Taylor "tO's" thoughts and photos of newest board - comments encouraged

General Discussion
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Thoughts on my newest quad

(As I labeled some of the pics last night I called it “p2,” as in the second pink xps board I’ve made. (Added later.))

Having only ridden “edge finned” quads as guns (The other quads I made had the center fins closer to the center than even the McKee set up.)  - My 9’3” “heavy gun” and my 10’7” “rainbow gun” – I wasn’t sure what to expect from the set up on an 8’2” “daily rider.”   - “Replacing” my older 8’2” “Sally” model (In the “garage pics” on the bottom of the sway pile.)

I finished the board a few weeks ago, but waited on posting pics until I’d had a chance to get some time in on it.  So far I’ve had a hand full of sessions in thick head + reef rights- front side, and one session in shoulder to head left point waves.  So far, so good. 

Working with advise from “Hand shaper”/Robin Mair, I’ve been working with the fins having a fore/aft separation of 1”-1.5”, and I’m so stoked to be using RedX (Sorry Robin, I know you designed ProBox, and we both agree fore/aft movement is awesome, but I’m presently still set up with RedX …) on the newest board, I’ve moved the fins around and found, once again, asymmetry in respect to toe side/heel side is a huge key for me.  I’ve found having the toe side fins closer together (@ 1”), and a bit fore (Thanks again Tom@Duam, for the insights about fore/aft fin side fin movement.) seems to be the best for me – comes around, bottom turns quicker/easier for me – And I have the heel side fins further apart (@ 1.5”) which reduced the “twitchiness”/flat “skaty” feel, allowing me to push harder and  “carve” heel side turns on rail, rather than having the board whip around while mostly flat – bottom to wave face.

Having ridden my “Heavy gun” as an edge finned quad on smallerish days/days, OH+ to DOH, which I would have ridden my older daily rider, but I was testing out the fin set up, and then riding the older daily rider as a tri (It does not have a quad set up…  Yet… Ha!) – I was blown away by the sensation of drag on the tri.  I could feel the extra speed on both guns as a quads, and, as I mentioned recently, I could also hold a higher line, which translates to more speed for me. 

Here are some of the trippier things I have observed, and I am curious to read what others have experienced.

On a couple of the sessions I’ve had at “my spot” – High tide jacking reef action – I felt like (To be completely honest, not the times when I just flat out ate shit being way to late…Ha!) there were time I took off, trying to angle as much as possible without eating said shit, or going to straight and getting passed by, and as I was dropping near the bottom third of the wave (Yeah, I said bottom third of the wave - Sensi Ambrose…) I felt like, and, granted, it could also have to do with the deep single concave, but I’ve not heard/read a thing about this phenomenon related to the deep concave, or anything for that matter, the front of the board “slid,” “adjusting” to a line which was not to high.  In the past, on tris, I’ve gotten too high, and the board would suck up the face, or side slip completely, and that was that…  But, several times the front of the board would slide down a bit and then the inside edge would reengage and I’d keep going.  And, besides that/those most trippy of experiences, there is the plain old fact of speed which from my experience, and understanding (To a big degree, based on discussions of the hydrodynamic principles with Robin M.), is due to the fins all working together v. the center fin dragging on the tri fin.  And, now that I have the fins set up asymmetrically (And the “foot stopper” too.) I feel like I can push as hard as I want.  I will say, I’ve only gone left the one good session at the left point, and given the waves were perfect, but only head to shoulder high, so I’m not as sure about back side tube riding, as I felt like I was going so fast, and it took some thought and work to stall, and the waves were not wide open over head barrels, so it wasn’t an easy test for ridding deep in the pocket.  But…  There was no want for speed, and this is the best board I’ve had for kicking/pulling out backside.

The only thing I thought to add, after writing the above las

t night, is the way speed is maintained through turns… Took a few waves to get past the “hanging on” feeling from going so fast through the turns… Adjusting the fins helped with that too – Feeling a little more like the driver, rather than just along for the ride.

OK – Some pics below.

This one is to show the step rails, I liketo call my Huno shell..

Nose channels

Nose Vee

Nose rocker

Tail rocker/kick

One last tail shot

Thanks for playin'

I previewed and don't know how to get rid of the crap from the windows document... I tried back space and the whole thread went away... AHHH!!!  I thought I'd just lost all that downloading... Anyway...

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This is the shot I refer to w/the “Sally” - the bottom board…  Nice quiver care huh… Ha!

Guess I gotta get that memory chip taken care of, so I can take the higher resolution shots…  Sorry for the slight blur…

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Hi Taylor -

Love those boards.  Always some out of the box stuff from the PNW!

Did you do the tubercle treatment on the fins?

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I like it!

The nose looks much stronger than a step deck with all of the channels. That has a lot going on,

I would love to give it a spin.

What is the rocker N &T specs on it?

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Thanks for the notes you guys - 

John - Yeah, I customized the fins myself.  I think, well, I’m almost 100% sure, I’ve written it before, but the tubercles do make a noticeable difference, much the same physics as the MVG’s.

Lava - What?  Can’t you read the specs. on the deck?  Ha!

Out of an 8’ panel I ended up w/an 8’2" “on the bottom curve” length.  But, the width of the panel was 3" and I cut out 7 sections, but due to sanding the faces, the blank ended up @ 20.75" - So, the finished board is probably about 21" - four layers of 6oz full wrap. w/45/45 degree patches of 6oz, nose and tail bottom/top w/“belly” area too.  In fact I put an “I beam” strip down the deck (Ambrose style) as I was concerned about the strength… I’m sure it was overkill, but oh well.

I didn’t put a picture up of it, but there are similar channels on the tail third deck too.

By “step deck”, I meant the “sk8” style deck belly that “steps” down to the rails.

The blank started out just under 3.5" thick, but I put some concave on the deck belly, and the bottom has a deep single concave @ 3/8" deep, so the max thickness is probably about 3" give or take.

The tail is 13" and the nose is @ 10 3/4".

Lava - after all that… I read, in my massive ego way… Ha!  “Rocket” numbers… Then I go back and realize rocker numbers…

I’d have to go back and look  - I still do my rocker layouts based on true geometric apex, so I don’t remember how it looked like it might have been from the center line.  If there is interest I’ll figure it out.  As you can see the nose @ 1’ is pretty low, as the 5+" of flip happens right there, and it’s nearly flat from 18" to 36" - the tail rocker is flat from 18" to the tail, w/a little kick at the last 4".  

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Demented, Taylor....

I'm at a loss for words.

What's the idea behind the flat rocker from 1' n to center? Paddle speed?

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Thanks, I think, Mike - It’s not totally flat, but maybe 1/16" per 6".

Well - I made a board w/the rocker curve I was using, but then I put a deep wide channel, and steep Vee panels, from about 18" to center,  which really flattened out the “entry” rocker - that board is 7’5", and has the same Vee flipped nose.  

What I found, for me, of course, was I ended up paddling further forward on the board, and, not that I was paddling any faster, but it really did seem to help with catching smaller waves, and didn’t seem to hurt in any way - plus, I’ve read lot’s here about low entry rocker equaling ease of wave catching - and, as you can see, given I use an 8’er as a daily rider, and considering my 7’5" is my “short” small wave board, I like all the help I can get.

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That was a good demented, a ''pulled out all the stops'' demented.

I remember your 7'5'' with the huge slot through the entry/middle. One of my friends used to shape a more moderate version of the same thing into a lot of his boards back early 80s. So on this one the concave behind the V nose takes the place of the slot?

 

 

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Hey Mike - I wrote most of what follows and realized you are referring to an older board, and what I wrote below is about a more recent board - the slot and vee panels end @ 1/4 board length from tail.  So take what follows for what it’s worth.

Well - Yes and no I guess.  The slot had the heavy vee panels up front to, and once the waves get head high or so - a certain amount of speed, the rocker that I inadvertently created the way I resolved the panels to flat - the board kind of would get stuck, not go on rail.  I posted about it, and the consensus I came away with was too much rocker near the tail (It ended up about 2 - 2.5 feet from the tail.)

I changed my thinking quite a bit about concave and lift due to the thread about concave = control a while back, and other things I’ve read, consultation with Robin Mair, combined with my own experiences too.  So I’ve gone with the full deep single, entry rocker to about 2.5’ from tail, then to deep double.  For added directional flow through the fins, and my own interpretation of the concave for control - It goes all the way to the rail, so it kind of makes “more” rail…

Well - As I wrote, it has a trippy feel up front, so who knows???  

More testing soon.  ;-)

Thanks again for asking -

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After seeing your board I am inspired to revisit my 8’6" silverbuttet board. Worked good from 3’ with the kids on it to 2.5 x overhead +.

The only bad part about this board was that the nose snapped off 3x’s. I think your nose-channel- sk8 shape will be much stronger.

So today I got out my skillsaw-Cad program and made a new hotwire template.

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Nice cut!

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Stoke Ian - Glad to read…  Makes me feel like it was worth it.  For all my “uniqueness” - this is what Sways has been all about for me - take information/knowledge and apply it to what I am doing.  Hope it works - keep us “posted”… Ha!