I´m back at home now and hopefully I don´t bore you with a “few” more words (in my bad english, sorry for that)
I hope you don´t think I´m telling horseshit (which has never been my intention) after my explanations.
I didn´t come up with a single solution by my own, I didn´t invent something new, it´s just mindful reading of all the threads here, a little google research and some youtube videos. Just a backyard guy doing some surfboards that may look quite okay or maybe even good on pictures. Nothing more.
I think I´ll split the answer in two parts, otherwise it could get quite long…
I´ve been a DIY guy since I can remember. I´ve made the sketches for our house, insulated the basement, made the drywall workings inside, insulated the roof, welded all the stairways, layed all the tiles on the floor and so on.
I work as a civil engeneer from 7 in the morning till 5 in the evening. When I come home I go into the basement, where I have som old machines (the lathe is from 1931) and get on my workbench and do whatever I like (welding, brazing, building tools, woodworking, whatever). Working physically, with my hands and body gives me so much joy and pleasure.
I´m landlocked and quite abeginner surfer. Till spring 2015 I´ve only ridden rented popout boards in the 8ft Minimal range.
Than I bought a glassed 7.2ft big guy funboard.
It took 2 session to dent the deck with my thighs (popup) and get spidercracks along the stringer. (that´s why I built stringerless boards till now)
At the same time I made this speakers.
The whole setup:
(I´ve made the racks, the amps, the turntable, the paintings, the wooden table, the stairways and so on…)
My surfbuddies asked me " Why don´t you try to build yourself a surfboard, you are doing all kinds of stuff, why you are hesitating with boards ? The speakers look quite similar to what building a surfboard must be like."
So I decided to give it a try. I was 100% sure I would fail, my wife thought the same.
Summer 2015 I did a lot of reading swaylocks and watched a lot of youtube videos, ordered resin and ordered a high densitiy EPS block.
I made myself a CAD file where put in a lot of pictures from boards, made sketches of the outlines and the foils. Compared what I measured, got back to swaylocks and searched for tail and nose width, bottom contours and so on. Tried to understand why the shapes are the way they are, where the boards differ and what design elements are the same and so on. I´m still doing this with every board I do. Most of you will think this is nerd-nonsens. Maybe, but I´m an engineer and I can´t deny it sometimes.
(but I´m a son of a craftsman as well, and I love spending my time on the workbench, so there are two hearts beating in my chest)
I also tried to pay attention to all the details in the pictures of you guys.
What do your tools look like, what kind of jigs, racks, templates, tapes etc. do you use.
(I remember Barry Snyders picture with quite a lot of templates lying in his garden for example.)
My database looks like this by now:
I built a few basic tools, quite what I use till now.
(I got a sander and a cheapo planer for 30 bucks each, thats it.)
I started in a spare room in our basement.
In august 2015 I built my first board, in september and october 2015 I worked on Nr. 2 and 3. In january 2016 I made Nr. 4.
(I got bitten by the board-building bug badly right at the beginning of Nr. 1 and I´m addited since then)
From left to right it´s: Nr.2, Nr.1, Nr.4 and Nr. 3
Nr. 1 was about 6.6x23x3.1/8, flat bottom, 57l. Rocker was something like 4.5 nose / 2 tail.
Resincouours. A lot of bleeding under the tape, a lot of teared EPS beads, deep cuts with the cutlaps, wet and pooling glassing, a lot of sanding.
A clumsy shape, too much volume, I only surfed it a couple of times.
Nr. 2 is appr. 6.2x22.1/2x3, flat rocker (3.8 nose, 1.5 tail) concave with varying deep throughout the bottom, rails like 60/40 with an early transition to a hard edge in front of the quad setup. 50l
Started sealing the tapelines, less bleeding.
I didn´t like the rectangular nose on turns and how it felt on turns in general.
Nr.3 similar dimensions to Nr.3, but 4.5 noserocker, 2 tailrocker, slight single concave with some central channels getting deeper throughout the tail. 50l.
Airbrush on blank, clear glassing with a different resin. The resin was to thick, moved it around to much and got a lot of frothing. Channels were hard to glass and sand.
Had a burnthrough on one rail, had to do a patch.
I love that board. It doesnt like when it gets steep an more than headhigh. (but I think it´s also due to my bad surfing skills)
Nr. 4 was the fisrt board where I really loved the look of the shape.
( I remember Stingray and Bill Thrailkill and others who told not to chase for numbers, but for a good shape. Just one of the countless advice that I tried to save in my mind.)
It´s a singlefin (2+1) something like 7.2x21.5x3.
Beeknose, beveled rails on top with a flat deck.
Resin foamstain, but after I glassed the bottom clear, I didn´t like the shades of the colours and did the bottom in slightly different shades as opak lam.
Not too much area in the tail (for a 230lbs guy) to hold tight in steeper waves I hope (I´ve not had bigger waves since I´ve built it)
I changed for another resin systems with this board (german boat-supplier, a thin laminating and a thicker coating resin). Was a good improvement. I´m using this product till now with all the following boards.
Nr. 5 was just experimenting with tints.
I wasn´t pleased, because the shape lacked in fluid forms and lines.
I decided to split my workshop in the basement in two halfs and build the shapingbay.
This is how it looks today:
This improved shaping so much.
It´s amazing what can be seen with the right light.
Nr. 6 was experimenting with deck-channels and foamstains again.
A midlength egg for my wife.
2+1 finsetup.
Some kind of rolled vee / panel vee in the front and middle with a vee throughout the last third of the board, but not until behind the fin. Just a little double concave in the vee.
(And again: all these suggestions for the bottom contour I stole / copied / learned from you guys.)