to all you european swaylockians!

General Discussion
1

hi everyone!

i just shaped my first blank (atua.cores stringerless EPS 1.9lbs) and it went pretty well. it wont be my last for sure.

since i live in austria, far away from the ocean, theres nothing like a surf scene or industry here around the corner, which makes it very hard and expensive to get everything together for shaping and especially for glassing.

i found a source for PU blanks in southern germany, which is perfect cause i can drive there and pick them up. they sell burford blanks and techblanks from spain (anyone use those tech blanks? are they any good?)

so thats good news for the blanks.

i`m so torn apart by the whole glassing thing tough.

when i first started to think about shaping, i was like all epoxy over EPS, because i dont really have a place to glass with POLY where i wouldnt stink everyone out (is this english? guess not.)

but the epoxy for one board (just the resin) would cost me a lot of money, really a lot of money. with everything else i need to glass a board its like almost as much as my last new custom 6`2 shortboard.

so i`m not quite sure how to go on.

since i guess the glassing is very very important for the performace of a board and its looks, i guess i would prefer to pay a bit more for a professional poly glassjob, than saving a few bucks and doing it myself with epoxy nowhere near the quality of a professional job.

so if you know anyone who does glassjobs in europe, the nearer to austria the better (netherlands/germany/france/italy/…) i would be very happy if you`d let me know.

i am well aware of all the shipping costs and hassle but i have those issues anyway with almost anything i need and cant build myself.

another thing im really not sure about right now is the famous planer issue.

whats the deal with the clark hitachi here in europe? i ve read that its avaliable from seabase and i guess viral surf in bidart. do you get it 110V only? is it worth all the hassle or should i go buy a bosch and kick those little metal plates out of the knob to make it rotating clickless? with what do you fill the V grates in the front shoe to make it even?

opinions on that one would be very much appreciated too.

ok, enough for now. thanks a lot for helping me out,

greetings from the f***ing cold and rainy austria.

chris

2

With epoxy resin and a paint roller and all the advice you can find here on Swaylocks, you can make a very good glass job. It is the fast squeegee thing that is very hard to learn (with normal polyester resin), but working slowly and using a short hair paint roller will give you a very nice and easy result with epoxy.

Concerning the planner, the professionnal ones are not compulsory, a cheap one will get you started.

3

As pierre said, you could do a good enough glassjob yourself. Just take your time. Plenty of advice in the archives. Having a blank shipped to a glasser and back will kill it cost and timewise. As for epoxy, it’s hard to get surfboard quality epoxy in Europe. Seabase has RR, but shipping is killer. But check around, last time I bought epoxy I think I paid about about €100 for 7.5kg (west system epoxy cost 2-3 times as much) and I live in a ridiculous high cost country. That particular epoxy was made in Germany and worked well, you should be able to get something from Germany for far less. I end up with a cost of about €100-150 pr. board here, glass, epoxy, plugs, fins, you could do better. Shop around.

regards,

Håvard

4

French company make Sicomin epoxy. They do a fabulous board grade epoxy. I bought a Hitachi from Seabase and it cost a packet, but it is the business, the dust extraction to a hoover is excellent.

5

R and G in Germany do a wide range of epoxies. Some cheap ones which would need to be painted and also a more expensive surfboard specific UV resistant one. Pretty good prices on their glass too.

6

Trimchris,

not knowing much about epoxy, i’ll let the others advise you on that. Planers: the Hitachi P20SB (Clark modified) is sold by Seabase but only in 110V. Viralsurf gets one from Shapers Australia which is not modified but can be ordered with the famous “Shapers Barrel” in it for a good price (actually not much more than the barrel itself) and it is 220V. I heard the barrel is great for shaping EPS and it is much easier for shaping Burford blanks, too. (Burford foam is excellent, but planer blades tear into it whereas barrels leave a clean, even surface.)

Techblanks have excellent plugs and some of them are really thick (which allows for some creativity when you don’t like close-tolerance blanks too much) but I have had many out-gassing issues with them. As a result, I have not used them for some time now. Maybe the latest batches are a lot better, I can’t tell you…

Use aluminum powder filled epoxy to fill up the V-groove in the front shoe:

Then, sand flush when solid.

7

thanks a lot everyone!

thanks a lot balsa for the picture.

you know, i`m so stoked on shaping, the process of designing and then forming a board, when everything gets round and all of that. this makes me really happy and im very motivated to get better at it.

so if it would work out somehow, i want to just concentrate on the shaping part of the whole story, not doing any glassing experiments on not too badly shaped blanks with much too expensive epoxy in much too cold weather. yet.

i want to glass sometime, but someone in here said “walk prior to running”

i just ask myself if its worth it to even start glassing. the boards i admire soo much, most of em are glassed at moonlight. i know that i most certainly will never get to that level myself because those guys do it for their living. they are pros. my personal interest in the glassing part is not nearly as big as the interest in shaping. so i guess ill focus on getting better shaping and leave the resin stuff for someone else who knows what he/shes doing.

thanx a lot guys,

chris

8

servus chris,

i get resin shipped to spain

http://www.bacuplast.de/surfboard/surfboardselbstbau.html

ich benutze epl/eph 285.

fuer den rest

http://shop.ezentrum.de/4DCGI/ezshop?hid=27&sprachnr=1

falls du eps brauchst und in der naehe von wien wohnst sag bescheid. koennt sein das ich wen kenne.

firti

uzzi

9

The resin you can get from Atua.Cores (1070 S made by Resoltech) is surf-specific too, it makes no blush (no free amines), is UV resistant, has the perfect viscosity for EPS and hardens even in cold temperatures and moist weather (10°C rainy weather, no problems when I tested it).

10

thanks a lot pierreK!

if i`ll do it myself, im gonna give the atua epoxy a try.

have a good one,

chris

11

And if you’re gonna use the Atua online blank designing software and have difficulties with the french explanations on how to use it, don’t hesitate to ask me (I’m the author of that software).

12

hey pierreB!

thanks a lot.

my first two blanks were atua.cores blanks actually, designed with your software.

it worked really well and the blanks are very good, but i personally would love it if you could switch the design software to a portrait mode, to see the board like if it was standing.

and another improvement would be a function to be able to add anchor points to for example do diamond or swallow tails directly in the software.

it would be very cool too if you could type in the width of the board, so its fixed when you move your points around.

just some thoughts.

cheers,

chris

13
Quote:

hey pierreB!

thanks a lot.

my first two blanks were atua.cores blanks actually, designed with your software.

it worked really well and the blanks are very good, but i personally would love it if you could switch the design software to a portrait mode, to see the board like if it was standing.

and another improvement would be a function to be able to add anchor points to for example do diamond or swallow tails directly in the software.

it would be very cool too if you could type in the width of the board, so its fixed when you move your points around.

just some thoughts.

cheers,

chris

Hello Chris,

Thanks for your comments. I like the landscape/portrait switch, it’s a great idea. Regarding the fish/diamond tail, remember this is a tool meant to design a blank, not a finished surfboard and that it’s better to cut your swallow tails later on during the shaping process.

In any case, I’ll take your comments into account and submit them to the guys at Atua and see if they want to have it included in the next version.