A friend has an old mal and wants a new version but with almost 3 inches less width. He wants to keep the tail and nose shape so he doesn’t just want a shrunken version, just less width.
So I took a paper template of the original and considered that a curve is just a series of straight lines…
Drawing a blue line showing the max width of 20.5".
The curve and straight line meet and this is where I put a standard ruler equally between the curve and the line.
Draw a 30cm (12 in) line connecting the curve and line.
Move to the right and draw another 30 cm line connecting the middle of your first line to the curve.
and again to the right another line and then another so that you’re up to the Wide Point.
A long straight line isn’t a curve but this is just an example. By using a series of shorter lines the curve is more refined.
I just use the reduce and enlarge features on a blueprint copier at work. The best way is to take a Blendingcurves template and turn the pieces into one template electronically using Adobe or Gimp then scale and print it to a blueprint machine.
Down the tail end the curve is greater so I used smaller straight length.
From the intersection of the template and line I used a 20cm line then a 15,10 and 7 cm line.
in the last pic you can see the slimmer template slowly peeling away from the original.
I like to use simple CAD freeware to scale, stretch and modify the outlines of my boards.
Splines give nice flowing lines.
This also helps me to compare the outlines of my boards and helps me with the decisions where I want to go with the next board.
It’s an easy way to change a template with just a ruler and pencil. I’ve transferred the shape to a block of EPS, I’ll let the customer make the decision and then it’s on. 7’ in length.
He also wants it to be a summer stealth pig to catch as many waves as possible on those shit days when there’s 200 people sitting on a ripple, so we’re looking to halve the rocker fore and aft and up the volume to a fantastic level so he’s higher in the water. About 6 inches thick is his request. Dunno how it will handle but it should be interesting.
This is how I would re-size with a pencil and a framing square:
Hey surffoils,
I think you may have bumped the wrong key when you were typing.
It looked like you said “6 inches thick.”
Usually customers come to me wanting a smaller or larger version of something. Stoneburner and others gave me very good advice and instructions on enlarging a Machado “Moonbeam” awhile back. Mine was a litttle differant than what you are doing though in that I had no board to work off of, only a picture. With a board to work off of; Yow will have all the dimensions and a visual to refer to. Looks like you did a good job. A flexible straight edge like a sailboard batten makes connecting the dots easy. I can scale any existing template with a batten, a tape measure and a “Shapers Square”. PS. Beware of shrinking a shape and trying to add volume to a board. Shrinking a board and either trying to maintain volume or increase volume is a big mistake. A mistake that a novice surfer usually brings to a shaper. Had a little “know it all” come to me and ask me to shrink a 6’2 down to 5’8 and maintain the volume of the 6’2. NOT the same shape/board. Never will allow a novice surfer to ever tell me how to do my job. If you scale back the dims and increase volume; it’s never the same.
Well this looks like an interesting project. 6" thick - sounds like an SUP. Be curious to see a sketch of how you approach the cross-section. Getting from 6" down to a decent rail.
Yes guys, 6 inches thick.
over here the lifeguards use paddle rescue boards that have high volume and thickness but they sit 20 metres further out than the mals and catch any ripple. They don’t turn well but that’s what the customer wants. He wants to catch as many waves as possible and after that it doesn’t really matter when the waves are crap.
I understand what he’s saying, as an older surfer he’s frustrated at not getting any waves because everyone’s fitter or working in a pack.Hes not enjoying surfing. Not that he’s going to be doing airs, but he wants to catch waves - priority number 1 and only.
Yes the side profiling is going to be interesting but the rescue boards have a tail pod that bevels up 4 inches.
I’m not really sure about the rocker but I’m going for whatever’s minimal but doesn’t stick to the water.
It’s 6’9" so Maybe Tail-1.0. Nose-2.0. with a subtle rounded belly all along. Can I go flatter ?
I have done a few boards with the same thought process, just nothing as extreme as 6" thick. There is another thread on gliders, which would arguably fall into the same category of wave catchers. Has he tried a glider like those shown in the current thread? At any rate, I will be curious to hear / see how this progresses, and ensuing ride reports, if possible.
There are some caveats to going with extra thickness / buoyancy. You can observe this when watching SUPs in the lineup. At the moment of catching a breaking wave, that extra buoyancy, which is so helpful for general paddling, will cause the board to want to ride up and over the back of the wave, rather than dropping down the face. You will often see an SUP in what appears to be the ideal takeoff spot, and they won’t get in, because of fighting the buoyancy at that moment. This is just my personal observation, I don’t recall seeing or hearing it expressly stated or discussed by anyone else, but would be interested to hear others’ view. The flip side of this coin is watching a pro on a thin shortboard in grinding surf - they often drop in with one or two easy strokes in the takeoff zone.
The other issue, to my thinking, is the instability of a 6" thick board, with a narrow planshape. Your center of gravity is signigicantly higher in that case, which might be an issue with the stability riding, or during the pop-up. Not saying it will be an issue, just thinking that it might be.
I hear you Huck about the buoyancy, There’s potential problems and benefits.
I had a perfect summers day with a small group waiting for plentiful crystal blue waves that slowly built until they hit the right takeoff position for us surfers. Sadly 2 lifeguards were sitting 20 or 30 metres out and caught every wave over 1 foot on their rescue boards and by the time they got near us they were going full speed.
I wanted to be them.
The waves weren’t great or gutsy or tubing but they were the only waves available and they got every one. So if there’s a trade off with the thickness, so be it. I’ll make myself one of these boards if it works. An extra paddle or two won’t matter.
With the stability, I can see being too high could be a balance problem, but I’m hoping that with a flatter rocker and soft roll the board will be more stable than if it had a lot of hull contour. Being high does make it easier to sit up and get better vision in the line up, also makes paddling cleaner. But its all to see how it plays out in the surf.
Any part of the board that’s above the water line is just weight but he does want to paddle and sit high.
He wants to keep the fun board outline so he can feel better about not riding a mal.
The EPS blocks I have are only 3 1/2 inches thick so I have to outline another set to get a 6 inch thick board and then start the real shaping.
…you would mention to the customer that changing the outline changes the turning action vs the projection.
The curve of the outline is just that forcing it transform it in “3” sections making it non flow and disturbing cavitation points.
A problem that PS and some range of boards have is that is not good feeling to push the rail and as all we know, Surfing action (or lack, or lose energy) is about rails not bottoms.
More waves is good but Surfing quality is better.
He wants a plank not a Surfboard
A fairly basic method that involves no math might be to simply trace the existing outline full length or ‘spin’ style to a 12" wide sheet of masonite. Cut and fair it out so it is nice and smooth. Place your new end points and wide points on the blank and shift the template (just eyeball it) so the nose 1/2 lines up with the nose end point and the wide point at the center of the blank. Shift the nose portion of the template inward so you don’t end up with an hourglass curve at the midpoint. Do the same thing with tail 1/2 of template. It might not be super exact but it doesn’t sound like this project requires much else(?) With such a huge jump in thickness it’s gonna be a whole different animal regardless.
I’ve seen longboard shapes where the builder took an old Velzy board and simply removed 12" or so from the center of the template. It maintained the nose and tail shape (generally speaking) and the overall outline curve looked perfect - just shorter.
Even if the new board ends up being somewhat more parallel, you could easily boost tail rocker to achieve the same sort of ride.
At 6" thick he might have difficulty ‘engaging’ the rail at speed but SUP guys seem to be able to pull it off with similar thickness. Something like a fish-style split tail might help control it at speed(?) I.E. it’s easier to sink one side of a split tail than a wide thick square/diamond tail.
[Quote]Sadly 2 lifeguards were sitting 20 or 30 metres out and caught every wave over 1 foot on their rescue boards and by the time they got near us they were going full speed.
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Is this what you featured in the pics you posted? Which one? Are these both stand up surfboards? Cuz one looks like a sitting kayak type board.
Customer wants a 6 inch thick fun shape “so he can feel better about not riding a mal”. If it’s about self-esteem, I think I’d choose the ‘mal’.
