Hi I am a first time surfboard maker, and I am looking for some help on shaping an old windsurfing board. The board is 9ft tall 2ft wide and about 4 inches thick. I’ve already stripped the fiber glass off of it, it came off very easy. I am trying to make it into a 6’8 fun board and I need help with a lot.
I have stripped and reshaped 6 windsurf boards to kiteboards. The main challege you will have is positioning your new shape to maintain nose rocker. My suggestion is to rout out the mast track and position your new shape as far forward as possible, so you basically chop off the old fin box and thruster areas, Use that foam to bond in the area where you removed the mast track. Now you have the lightest least compromised blank with a good amount of nose rocker, zero tail rocker and a lot of thickness/width to work with. Get out your rockerstick, calipers, spin template, saw and planner. Draw out your new plan view and saw the rail to the new widths, surform the rails to a smooth contour and 90 degrees. Get out a big straight edge and measure your existing nose and tail rocker, decide where you want to have an apex where the two curves meet. Since it was a windsurfer it probably has a flat mid section that won't be useful for a surfboard. You may want to revmove foot strap inserts with a core saw and replace with fresh donor foam only bond the the bottom of these plugs as otherwise they will cause hard spots that will be difficult to plane over. Once you figure out where your rocker curves will fall, you can rough mark the rocker on the 90 degree rail and get out your planner..now the fun begins! Start roughing in your new rocker curve, you may need to hand plane the double stringer as you get close. Keep checking you rocker with caliphers and your rocker stick.By the time you get close you will be very familar with your planner. Once the bottom is close decide what your top foil is going to be and start planning to your desired thickness, Finalize your bottom shape with concave. V etc as you want. Flip the board and draw rail bands to complete your deck shape and rail geometry. Dragon skin the rails, add the tuck on the bottom rails with a fred or plane.Hand sand all the surfaces with a good sanding block. Your finished board is now ready for paint and glassing. Have fun and try to control al the foam dust! - flynbri
All good advice from flynbri.
Another option might be to get out a handsaw and slice the center foam out completely... sand the inside faces of the stringers clean then glue them together. That should still leave you enough width for your project. Save the fin and mast track boxes for future longboards (or send them to me!)
Position your new outline to eliminate the sidebite boxes as suggested by flynbri.
Replacing the footstrap anchors with foam plugs is another good idea.