Time to shape my Bonzer

General Discussion
61

Here’s one consideration about changing the cants.  From my limited hacker understanding, more cant means looser, less cant is drivier.  The bonzer is already a very drivey design.  I’m wondering what you can do to retain the drive and make it looser.  Reducing cant might tighten it up further?  That’s why I like the idea of tightening the cluster.  

Also, having different cants will change the hydrodynamics completely.  It won’t really be a bonzer at all anymore. I’m thinking about Herb Spitzer’s super chargers, the little canards.  Maybe your twinzers too Mr J?  Aren’t the forward fins meant to clean up the water flow over the principle fins? What’s the thinking there?

You could use Proboxes and be able to change cants and the cluster.  Although I believe when Probox LArry makes bonzer runners for probox he lays up an angled tab. That would necessitate solid glass lay ups. My one complaint about multi fin boards is the tail weight of all the fins, boxes and reinforcements.  I’ve been going with bamboo fins as a remedy but that would not be possible with Probox runners.

Interesting stuff though.  I hope Yorky does the post bonzer evolution board so if it’s a total dog I don’t make it myself.  If you don’t Yorky, then I might just have to try the experiment myself…the evolution of the revolution.

62

…well Yorky,

Sometimes I prefer to put headlines (guidelines) and the rest let the guy figure it out…

 

I see some confusion with the side runners, here some insights

-thought due to a lot are clear glass and the “leftover” edge let by the glasser blends perfectly well with the fin

so most of the times seem that the fins are longer

-some dims are provided for the boxes and not for the glass ons

-not the proper fin area

-not the right template

-boards done by people who really don t know about it

 

-most bonzer don t have overlap

“a few” have 1/4 as too much

the side runners are not exactly fins

I mean, basically they are but not for what a fin is intended for

so they re side runners to redirect the water

a bonzer is like a single fin with muscles (and more lift)

so think as a single fin with all the looseness of that

and not as a thruster/quad type

the main fin has a 1/4 overlap into the rear of the back runners (not counting the glass rope)

this let 5 1/2 for the small boards with 6" fin , 5 3/4 for a bit taller board or 6 1/2 fin

for bigger boards up to 7 is 5 3/4 - 6

for 7" fins is around 6; 1/4 more for bigger fins

I keep the distance for semi s, guns (narrowed boards) and lboards

but you can think about them

is somewhat similar than the thrusters

 

 

—talking about Hamilton

well, the guys is a big name in the industry and good surfer

also seems a cool guy (but I don t met him personally)

but I dunno about the shop

why?

because

some guys from here worked with him and I know these fellas

and they dont have good products and Hamilton talked good about they work…

so I have my doubts.

One is a longtime boardbuilder (Damiani is the last name)

that worked like a year or may be more with Hamilton

plus a kid that have the brother living in Hawaii, and went couple of times there and Hamilton

gave him a job (in first time I thought was coolness) but let the kid put the fins…the kid barely can do a ding repair…

 

so, all the previous pictures of Hamilton s board don t look right for my taste

and for international standards of quality and most important, for quality design

 

 

–regarding different tilt

I did a few

but in that case you need to think the fins as real fins (in design)

so you need to go with more than 1/8 thickness and foil

I did with 1/4 and 5/16 thickness

In my opinion, work better in small boards (small volume too) and radical surfer

not so good in semi s or like that

but I prefer equal tilt for the side runners

 

few years ago I asked here about opinions to double foil the back side runners and let the front ones dingle foiled and with less thickness

Imagine one large fin like the 3 ones, but with thickness increased backwards (so tapered out to front tip)

but splitted like the 5 finned

I don t had a response here

then I forget about it

and all the rest of the bonzers that I did/do were/are with the same thickness for all the siderunners

sometimes with single foil sometimes with not too much foil

depending the final use.

 

63

The Hamilton board is 7'6" X 20 1/2".  I just posted to show that as with many designs, there is a always room for variation on a theme.  No need to sweat a fraction of an inch here or there, especially on the bigger boards.

I don't know who glued up the blank but this was a display board and has suffered a bit of sun tanning on the bottom.  I know some of the urethane glues resulted in some discoloration along the stringer.  I've seen many boards with similar discoloration.  I'd guess they didn't spray the blank white before glassing.  The deck is much cleaner for some reason - likely less sun exposure.  I think the board is fairly old but not sure exactly. 

I bought it used more for a point of reference than anything and haven't ridden it.  I just posted the pics to try and help Yorky out on fin layout. 

I know he has done some nice work with advanced composite reinforcements (carbon rails and mystery fabric) and posted his projects here before.  I'm anxious to see what he comes up with next.

 

64

good on ya Yorky !!

 

  keep the photos coming !

 

  cheers

 

   ben

65

Yes I think your understanding of cant is generally accepted design. However I didn’t suggest reduce cant as an isolated statement. If you check out my diagram - the one which Yorky reposted - it does suggest to reduce cant in the rear runners but in combination with an increase cant in the front runners. Theoretically reducing cant in the front runners is where the gains in looseness can be made. It would be an inefficient attempt at looseness to reduce cant in the back runners which sit right in the middle of the cluster. However my diagram proposes increasing cant in the rear runners this would have its stiffening effect very much reduced for leverage reasons being in the middle of the cluster. The increased cant in the rears will supply more drive and might make up for the loss of drive of extra canting the front runners - thus answering your concern about losing drive?

it was just an idea, I don’t know what the effect will be like. Another idea would be to keep rear runners exactly to Campbell specs and put extra cant on the front ones only.

I have no idea how the superchargers work and can only guess what was going on with my uni-canted twinzer type board. The word “type” underlined to emphasise that my attempt was uni-canted and not built to Jobson dual cant specs.
To summarise:
spitzer superchargers good
uni-canted overlapping twinzer type bad I explained what was bad about it in a previous post on this thread.

I hope this is food for thought for you. Enough food such that you will go out and build something and post it here!

cheers

[img_assist|nid=1048908|title=MrJ 5 box experiment, great as twin, good as 2 + 1, poor as uni-canted twinzer|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=527]

66

I’m still liking the Mrj theory of less cant on the back and more on the front (Fins, if I can call them that). I feel the water would release much better out through them, I don’t feel it would affect the single fin at all and I think it would drive around and through turnes quite nicely, (get away from that theory of “Bonzer’s are good in a straight line-barrel boards-good in good waves”) It just makes sense to me too.

However I’m going to wait to get all my fins and prop them up on the lamed board a get a feel for how they look… Sounds hoaxy, but you know how you just get a feeling of what looks right. Kind of like how you know where you would stand on a board when you put your feet on it while siting on the lounge, ha ha.

Now to the real important stuff… What main colour for the bottom…mmm, orange, green, aqua.

A friend, he’s  a professional painter (not spray) might drop over to the factory tomorrow night with a fine spray gun… He got me into the Bonzer in the first place, and has never done any spray work before. He’s really syked on doing something on a surfboard, might not be this one…we’ll see. He’s a busy man.

catch yas soon… Little bit pissed right now! ha.

Peace

 

67

Mrj, I must say that blue boards fin set up kind of looks a bit funny to me, maybe its in relation to the tail outline we can see. How the fins are clustered back (and raked) as the board continuse to gain width further up… But thats what building boards its all about, Its all fun.

Thanks for your great input on this thread, keep up the good work mate.

Cheers.

68

yes mate, you go with whatever gut feel tells you about the fins postions. We are looking forward to more pics

My blue board, the tail shape is a bit funny, so is the rest of the board - that was the MrJ Blob model. Playing with all the boxes was informative. To the left is another flawed board with an asymetric tail - it had 3 adjustable lokboxes so again informative. I'm more of an ideas person than craftsman lol

69

board looks sweet Yorky! bonzers are so sexy!

can't wait to see the finished product.

70

Having just completed my latest attempt at a bonzer (currently posted on home page of sways) I've found this to be a really informative thread...many thanks. I make boards for myself and a few friends...started about 5 years ago. I've picked up most of my information from sways and visit daily. I am a hobyist. I love this stuff. I've had an enormous amount of questions answered by reading this thread that were banging around in my head throughout the bilud of my last board.

It's a shame to read a negative vibe running throughout. Many have mentioned this is a place to share...not a place to snarl. I hate that vibe in the water and in life generally and avoid confrontation at all costs (with exception of being redirected on the phone to call centres in other continents). It's amazing that you guys will share information with people like me so freely but it's really not worth airing agression...

I really wish I'd seen your pictures of the concaves taped up to help with the cutting...I did mine by eye and it took FOREVER to get them looking right. I also had the fortune of borrowing a Campbell Bros board to take some measurements from and interpret into the size I was working at. This helped greatly. You'll notice that my board dosent have the side channels. This may not suit purists but I can't figure out how to shape them in when using Lokboxes...apologies if the ommision upsets anyone but I ended up with a board I really like the look of...

Once again many thanks Yorky...superb thread...you've certainly sparked discussion that's added to my knowledge.

71

thirdshape, cool mate. I’ll check your board when I get home from work tonight.

I hope this thread will keep going and we all can share and push the boundaries of the Bonzer “Type” design.

I’ll be definitely doing another one in the future, and plan to share it here on this thread. As they are a lot of work I don’t think the financial reward will be there for them to become a mass produced product (I could be wrong). More a work of Art!

Perfect board to be explored on Sways.

72

i went through my mailbox and found this about concaves-  from TFAD who got it from Duncan-

 

From Duncan: 

Jp. The single flairs out toward the nose. In others words the concave system is an hourglass shape. When it connects with the double concave it is at it’s narrowest width. As for why you can’t see the single in pictures, as you know Malcom is a great shaper and knows how to blend. 

Now, why didn’t I say that?  

73

Direct-from-the-developer info. Good stuff.

Interesting side note, it was noted/discussed a whole back that bonzers were the first popular boards to toe the side fins. All multi-fin boards since have had toe, until the recent ''lets-do-something-different-even-if-it-does-ignore-basic-advances-in-design'' craze.

Board is looking nice, yorky.

74

I just got home from the night shift working on my Board.

The factory where i’m working now is mainly used for shaping, I contract my glassing out except for my experiments where I  have one glassing stand (and a shit load of different materials/cloths). Any way, here it is so far.

As you can see I used a blue that I sprayed on the bottom and over the rail on to the deck, about 30mm, I sprayed the board white first then the blue and then I cleared it. All with acrylic paints.



75

Then straight to the glassing stand for some 4oz. (and I shit load of decals… my retro, hippy Yorky flower, ha ha).
I put an extra strip of 4 oz under the single and two small pieces at the E-wing.
I really worked the Kinetic Epoxy (which has a perfect gel time for a difficult job) and ended up with a tight job with no air and no excess resin under the glass in the concaves, so i’m a happy hippy.




76

Here the bottom all glassed up with my flower smiling away.
I had zero bleed on the deck from the rich blue and as I said the glassing was as good as I could get it… I’m No Pro, however, I did work as a glasser about 12 years ago for a little while, I never glassed anything like this though, and I had never even herd of Epoxy back then.
I will never glass with PU again, Epoxy is far superior in so many ways for the kind of play work I do for myself.
Production Line manufacturing is a bit different from what I know.

Hope you like it.
Catch ya’s tomorrow with the deck glassed… hopefully!




77

board looks really good Yorky, i'm loving this thread! i want to do a bonzer so bad.

the color looks great and the E-wings, spot on... most bonzers that i've seen are not HP shapes and i'm

really looking forward to seeing this one finished being that it's close to what i would ride dims-wise.

looking forward to a ride report too. i'd love to hear your take on the bonzer experience since it seems

like you surf HP shortys.?

78

Chrisp, I’m psyched to give it a go.

I have a new short board ready at the same time, just a standard design, single concave.

I’ll make a little video of me riding both boards and post it up here (That would be easier for me because we have a little video camera with a good zoom, our still camera isn’t good for surfing at all).

Then we can pick the eyes out of it and me. ha.

I tend to be quite a zippy surfer and the bonzer isn’t exactly designed for that type of surfing. Thats why I got so interested in It in the first place. Tone things down and get that single fin feel. Still try and push it as much a I can though.

Either way, if it works good or not, it will be fun.

79

This is probably pretty obvious, but don’t try to surf the bonzer like your thruster. The analogy I like to make is a skiing one. You’ll understand if you ski (by the way, I haven’t skied in over 10 years, my last pair of skis were 207cm…I think they’re all like 160cm now days). The thruster is like a pair of slalom skis, twitchy and quick. The bonzer is like a pair of giant slalom skis, more flowing, longer radius turns. I like the bonzer if the wave is right because it has this smooth carving feel. If you like quick snappy, short radius turns you might not like the bonzer. That’s my two cents worth. Others may have different experiences. One thing I don’t like about the bonzers I’ve made (mind you not Campbell brothers boards), is that they slow down fast when the wave goes soft and fat. Maybe they’re not going slower than another board, but they’re no longer in “fifth gear” so it feels slow.

80

Here’s  some shots of the Deck glassed. A chose to glass it the same as my personal shortboards. Most people would disagree with this glassing schedule.
1 x 4oz deck with tiny vee 4 oz toe patch.