I was so super pumped about Carve Nalu’s exploits that I decided to embark upon this crazy project. Originally planned on just doing a stock style paddler–but why not go for sup/paddler/tandem all in one? My buddy and I decided to do this together and build a pair of them, so in some pics you’ll see mine and in others you’ll see his. I only have some of the pics right now so I’ll finish this up on monday.
Got some encouragement along the way from some other swaylockers. you guys know who you are. thanks. good luck on yours.
Again, as I said on the paddle surf equip and design thread, this board is a total POS. Not a clean line in sight. Bumpy rails. The list goes on and on. Furthermore, I realize in retrospect that the way I did this was very stupid. I hope no one feels the need to comment on my stupidity or lack of shaping ability as I am already very familiar with my condition and attributes. I am still stoked.
Step one: plan rocker and create a rocker template/stringer
I went to home depot with my buddy and sorted through all of the 12’ x 6’’ x 3/4’’ cedar siding. We found the two straightest pieces and bought em for 12 bucks. I took the natural rocker and foil measurements from the clark catalogue for the 12’3’ tandem blank and plotted them on my stringer template at 1’ intervals (sorry no pics of this process). Next, I used a batten from my catamaran sail to smoothly connect the dots. I cut out the template with my jig saw and true it up with my electric planer and block plane. I created enough shavings to fill several hampster cages. I did both stringers at the same time (clamped together) so they would match. I had originally planned to use them as hot wire guides. Here is one of the resulting stringers (ignore the other crap for now):
After much deliberation, we went out and bought several 4’x8’x2’’ sheets of eps from lowes. I would not recommend doing this. It wasn’t insulfoam and the backing plastic proved a really big pain. I lined up 2 sheets of foam at a time, long end to short end (4+8=12) and used my stringer to trace the rocker template onto the foam with a sharpie.
After tracing out about 16 of these suckers per board I broke out the jig saw and cut them out.
Next, I had my buddy peel the backing of of the rockered pieces. It took a long time because it would only tear off in little sections.
If you refer to the stringer picture above, you’ll see some completed rockered pieces to the right of the stringer.
I then glued the rockered pieces together into two halves comprised of 8 layers per half. I used foaming PU glue and not much of it.
(if you look in my racks to the right you can see some of my other POS creations, including a balsa decked fish discussed elsewhere in the archives. The light green fish is the board discussed in the super thin clark epoxy thread. It still isn’t done. All that peeling took up my time.)
Has anyone figured out how to make a vac press out of an old TV?
Next, I used PU glue to glue the two halves to the stringer. Blue tape provided the clamping pressure during this operation. Here is the result:
Ahh, I forgot to mention that I cut out my fin box slot in the stringer in advance. I also drilled a hole in the stringer to allow the whole board to breathe and allow me to use just one vent plug.
Now for the planshape. I designed the board in APS and created a pdf file. I’ve attached the pdf in case anyone digs the planshape and wants it. Mike, I’m sorry if I’m killing the bandwidth with this crap. I used adobe illustrator to scale the template up (sorry Bill T and the other graphpaper/baton guys). Basically, in illustrator I deleted all the extra crap on the pdf, leaving only the planshape paths, selected, and copied. then i created a 12’ x 29’’ art board, pasted, and scaled it up. I burned it on a disc and took it to Popcopy. The printed it for 10 bucks. Here’s what I got:
I used this to trace onto my foiled and rockered (albiet bumpy) blank and then cut it out in the backyard to my neighbor’s everlasting delight.
I left the ends square for my nose and tail blocks (woo!) You can see my cat and my surfboard production facility in the background. Remember when guys were posting all the sweet HWS pics on their super green lawns. Well, what can I say (the weeds are green).
I then used a surform and sanding block to take the wobbles out.
Oh crap! I shouldn’t have posted that last pic. I don’t want the lurkers seeing the inside of my shop and taking advantage of my trade secrets.
I’ve cleaned up the right side of the blank here and left the left (huh?) in the oringinal form for illustrative purposes, although I’m not really sure what I’m trying to illustrate.
You guys like those lines? The wobbles are part of my super secret flex science. (In case anyone is super sensitive, I’m poking fun at myself-not anyone else). Frankly, I was so over the eps dust in my eyes at this point that I didn’t really care and decided that they would have a negligible impact on performance. As you might have guessed, the wobbles occur where the planshape intersects the glue line.
Bottom contour wise I elected to keep it pretty flat in the front 2/3rds and did a shallow panel V in the tail.
On this day in particular, the surf was quite good (relatively speaking). We were screwing around with the boards waiting on the tide. Tide got right and I needed to clean up in a hurry:
I then went surfing for 4 hours and feel asleep at 8pm. Very very good day to be alive! (unless you live next door to me and your above ground pool is filled with eps beads of course–don’t worry, he’s cool–I made him a board for christmas–one of my last clarks too.)
Well, that’s all the pics I have for now. THe above board is shaped and spackled and I didn’t photograph the process. However, its twin is about where this leaves off so I’ll pick up from there. I’m gonna head out and start glassing this guy. Volan with freelaps. Its gonna be gnarly. I hope nobody has a weak stomach.
Arghh, wives. yes indeed. My wife is pretty patient for a good looking woman (there is an inverse relationship between patience and hotness, I would suggest).
Benny, your bandsaw/stack up method inspired this approach, although my methods are clearly more gangstafied than yours. I calculated that I jigsawed out approximately 384 feet of foam per blank. That was nothing compared to the peeling. I am very proficient at peeling plastic off of eps, just in case anyone is hiring out there. To think that I thought a hotwire bow would be too involved. Next time I think I’ll buy a block of dock foam and hotwire that sucker out.
I must, therefore, be the seppo equivalent of sir wal. I’ll take it.
More pics to come. I just need to resize them. I spent about 12 hours working on this sucker this weekend. It is laminated and the top is hotcoated. 7 layers of 6oz volan = HEAVY! This sucker is going to be a freight train. Volan cloth is so cool looking in that thickness. Very greenish. I used A LOT of resin. I better ask Sam for a 50 gallon drum next time.
Rachel: yeah, the silver side is ok and the blue letters suck. I got to the point were I said forget it. You’ll see this evidenced by the blue ‘acents’ in the finished product.
I want to ride it sooo bad. Hey, how much weight loss is possible during the sanding phase (the board not me)? I was thinking of not sanding the top. Why, because cosmetics are a non issue really and I don’t feel like it. anybody have an opinion about this?
I pre-cut the finbox slot into the stringer. I traced my box and cut it out with a jigsaw pre-glue up.
For now this is going to be a single. I may retro-fit some plugs after I see how it performs. I plan on using this in really out of the way waves on really small days so I’m thinking single will be the call. what do you think? I also want to do some flat water paddling in the estuaries. There is a wave near me that breaks mysto-style way outside, but does it only on certain conditions. I’ve been watching it from a distance for a while now. It looks soft but peels forever. It has been my inspiration.
My neighbor is cool. Everyone has their limits, though. Still too cold for boardies, so I hope not! I’m gonna post a pic of the board I made him as payoff. Now the guy on the other side of me wants one. Coastal NC is over developed! Its gonna be like FL before long.
I am enjoying making this. However, a project of this size takes alot out of you. Frankly, I am not looking forward to glassing the other one. It was hard on my back and very time consuming. I am also not looking forward to the sanding. I’m not sure if I make an EPS board ever again. The stuff drives me nuts. at least the cheap stuff does. Every time I make a board, I swear it will be my last, that I’ll clean up my shed, so on and so forth. But then, I get really stoked about something and can’t contain myself. I’m expecting a child, my first, and sometimes I worry about bringing nasties into the house (glass fibers, resin dust). I think my new board building philiosophy will be to only build that which I can’t buy. For example, this POS SUP. I couldn’t get one around here, not for a price I could afford/ be willing to pay. I tell you what, after glassing this, I feel like glassing any other type of board will be a walk in the park.
for future reference, craft hardware on wrightsville ave has 1# eps dock billets 8"x12"x16’ I think. Might save some hassles if you decide to do another one.
Fear not Ben. Your additional questions will be answered pictorally and in short order! Now, where was I?
After smoothing out the bumps and wobbles in the bottom, we commenced banding the rails with a surform. I didn’t use the planer because… I don’t know, I just didn’t. Oh yeah, the way it was glued up, I was afraid of ripping off a gnarly chunk.
We did three bands on the deck and one on the bottom (in the front 2/3). THen we used 60 grit sheets to turn the rails down from the deck.
When satisfied, we flipped it sideways in the racks and finished off the rails:
The shaper on this one is my mate John. I was sick of shaping EPS and so I made him shape his own.
Next we used the 60 grit to “polish” off the top and get the funky wobbles out:
After all this shaping, John had the maliganant EPS disease. Last year I introduced this disease into my car after shaping and have been living with it ever since:
So others wouldn’t have to suffer as I have, I developed a cure:
I doubt my inlaws envisioned this use when they bought me the blower. This is actually very pleasurable. Everyone should go try it today.
