11’1" Ryan Lovelace Thick Lizzy Glider
George Waale Jr. .
Traditional.Glider …i got from The Board Source last spring…
10.6 x 24 x 3 5/8…single…i use anywhere from a 8.5" TA skip frye…
To a 9-9.5" TA 4A…
I love it…
Here’s one roughed out from a few years back. I used a slightly modified “Mojomatic” template from my stash… a basic glider with wide point aft of center. Softish forward rails transitioning to harder through the tail and a 2+1 fin layout. It can cover a fairly wide range of conditions but it gets to be a bit much to handle when waves are steep and sucky or much overhead in size… sort of my experience in general with glider type boards.
All nice boards in this thread, but especially like yours John. That outline is classic. Lowel
It’s really hard to outline a glider with a nice curve and that does not look like a parallel rail tooth pick. Nice job John.
all the best.
Thanks… in the photo it looks wider in the tail than it really is. The tail is out from the wall so the board is tilted back rather than dead-on vertical. After checking out boards by
Mickey Munoz, Bruce Jones and Donald Takayama it became apparent that to keep curve in a long longboard template you gotta go pretty wide at times. You also get used to carrying on top of your head when they won’t fit under your arm.
My finless duke plank is 22" at the wide point - took me 2 sessions of drawing lines to keep the wide point forward, retain some curve and maintain the wide tailblock without having a 24"+ wide point. I ended up using some rocker templates I have to lay out the plan shape curve.
That’s what I really don’t like with Skip Frye’s gliders: the outlines tend to be just two long parallel rails and then POOF! here are the curves for the nose and tail. Not to say that it doesn’t work (I’ve come to learn that anything works for somebody in certain conditions while it doesn’t necessarily work for someone else under the same conditions. After all, there are people who believe that Meyerhoffer’s boards are THE thing…), but it surely hurts the eye. How many Fryes have been ordered just out of snobism?
As far as curve is concerned, mine are all in the 24" width range. Cumbersome for sure but you can always use your “on the head” method or just add a SUP handle when glassing. And I’m no Skip Frye or Josh Hall or Chris Christenson but, John, I like your board’s outline (and mine, BTW) much more than theirs.
Great work, Balsa. I love your boards and your color work. And it looks like you wave the wave conditions to put those gliders to work.
I’m with you on the Meyerhoffer hurting the eyes. I recon Frye’s parallel lines would be be more efficient and lord knows he has the skill to ride anything well, but I do like a little curve showing here and there.
all the best
If you look closely at the pinline, you’ll notice that the nose is scooped out so that the center of gravity stays in the back of the board. Not as much weight to swing around.
Balsa, you are a thinking man who comes to his own conclusions and is not coerced by others.
Getting a bit too old to let other people think for me ha ha. Thanks my friend.
Nice Paul, but was wondering about the”blue” board?
“Nice Paul, but was wondering about the”blue” board?”
Oh that… Board #8 …
Built 15 years ago in May 2004… That was an experiment using uncommon materials, and an unusual method, for back then… Still is…
From my website…
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Description: The deck / bottom core is blue insulation foam…The fin is flex fiberglass-removable…Rails are laminated blue insulation foam…Carbon Fiber reinforced foam stringer and inner rails…Carbon Fiber laminated on inside of deck / bottom…Exterior Glass: Resin Research Epoxy /4.5-oz. Carbon Fiber Cloth- Deck x2- Bottom x1-Color coat laminated in 1 layer of 4 oz. e-cloth, top and bottom-Blue Imron paint on deck… Bottom wet sanded to 400 grit…Built to ride…
What I’m doing is making another hollow board… The frame and skins / rails will be made out of Home Depot blue insulation foam… The “stringer” was planed to 1/4" and carbon fiber laminated on both sides…Then drilled out… The cross ribs were planed to remove the slick factory finish “skin”… I think it needs some roughness to get a good bond, even with epoxy… The cross ribs are laminated on both sides with plain fiberglass, and epoxy…Then drilled out…
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(above) The outside rails are two layers of 3/8" foam laminated with a single layer of fiberglass/epoxy between them… I added another layer of foam between the cross ribs to keep them in place… The outside of the rails is laminated with a single layer of carbon fiber/epoxy… I “shaped” the inner layer of foam a bit… The 9’ frame assembly weighs 1.5 pounds… The deck and bottom will be foam planed to 1/4", carbon fiber inside and fiberglass outside… I think the thinness of the foam will resist denting / crushing… The experiment continues…
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(above) This is the inside of the nose…Carbon fiber and blue foam…The brown adhesive attaching the skin to the frame is polyurethane construction adhesive…
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(above) Attaching the deck to the frame… (Off to the right, outside the shop is the motor powered tri-maran I was building, that canoe between a Hobie 14’… You can see the plywood frame that replaced the trampoline)
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…Back to the board…
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(above) The bottom is laminated with 4.5oz. Carbon Fiber cloth and Resin Research epoxy…Under the surface is an 8" wide strip of CF over the “stringer”…
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I’m using 4.5 oz. CF to glass the outside…The 4.5 oz. CF’s weave and ability to hold resin is much more like 6 or 8 oz. fiberglass cloth…I guess the actual weight of CF is less than fiberglass, therefore the bulk of the CF is greater, given an equal weight of cloth…I’m stoked on the strength of the CF, but a flyweight board, this will not be…
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(above) The hollow foam board is completed…To cover over the black CF cloth I laminated a layer of 4 oz. e-cloth to the top and bottom using polyester resin tinted green…Over that went a tinted fill coat, then finally a tinted gloss coat was added…It takes a lot to cover over black…The deck was sprayed with light blue Imron paint, then a black pinline was added at the rail line…
Very nice and truly innovative.
I don’t think the 10’8 I made would make the cut, but I thought this board was perfect for this thread.
Its on on display at the surfing heritage and culture center in San Clemente. I cruised by not too long ago. Didn’t take a pic in person but, if I remember correctly it was 15’4” or something along those lines. Beauty of a glass job as well. I oogled it for at least five minutes haha
Gene shaped this one in the corridor going from his shaping bay toward his glass room since the shape room wasn’t long enough. he showed me the installation when I visited him not very long after he shaped it. Longest PU board I have seen as of today.
Great topic Balsa . My next board will be somewhere between 10ft and 12 ft…pictured is a 12 ft hollow balsa I did some years ago.
This is the first true long board I have built. I based the shape off of a takayama template and pulled out the nose Skip Frye style…
I also just restored this mid-90’s Hobie shaped by Phil Edwards. It had a massive delam and had to cut away the paint job, so I reglassed the board with a red tint. How heavy is it? Heavy 
I surfed it last month up here in Oregon…the water was a toasty 65 degrees and 3-4 peelers, so I got to paddle out without a wetsuit and without a leash.
