At the recommendation of others on this board, I have decided to try to do a Nugget-type board. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips from having tried one themselves?
The idea is to make a shortboard feel that will paddle and catch waves in crowded, mushy, SoCal linup. Oh, did I mention I weigh 210lbs?
I was thinking of taking a blank about a foot longer than I need (say 8’) and cutting a foot off the back. That should give me a wide round back and a widest point on the board of about 6" behind the midpoint. Following the McCoy template, I would make it longboard thick at 3". Anyone see why that wouldn’t work?
How about turning the blank around and drawing your template on it? For example: Nose of template on the tail of the blank. Then you wouldn’t have to waste a foot of foam. Find a blank with low nose rocker. There was another thread on this recently but I can’t remember which one. Anyone?
You’re on the right track with the blank & thickness. Unfortunately, a lot of the magic in these boards is from the multiple, very subtle bottom contours.
There’s a bit of a soft belly / boat hull to the front third or so that moves to flat under the front foot. Then in front of the fin there’s a kind of a high spot (well, high is relative - it’s less than 1/8" ) which is the “loaded dome” that becomes your fore-aft and side-side pivot point. Then a tiny bit of double concave running through the finbox area but disappearing before the end. Hard down rail all the way around the round tail that starts on the sides, just a couple inches before the finbox - maybe middle of the dome area. Its a smooth transition down to that edge from a soft ‘small end of the egg’ rail before that. And there’s also a very slight concave just inside each rail through the middle third of the board: very slight like 1/16" or less x 2" wide. Its almost like the depression from where the deck glass laps onto the bottom & the hotcoat gets sanded (if you’re not careful), except that that’s not it, because it disappears at the nose & tail, so it’s definitely on purpose.
And there’s probably even more to it than that, I just haven’t figured it out yet
Or you could just make it flat with a little vee in front of the finbox and it would probably do 95% of the above
I think it was the Austin Enigma that showed shaping a 10’1" Y backwards. But the Nugget shape does have a little kick to the nose rocker and that would be hard to get out of the tail end of just about any 7’ blank. I think the 8’ blank minus 1’ off the tail would work best…
Yeah, I think I will go flat with a slight V before in the last half to a subtle double concave. It won’t be the first dog I’ve made if it doesn’t work
Quote:
You’re on the right track with the blank & thickness. Unfortunately, a lot of the magic in these boards is from the multiple, very subtle bottom contours.
There’s a bit of a soft belly / boat hull to the front third or so that moves to flat under the front foot. Then in front of the fin there’s a kind of a high spot (well, high is relative - it’s less than 1/8" ) which is the “loaded dome” that becomes your fore-aft and side-side pivot point. Then a tiny bit of double concave running through the finbox area but disappearing before the end. Hard down rail all the way around the round tail that starts on the sides, just a couple inches before the finbox - maybe middle of the dome area. Its a smooth transition down to that edge from a soft ‘small end of the egg’ rail before that. And there’s also a very slight concave just inside each rail through the middle third of the board: very slight like 1/16" or less x 2" wide. Its almost like the depression from where the deck glass laps onto the bottom & the hotcoat gets sanded (if you’re not careful), except that that’s not it, because it disappears at the nose & tail, so it’s definitely on purpose.
And there’s probably even more to it than that, I just haven’t figured it out yet
Or you could just make it flat with a little vee in front of the finbox and it would probably do 95% of the above
