My latest. A 7’7X21-1/4"X2-7/8" three fin bonzer. I hand made the fins out of 10 OZ Volan cloth and did my best to copy a Greenough 4A at about 7-3/4" along with a couple bonzer style side fins. Center fin has a nice flex. And yest that center fin is up pretty far… about 8" from the tail.
New mini simmons for my friend Kurt. He chose the design and put me to the task.
I did a foam stain then painted the squares on. Glassed the board and sanded then the pin lines. Finished with a gloss coat and polish.
Gunkie- does the nose on that blue railed board have that much flip or is it just the way the photo was taken?
Just finished glassing the deck of my first mal in my little shed, lessons learned in; the difference between laminating two 6oz layers at once compared to a lighter schedule, not overshaping 50/50 rails/deck and the effects adding nose concave has when trying to eye the foil. Madiba 9"x22.5"x3"
Some boards ive been working on lately :)
The first one with kinetix epoxy and the second with regular poly.
Both boards full hand shapes from eps blocks, densify and reinforced with composite springer then glass with multiaxial and epoxy foam on deck, tint resin on bottom. Not ultralight like overprizes dipsosable eps epoxy you find everywhere know but weight like light weight “standard build”. Durable build.
Anti, that looks good. Nice shop.
Zack, inspirational cutlaps.
Lemat, I know you’ve talked about the epoxy foam before but can’t remember where. A little hint please? Also I’m convinced that multi axis glass is the way to go for strong and light. Chris Russel in the HotSeat further convinced me.
All the best guys
For increase strengh and durabilty of deck skin you have to increase his thickness, that’s sandwich skin purpose, thickness with low weight. Many way to do it i go with bulcked laminate, not the best ratio stiffness/weight but allow me to keep some flex to form moderate foot well and to keep a “soft” touch under feet.
First longer board, 7’11 x 22.6 x 3, flat bottom with belly and bevels almost all the way through the tail. 2+ 1 setup
Will be polished soon, I’ll post more pics when the board is ready to go!
Been wanting to do some veneer panels till I added up the cost of a vacuum bagging system using the proper materials. Those pumps are expensive and nice but I couldn’t see paying for one just yet till I get accustomed to the new process. So I decided to do the refrigerator compressor vacuum system instead for now. Just wrapping up my sytem and only have $100 into it. Don’t know how its going to work but it’s been pretty cool seeing it come along. Still need to make a auto on/off system with microswitch using a car vacuum advance. Vacuum gauge is in the mail. I decided to buy a variac instead of making one, well worth it I’ve been told. Will be ready to test once parts come in. And yes that is a fuel filter I’m using to keep compressor oil from spitting out. Works great. I also took out the freezer fan to use on the pump start relay just in case it decides to get hot. That little fan blows pretty good.
Bluefin surf. You will need a fan to cool it. Start the fan at the beginning and don’t let it over heat. Unused this system early on and it worked fine but would go dead when over heated. Thankfully no problems but I was sweating bullets a couple of time until I figured out it had a heat cut out switch.
All the best
Blue fin i use same system for all my vac bag for about 20years. I am at my 4th comp now. You don’t really need fan if you use quality bags, well sealed, and a well made switch. Advanced capsule work really well for me. I leave out klikson security and change CPT to relais so i can switch the comp without delay. Most modern fridge comp use a CPT to connect secondary and need to cool before allow a restart of motor, can be a problem if you have poor sealing bag. With good bag motor turn about 10 seconds each 5 minutes or more so it stay cold.
it’s been two years ago, but this was the first board I attempted to shape. I’m not sure how I missed the symmetry of the nose with the eye test, but overall she’s very fast and responsive. once I finished shaping the board I turned it over to Rozo and his brother Tom to finish glassing it and putting in the fin box, so I can’t take credit for all of the process. I rode her February 2015 on a good swell at Jetty Park and couldn’t believe the ride. there’s nothing better than riding a great board except riding one you shaped yourself!
Gregtate and Lemat thanks for the tips. Ive added the fridge freezer fan just in case it does get hot. Wired it up so that it runs constant. Wiring up a microswitch so that the pump doesnt have to run constant, just turns on automatically when it gets a vacuum drop. Variac came in and I plugged in my homemade cutters to see how they work, like butta. I put a switch on both cutters so that when its done cutting i can shut them off and keep the variac on. That way i dont get burned when setting them down. I’ve been doing my homework researching on tips about this process and have been adding up the good ones I like. Not quite happy though with my wire setup just yet. When the wire stretches and pulls the spring it doesnt seem like the eye hooks allow the spring to pull the slack out. Plan on making 1 inch wood or metal wheels like pic bellow to allow the wire to move easier. As you can see my wife decided to have a little fun with my variac. Also i added a pic of how I’m going to do my auto on/off microswitch using car vacuum advance. Thankfully I have a welder and made a vacuum bagging connector using a male threaded air chuck, washers and rubber washers. Homemade stuff rocks
5´7 bat tail, channels, quad.
works really good, so happy. first day out I got a gem and the thing was so fast and responsive I was shocked.
5’7"x19"x either 2.25 or 2 1/8. I might take a bit more off the top to get to 2 1/8. I’m 120 pounds and 24 so I can get away with that. Deeeeeeeep single because I seem to do better on deep concave boards. I guess I hop around a lot. Concave isn’t (as) super asym like it looks in the photo. This is board # 6, intended to fill a hpsb gap in my quiver. I like stubby wide boards, so I’m trying to merge the two. It’s based on a 5’5"x19" I did two years ago, but I added some length to accomodate more rocker. Plus I added the deep single, it’s skinnier by a bit, the rails on the bottom are harder and it’ll be a bit more finely foiled on top this time around. I also will get to glass in warm weather for once, so my resin won’t be molasses. Thinking army green tail and I have orange tint for the rest, as plain white boards bother me.
Also one thing I tried, which I’ve never done before, is cut the outline with a jigsaw and a long blade. That was actually fantastic. Cut through it like, well, a sharp reciprocating blade through EPS. No surprise there.
It gave a nice, clean cut. The only issue was it seemed to get a bit hot, producing these stringy bits that look like silly string. Can’t imagine what else produced them aside from heat.
They were easily removed though and left no marks. Clean cut otherwise. Will do this next time.
