Slater's Twin Stick Shortboard??

General Discussion
1

Hey everybody.I’m sure most everyone saw Kelly’s new board at the U.S. Open before it snapped.I was curious, if anyone has any ideas of what the advantages of placing the stringers like that would be? Has it been done before?He seemed to be surfing really well on it, but he would surf great on a trash can lid so that doesn’t tell me much. Less Flex, different flex, what do you think? Here’s a link to a pic if you haven’t seen it.

http://www.orangecounty.com/sections/article/gallery/?pic=8&id=879

2

My favorie stringer setup - slightly curved balsa not following the rail shape but hitting it at a little before 8" at the nose and tail.

 

I have a board I made 4 years ago when I started making blanks and had no parabolic outlines - used a rocker profile, cut the rocker curve in the board for the stringers and went from there. Never sold it just seemed like one of those magic ones… 5’8X19X2      6 1 FLR was both the blank and stringer curve.

Now we have the parabolic outlines but I still like the straight ‘rail stringers’ just a pain to get use to shaping the rails in even.

 

my 2cents

3

Sounds cool…How did it make the board perform compared to a standard stringer set-up?

4

Don’t want a cent for it, I no pro you know.

Reason: Tailflex, that’s why there is carbon goin from the front fins to the nose.

Stiff between the feet for speed, flex in the tail for tight turns.

That’s why and where it broke?

5

Thanks for the info.That sounds like a great recipe for a board.Do you think the carbon is neccesary to keep the middle stiff, since it has the two stringers already?

6

Rob:
I was there for the entire contest and the double stringer was not
the board he snapped in the contest. He snapped a regular center
stringer board. (Not the Trestle special) If you go to the Hurley web
site, you can see the tow contest on the last day and notice that
Slates is surfing the double stringer. I can’t open up the Hurley videos
but can on Youtube. Here is the link to Heat 6 where he snaps the board
on his first wave. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WkJ1oLLDlg
As the video shows, he then switched to the Trestle special
(blackhand) board for the rest of the heat which he won.
On a side note, the two stringers were parallel to midline, not true
perimeter stringers. The carbon fiber patch ran from the front fins
up to underneath his front foot wells. He said it gave him a lot of spring
in bottom turns in small waves and pop on the ramps for airs.
All in all, one of the best California contests if not the best ever!!! I had
the chance to meet & remeet a lot of my favorite shapers too!! Even
Dave P showed up!!

7

i was quite impressed with this design its always good to see something new on the scene has anyone found out if there was a reason why they made it like this

8

rob,

in my experience,i have built several types of stringered and stringerless boards.

after several years of riding them,i prefer a stiff board with little or no flex.

a flexly board responds slugglishly and creates drag,hence it’s slower.

for some with a slower response time, this may be a plus for their style or ability.

not for me…i want a board that can respond on a millionth of a second,not a second or two.

(the difference between a second and a millionth of a second is like the difference between a second and five years).

herb

9

Herb - I agree that too much flex can make a board really sluggish and slow to respond. The problem is the board will flex into a turn, then because it retains that flex, it becomes very difficult to transition out of that turn and into the next one.

I played around with flex a lot when i was at Hydro Epic. I made a batch of about twenty boards that were identical in almost every way except how they flexed. They were molded, so the shape was constant. I worked hard to keep weight the same too.

What I found was - if the board was too soft, it would initiate your first turn easy, and crap out there. The soft boards were painful because you had wait for them to catch up to what you were doing. On the other hand, the super stiff boards felt a little dead to me. Better than the soft ones for sure, but they didn’t contribute any “snap” and felt slightly lifeless. The magic boards were the ones that flexed noticeably, but then snapped back quickly giving you the ability to harness the springiness that occurred transitioning in turns. I could surf much faster on the boards that had flex characteristics that matched my timing.

Since no surfer - including Slater - can react in a millionth of a second, there is a magic flex pattern that will enhance the performance and feel of the board. It’s not simply flex… it’s where the board flexes and the quality of that flex. We worked pretty closely with Al on some of this, so I’m sure he’s still going down that road. Slater’s board is testament to that.

Also… as you eluded to… surfers have different response times and different needs in equipment. That makes it impossible to have one answer for all surfers. Kinda like with beautiful women. If there was only one solution a lot of us would grow old and lonely :wink:

10

Kendal and Herb, i agree with you about the different reaction times of surfers, but I learned that carbon fiber as a material flexes and reacts with more efficiency than glass. Carbon gives back more of the energy you put in it than glass or wood. Thats why there is a patch of carbon on the bottom of the board. From my experience some carbon makes the board ignore chop better (less vibrations), more going over the chop, so the board is faster.

And BTW  my first answer was a wild guess concerning the broken board, thanks Surfteach for the link, first time I saw that.

I love to see where this new impulse in development is gonna lead us or at least the average surfer.

Soul

11

with the carbon overlapping the two stringers (linearly speaking) what good could it possibly do?!

the wood is more resilient and stiffer…at first glance it seems like the carbon is a completely superficial addition.

I really like the two parallel wood stringers…seems like this would eliminate the twisting and other issues that were discussed in the (curved) parabolic stringer thread a while back.

the new TSJ “Sound Off” article touches on this concept of two stringers that begin at the nose but are faded out to the rail before the fins so that the tail section is essentially stringerless and more apt to flex…I think it’s Ambrose’s piece.

12

I saw a bunch of Kelly's custom blanks at Surfblanks one day when I was picking up foam. Quite a few with the side stringers which were straight not parabolic. He was getting both yellow formula and also green formula blanks. It's great he's working with new designs. The guy ripped at the US!

13

Kendall,

good to hear from you !

I like a stiff board,but with a taunt spring to it(geeez,is this sounding like …you know,lol).

I believe that  spring in a board is completely different than a flex.

ya,kendall,it’s tough to get all the formulas correct 100% of the time…that’s foresure !

lately…rather than extra stringers or carbonfiber,etc.,i have been channeling the rails on the deck.

Steve, the eco-tech blank guy has seen my newest one.

it’s different than the channels you see on the more popular boards of today.

my channels are closer to a channel you would see on the bottom of an 80’s board,but on the rails ,deckside.

this adds stiffness and strength w/o adding more wood or other stuff,plus it doesn’t interfere w/ the spring of the board.

a bit harder to glass and shape but worth it in every way for my personal boards,especially with epoxy glassing.

as i said before everyone is different,try a bunch of designs and it with all come together for you,as it has for other seasoned rider/builders like kendall,and myself.

herb

ps.Kendall,did surfing mag re-release a revised “the shaper’s tree”, a second time(like more recent)? heard rumor of this,and was just wondering ?

 

anywho,good to hear from you,your input is valued with me ,always.

 

14

haha… thanks for the kind words Herb. The spring is the thing. I get the same feel from a nicely set up skateboard.

Channels are a good way to add stiffness without adding materials. That’s basically what we did inside the Hydro Epic boards - channels, tubes, and various pieces of folded carbon strategically placed to achieve our desired effects.

I don’t know about Surfing releasing another version of the tree yet. What’s it been… two years since the last one? Scott Bass printed one out for last years Sacred Craft. We’ve got the software mostly working, but I’ve been so wrapped up in trying to keep our company afloat that I haven’t been able to focus on the last 10%. If you want to check it out, go to - http://www.essentialsurfing.com/shaperstree.html - keep in maind that this is in no way near finished. It’s just a start. The only part that we’ve put any focus into yet is the shaper section. If you search by decade, you can see some cool stuff. Other trails lead to dead ends.

If any techie types wanna do some date entry and turnip polishing for nothing but the satisfaction of documenting surf history… give me a call :wink:

15

Kendall,

thanks to Steve,I’ve got a few echotech blanks.

The blank in some respects are a little touchy to shape ,but in the water it’s a killer formula.

I’ll have to retire when I have no more echotechs to shape and ride…lol…jk.

in truth…so far…they’re a superior formula.

herb