So I’m still in the middle of my first board but I have some time waiting for materials to come in before I can finish. So I thought I’d make the most of my time waiting to slowly get started on the next project.
A local shaper has started donating his off cuts of 1.5 eps foam to me so that I can glue up some blanks together. So I wanted to see if anybody has some advice or thoughts on what I’m thinking through right now.
The most useable pieces of foam are about 2” thick and roughly around 3’ long and 23” wide. There are some variations in dimensions between each piece and some are curved at the ends.
They already have colored stringer lines down the middle. So I was thinking of keeping those as the center line to make shaping easier.
I’m trying to decide how I should to glue the pieces together. My first thought is to stack pieces on top of each other for the thickness but stagger them so there isn’t one glue join line right down the middle of the board which I feel might end up being an easy buckle point with potentially four pieces of foam all meeting at one point. Any thoughts on the matter?
I’ve seen how sharkcountry has pieced together his scrap foam boards but his seem to be smaller pieces of foam. And a lot of the Home Depot board threads seem to use pieces that are long enough and are only glued on top of each other for the thickness.
I’ve also read through how annoying it is to shape through glue lines so I’m debating whether or not to cut out rail pieces to hide the glue lines to make shaping the rails easier but I also don’t have the length to make rail pieces that go the whole length of the board.
My plan is to use gorilla glue which a lot of the threads suggest since it’s easier to shape. The kind I’ve found is a non foaming kind though not sure if that matters or not. U also plan on making a hotwire cutter and using rocker templates.
mainly I figured I could go ahead and start gluing up the blank that way I can get started on the second board once this first board is finished.
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!
I’m still debating on what the board will be. Originally I was thinking a midlength but I’m not sure how well a stringerless board that length will hold up or if it would be too flexy. I saw in the threads I could overlap all the fiberglass over the rails for added strength also I was considering doing a hemp fabric inlay to add some strength.
But if the midlength is inadvisable then I would probably make it a keel fin groveler type of board.
I’m interested in this as well. I’ve read that you can use a water based PVA glue which isn’t so hard to sand? I’m yet to test any yet as I’m working on a big project on the house at the moment Very little surfing or even thoughts of surfing at the moment
I’ll be interested what other solutions others might offer. A great way to recycle!
don’t use hemp unless you are an expert. goes haywire when you sand past hot coat and touch the fibre. same for flax, many crew put a layer of standard cloth over the top as a protective layer for a bottom layer of flax or hemp.
@Railwaysurfer i hope you’re able to get back out in the water soon! I just had a few weeks with all the typhoons coming through and the beaches closed. But finally was able to get back out there this week!
Initially started recycling foam because of the price point and how hard/ expensive it is to source blanks but after reading up on sharkcountry and sk8ment threads I’m inspired to continue this path!
@sk8ment i just found that article by tracksmag they wrote on your work! Also just read through a lot more of your build threads! Great reads and very inspiring!
I’ll avoid hemp then at your suggestion! Thanks for the heads up. I was thinking using hemp fabric as an inlay would be like using any other fabric but potentially with better textile strength. I was thinking foam—>hemp fabric —> glass over but I’ll keep it simple since I’m still just starting out.
I did see in one thread of someone using xps foam and they used a long saw to cut out a rough rocker before smoothing it out. I had that thought if I didn’t want to make the hotwire cutter this go around.
Would that be a terribly stupid idea as a means of setting the rocker? I was thinking maybe screwing in two rocker templates on either side of the foam to help guide the saw cut but I hadn’t found any other people doing that before so wasn’t sure if it was a viable option. I’m kind of thinking based on what I’ve read that trying it out on eps might end up tearing out a lot of foam and not get as smooth of a cut as with xps.
I’d say build yourself a hotwire…its not hard to make one and it’s a very pleasing experience to have a nice cut off off a good rocker template -and a relatively save place to start your shaping. Take your time to set your templates parallel.
As for gluing up all glues that I know of will affect the hotwire cut , so maybe you can figure out a way to clamp or bond your eps temporarily and glue the parts after hotwiring.
Very little surfing or even thoughts of surfing at the moment 