well and lasts.

Thanks for the kind words. I won’t license anything for

many reasons among which :

  1. There’s already a very good commercial product : Pope Bisect. These guys have been finetuning their system for 40 years and It’s a familly business that deserves some respect. I’m a web designer who builds his own boards in his garage and like to innovate. I don’t want to get in the way of people who try to make a living out of surfboard. I guess, it’s my way to support local shapers …

  2. I haven’t tried the board in anything bigger than shoulder high waves yet and I also have no idea how the board will age. Overall, there are still many improvements to do and a commercial version would require more prototypes and testing.

  3. What I built is no rocket science. It’s simple and easy. However, if someone wanted to sell those, he would have to rethink the whole building process in order to reduce the many building hours needed. Those who’ve tried compsand know what I’m talking about : it’s easy to build a board but it’s hard to do it fast enough so that it can be profitable.

  4. I like the idea of an “open source” project where anyone can try, experiment and improve the system. To me, that’s the swaylock’s spirit !

14
Quote:

PierreB, Absolutely Brilliant!!! Let us know how it holds in the surf. Bob

So far it held OK. When I tried the board, I was a bit afraid to tighten the bolts too hard, so I just tightened them very very lightly. After two hours of surf, I had a paper thin gap on the back junction but it was real thin, you could only notice it when trying to bend the board. Maybe I should tighten the bolts more next time, maybe it’s the vibrations that made the bolt turn a few degress, maybe the brass nuts bent a little (the weakest point of the system), maybe it’s the temperature change (air vs water)…

I made a smaller tightening key that fits in my leash pocket. Next time, I’ll take the key with me.

True testing will be on november, as I’m going for 2 weeks vacations on Martinique island and intend to

surf the local breaks.

Right know, I’m sewing the board bag …

15

Pierre,

That board is awesome. Can’t wait to see and hear more about it. Thank you so much for sharing!

JSS

16

Great stuff, Pierre!

It’s always been a dream to make my own travel board, but your ingenuity has really made it seem possible.

17

Olala Pierre,

Very nice idea. You don’t know how much time I’ve spent thinking how to assemble a 2 part longboard.

Keep us updated, POR FAVOR (please)!!!

18
Quote:

I like the idea of an “open source” project where anyone can try, experiment and improve the system. To me, that’s the swaylock’s spirit !

Thank you very much for sharing and being so very generous with the knowlege.

My list of projects just keeps geting longer, I’m sure this is something I will want to try sooner or later.

I can’t stop thinking about it, there is a lot of potential. I was thinking you could have interchangable noses, tails with different fin setups, you could design the outline so you could have a 9’ long board, or take out the middle section and have a 6-7’ egg.

Do you think it would be possible to make a shorter board that fitted in to an even smaller pack making treking even easier.

In your post on Josh’s thread you mensioned the connectors to help line it up sections, just a little male/femal nubin, from the look of ithow did you do that part.

Thanks for the inspirasion and the time to explain how it was done.

19

Wow, thats inspitational. I wonder if you could build it so leaving out the middle you could join the nose and tail to have a shorter board also.

20

ok heres what im thinking. i want to make one out of a 9’ performance log but cut it into 4 sections at 2.24 feet each for extra packability.

  1. cut holes for fin box inserts but have two inserts go from top to bottom instead of four staggered ones to achieve an i-beam connection between the top and bottom skins.

  2. lay carbon into the holes where the connecter pieces go and lay the connecters in before glassing any of the board.

  3. glass with all carbon on all surfaces after putting the connecters in so that the connecters are basically capped like you would do to a finbox.

these modifications seem like they could improve the strength of the joints greatly but they also remove the built in damage control factor that the other design has where if the boxes do not hol and get ripped out, they are easy to put back in without ripping the skin off the board with them.