"Spoon Methods..."

General Discussion
1

Hi All!

Trying to find all the possible methods for building spoons.

I’m aware of the “glass the bottom, sand through the deck, add more glass” method and I also thought of the following for a timber spoon.

The first step would be to make a frame for the rails. Then Cut the outline and shape to make a nice planshape.

Then you have either the choice of making a figreglass deck or perhaps Joing a ply piece under the rails which could also be quite flexy.

Yay or Nay?

Please feel free to add more methods. I’m trying to find the cheapest, easiest to build method using scrap material.

Josh.

2

Hi Josh,

The real trick is in, I think, getting the bottom right. For that, you need to either sand away foam from a foam blank with the bottom glassed or make/find an appropriate shape to mold from, cut it to your plan or outline shape, then attach the floatation, be it timber, foam or what have you, then glass the top, attach pads and fin(s) and so on. Lets see what I can doodle here…

dunno if that helps any -

Ahmm… I suspect you’d have some problems doing your outline shape from timber ( or foam) and then working some ply to get the appropriate convex shape. You’d have to, I suspect, make some sort of mold or form and use several veneers over it to get it right, possibly using vac bag technology in a kind of ‘cold molding’ process, as we call it in the boatbuilding biz. The plywood, by itself, will only bend happily in a ‘simple’ curve, not in two directions at once - a ‘compound’ curve.

hope that’s of use. Me, I’m still debating whether to use a shaped and glassed foam male mold for the bottom or use a ‘found’ mold, something like part of a boat hull or something of that sort, then follow the procedure as shown above. One of those deals where I know that I’ll run across the ideal shape the day after I go and shape the foam…

doc…

3

Thanks Doc! That helps alot! I’m hoping to do this in the near future.

Thanks Again.

Josh.

4

go to ron romanosky kneeboards.com he does a flex spoon. but it does cost $1200 US, which gives you an indication of how much work goes into them. i would definitely want about 10 more boards under my belt before i attemted one of those. he give you a rundown of how the design works etc

also didnt greenough use a balsawood kneeboard as a mould?? im sure i read that somewhere.

5

Actually, Josh, I can’t take any credit whatsoever for the method described.

A gent who stops by here now and than and signs himself MTB put me onto it. A word to the wise: he says something, pay attention. He most definitely knows what he’s talkin’ about. And he has done it more than once…

Now, on further reflection, it occurred to me that you could use reasonably thin ply ( 1/4" or under, reasonably good quality ) to make a male mold that went from a spoon shaped forward section to a flat rear. The trick is, you’d need formers in it, not unlike what Paul Jensen has been using to make his hollow boards - see if this gives you the idea…

First, lay out your formers. Then, set your thin plywood onto 'em, and cut a curving slice off. Then, use that as a pattern to make the piece for the other side. Fit the edges with a block plane, nail it down. Maybe another layer, or several strips, all tapered, not unlike barrel staves. You could do it with foam too, and get a rough shape from foam strips that you could fine-shape if you wanted, then glass it in any event. You would then sand it and polish it and then use it for a male hull mold.

You squirt the mold with release wax or PVA ( PolyVinyl Alcohol - standard item from larger boat glass suppliers) then glass it, vac bagging reccommended. Put on the layers you want, then pop it loose, cut the rough bottom to your outline shape, vac bag on some foam sheeting strips for float and rails, shape your rails, glass them on ( vac bag again) and then attach your fin(s) and deck pad. Tune the flex with a grinder and/or adding laters of cloth, plus the thickness of your foam strips, etc…

One of the several advantages of this method, molding the bottom and then attaching foam, is that you are not stuck with any one outline/plan shape. Rail contours - well, whatever you like, hard, soft, etc. And if you want to tinker with it, well, back to the mold, pop another one off and see what you can do with it.

Dunno- it is a lot of work, making the mold - this kinda explains why I am thinking a ‘found shape’ might be a move. Or, score some sheet foam and play with mold-making using that…

that of any use?

doc…

6

There is a “how to build a spoon” thread going on over at KSUSA.org right now…It’s pretty detailed, check it out…

http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1260

7

Here is a balsa spoon I built.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t yet been in the water so I can’t give a report as to its performance aspects, but it does exhibit the proper flex characteristics (on the racks, that is). I hope to get it in the water in the next couple of weeks. (And if it doesn’t work as a flex kneeboard, well then my wife will have a very nice board for flaoting about on and/or riding prone!).

I built it out of leftover pieces from a balsa fish I built, so it was rather cheap to make in terms of materials (far less than $1200 for sure, maybe $100 at most). But like any flex spoon it required far more construction time.

This was built somewhat differently from the usual balsa spoon kneeboards (ala Greenough’s early spoons) in that it is a two piece construction. The flat deck consists of several thin planks with a separate concave nose section scarfed to the deck. Each section (tail and nose) was rough shaped before being joined together. Final shaping took place afterwards.

This board is 5’3” in length and 20.5” wide. Because this board was an improvised project, I did not use a full template, but did use other templates to draw and check the curves as it was shaped.

It was glassed with SB 112 epoxy resin and two layers of 4 oz S cloth with several reinforced areas (for example, along the scarf and hinge points). The fin is made of a polycarbonate core with glass layers.

(Btw, notice that the grain in all of the planks on this board are running parallel. In your drawing you have the topmost plank running crosswise. Planks with their grains running perpendicular to each other are going to be a headache to shape and the board may not flex properly.)

525×527 68.2 KB

772×183 46.1 KB

8

go over to www.ksusa.org and look in the kneeboard design section, theres been a ‘resurgence’ of late of interest in spoons and some damn informative tips/ideas/experiences over there i wish i wouldve thought of!

good luck and good surfing to you

9

Thanks ALL! GREAT info!

10

josh…

As others have noted, there have been several recent flex spoon threads catching fire over in the KSUSA forum:

http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/portal.php

Never before has there been so much useful information, great photos and discussion about several types of flex spoons, their construction and riders, all gathered in one place!

Here are a few links:

http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=18012&sid=00dfd31a9385d038e153a3294e5f294a#18012

http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=17999&sid=00dfd31a9385d038e153a3294e5f294a#17999

http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1228

http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1240

http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1222

http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1101

11

Thanks Dale! I’ve been thinking of making a spoon for some time now. I think they’d be good in shallow low tide barreling points that OZ’s east coast has alot of.

Josh.

12

Hmmm…

I haven’t read all the threads yet but just had an idea.

What if you had an old board and cut out to desired shape and proceeded to take away the ‘spoon’ till the bottom glas and then built it up? Must be cheaper and I spose you could respray it when your done…

Josh.

PS… Thank you all for your spoon advice. its definatly a design I cannot wait to try.

13

i was reading the posts and thought why not just shape some cheap Home depot EPS as a mold for the spoon and then once you do the Hull use only Poly pour foam for the rails instead of a tiny piece of a Clark blank. One of the methods uses pour foam but he still keeps the nose section of the original clark blank with the stringer, but why? seems like a waste of material to me.

Damn these threads, I want to make one now! can’t even finish one project without another one in the back of my mind distracting me.

I need to work on my attention skills

14

I remember that a catentary arch is exactly the shape of a piece of string if you hang it upside down from two equal points. So if you squirted glue on it and turned it upside down you would have a thin arch. So if you hung a piece of 8oz glass from four points and resined it and turned it upside down, you would have a stiff (sort of) shallow arc. If it was tipped higher on one side than the other you coul force the belly more to one side than the other. if it dried and was still somewhat flexible you might be able to bend some nose kick and rails. Add more glass. Polyurethane foam for the “horseshoe”. etc. Just a thought. Mostly horse#hit probably.

15

Actually, that’s what I was thinking about doing if I had to , although a few differences -

Ideally, use something like 1" sign foam for the floatation, or one of those other nice sheet foams that Bert and others ( and originally MTB turned me onto this, thanks again - see http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1260&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30 for a really amazing discussion on flex spoon materials, by the way ) have been using for their outer foam layers. Stick it on, shape the edges appropriately, and there you go. Balsa-core sheet material would be a kinda pretty alternative, though how well it might stand up to the torsional loads is anybody’s guess.

Tradeoffs- while you are indeed using cheap EPS foam for the mold-blank, you are also stuck with using very non-cheap epoxy. I actually have a nice glued-up EPS blank in the cellar that I was gonna use, but the thought of using that up, plus a lot of rather pricy epoxy - rather save both for something better-

With a urethane foam blank of some sort you can get away with ( shudder) $12 a gallon can ‘boatyard resin’ for glassing your mold, the really, really cheezy stuff. Boat cloth, even mat would work, though deforming the mat material cleanly around a spoon nose might be more than it really wants to do- but as a place to use up that discolored and really ugly 10 oz boat cloth you can find on special, great! It doesn’t have to look good, and if it’s a little cobby, well, you are gonna wind up sanding and fairing it some anyhow…

What would also work instead of a board blank, and come to think of it I have some kicking around, is that cheapo isocyanurate insulation foam, 2" thick, tear off the foil on it, stick it together any old way and then shape, glass it heavy and shazam, instant male mold. The stuff is shapable with standard planers, easier than EPS, does fine with polyester resin and gawd knows it’s cheap. Scrap pieces could be stuck together too.

And if you find that this shape you just made really isn’t the mold for you, well, you have maybe $35 US invested in it, no big deal…

Thanks, man. You drop-kicked my dumb …posterior, lets say… into something that will work and work on the cheap!

Best regards

doc…

16

About the spoon discussion at KSUSA

I’ve put up many spoon pics at

http://flexspoon.com/

Any pics, drawings or diagrams are welcome.

17

Okay , regarding spoons …

"TRI FINS ARE DANGEROUS " helped me out with this [attachment] , when I posted at ‘Surfer’ ages ago, regarding ‘standup spoons’ …

So, I hope this helps you out , Josh …

it sure helped ME !!

cheers matey !

ben

[I think the thread was either called “what size for a standup spoon ?” …or something similar…]

18

Found a pic of a standup spoon

Many more here:

http://www.worth1000.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=1675

19

josh- the old board method might work, but the question is-how much hull do you want in it? greenogh type spoons have about 2.5" of hull going back to dead flat(check archives-paul gross posted some pictures of some spoons he made-don’t know if they are still there though) paul and george used a few different methods-all very time consuming.even the shape the foam, glass the bottom and sand away method takes time, then the glassing is a whole 'nother story altogehter-where to build it up with more layers, etc.if paul’s pics are still in archive they will give you an idea of what is involved.he spent days on each board, but he also made the fins as well.definitely a labor of love…don’t underestimate the importance of building up layers of glass at the critical points-if ya don’t, it won’t last too long.with that said, go for it!!!

20

Hey Josh,

I was alerted to this thread by guys over on ksusa. It’s great you’re preparing to build a spoon; so are a lot of other guys. I feel for you, though. There’s not much information. I was there. I just built one, and if Dale hadn’t guided me through, I would have wrecked it ten times over. But it came out nice. Check out the black spoon in this gallery.

http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/album_cat.php?cat_id=2&sort_method=pic_time&sort_order=DESC&start=12

I wanted to make this hard-won data available to as many guys as possible, so I wrote up the whole process step-by-step and posted it on ksusa. If you want to build one like this, or just have something for comparison, here you go. Best of luck.

http://www.ksusa.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=1260