Decided the best way to try my hand at shaping, glassing etc was making cheap skimboard. This way if I screw up its no big losss of materials etc. Started out using some 1" eps pink foam from Home Depot, Making it 52" long, with a hemlock stringer, as I had a piece laying around. I have a quart of epoxy I picked up at TAP Plastics, now just need to decide on layers of glass. Should I be going 3 layers of 6oz or 4oz on top and 1-2 on bottom? I am 190lbs, so I am hoping the thing olds up on me. Heres a few photos from my start on the project. Will post more as I go. If this goes ok will try my hand at a full size board.
Nice! Looks like a fun one. I don’t know about the cloth, wish I could help. What sort of rocker do you have on it? I’m used to riding the shorter, fatter things. This one looks set for a good carve.
Its about 21" wide in the center, but its 52" lons so it looks skinny. I have about 1.25" on the nose and about a 1/2" on the tail. The design is similar to some of the Zap board dimensions. We will see, I may go with the heavier cloth since I weigh 190lbs, and the weight will help a bit throwing it down so its not to light.
man im doing the exact same thing, did you vacuum bag it? Its my first home made job and im just going with traditional glassing method and so far its been alright. Im going with double layers of 4oz cloth, how strong is yours?
The thickness of the board is directly related to the speed of the rider. The faster the rider is, the smaller amount of float needed (thinner). If you have a slower runner, then a thicker board will be able to carry the rider out farther. Flexibility is also in question here. A board that is too flexible is real crapy to ride on, but if its just flexible enough, then it will do wonders for you.
This board is ok but being my first one was somewhat crude. Going to start a second soon for my daughter and am going to use 6oz cloth and RR epoxy on this one. I found I need to keep a much harder edge throughout the rails than I did on the first one. No i didnt vacuum bag it, just standard laminations. Going to start this one this week, but on this one going with a balsa stringer as shes only 110lbs. My daughters biggest want on the board is a "Hello Kitty" image on the board!
hard rails all the way around. and for glassing you can use either epoxy or polyester resin. however, DO NOT use polyester resin with polystyrene foam core. it will melt the foam. epoxy is safe and will not melt it. I didnt use a stringer, and it is fairly strong so far. But i havent tested in the water yet.
Cthulu, post some finished pictures if you can please, id like to see how it turned out.
