Trials and tribulations of a Noob Shaper

I opened this thread specifically for a feedback on a template I created, but have since thought it would be good to follow the whole build process for others in my position. I’ll keep it open and update periodically with progress, problems, mistakes, questions, etc. It’s now retitled “Trials and tribulations. …”

This is board #1.  I’m interested in hearing from the gurus here how badly i screwed this up.

Big props to the BoardCad people - that software is awesome.  My other post drew a comment from JRandy about volume concerns with my design.  I’m a big guy and the board I described was very similiar to his first board and he mentioned it doesn’t float so well with him on it.  So last night I set to reworking and this is the end result.  

The goal here is small wave design for a fat guy, I weigh 240 and am still a novice, but at least i’m somewhat athletic.  It’s not likely this board will ever see head high waves so I reduced the rocker right away.  I increased the thickness throughout most of the profile to get more volume.  I also widened the tail to a squish design and added parallel in the mid section, but tried to maintain a decent amount of curvature from the tail and in 3’ to make easier to turn.  Fattened up the nose as well for stability and more volume.  The hull will be a vee from the tail in 2’ and flat the rest of the way.  Rails will be 50/50 for all but the last 2’.

I am concerned that i’m still not allowing enough volume, i’m on the very low end of firewire’s calculator recomendations.  I’m also worried that the reduced rocker and parallel will make this thing absolutely impossible to turn - i’m not looking ot carve up the wave, just want to be able to maneuver and make some lazy turns.  I’m serously debating a 10" longboard fin box now with 2 side fins.  What about the thickness - will that be a problem?

I attached images of the outline, profile and overall stats.

Thanks for the feedback in advance. 

 

 



Not a guru here, just a backyard shaper. I would even the template curve out to eliminate the straight rails in the midsection.  At your size you could add a little length.  I am a fan of thick boards, but I would definitely foil the nose and tail thinner.  As drawn looks too clunky. Volume is your friend, but distribution of volume is also important.

Do a search and look at boards by ACE, uncleD, and joe Blair for some inspiration.

I would also suggest holding off on sidebites, ride it as single fin first, you might find no need for side fins.

My current board is 7’ 10’’ x 23’’ x 3.625 thick, to an 8’’ sq tail.           Nose and tail well foiled.        I too weigh 240 pounds.        No floatation issues.    The board is a single fin.      Step away from the computer(board cad), and learn to use your eyes, hands, and mind.    It’s way more rewarding.

In my opinion there’s a point of diminshing returns with volume, and having more volume doesn’t necessarily help you get more waves.  You’ve got an 8ft length, which all by itself imposes some limitations on wave catching.    Once you have “adequate” float the rocker and wetted surface area become the bigger factors in paddling speed.  My guess is that your design with you on it won’t catch any more waves with 90 liters than with 70 liters.  

 

If you’re married to the shorter length then widening the tail block like a Simmon’s design will improve the wave count.  And make it harder to turn.  

My next build for myself will be to go to a lower volume board.  I’m 45, 205 pounds with a bad shoulder.  I’ve got 3 high volume short boards I’ve been riding the past few years.  Some high volume designs work very well for me like the dumpster diver but I’ve found that they don’t work well when the waves are any bigger than head high.  My next board will go the opposite direction to less volume for waves with some juice.

240, Bill?  Must be all that metal in your knees. 

Nope.    The metal is in the hip.     The real problem stems from my undiminished appetite, as I became more and more sedentary.    I’m really considering the Medifast program.     How I’d love to be 185 again !     Sigh.

It’s been a few years but last time I saw you , you were fairly trim. You blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar will all be better if you drop a few.  Hijack over. 

All the best

Hey Ham-

I am glad to see you are still going on this project. Hopefully this thread picks up some steam and gives you some great ideas for your board. All the best, J

Also a backyard dude…

I agree on foiling the nose and tail more, especially the tail. I ride a board, albeit much shorter, with a high volume, thick nose. That’s never given me an issue. But a tail with too much volume is harder to sink and such, which isn’t so good for turning. I’d also agree on making more curve to the outline, even if it’s gentle. If you’ve ever ridden a foamie, you might know the feeling of a straight, thick board. For me, it was impossible to control and it jsut went straight, as fast as possible. The rails had to be 3" thick, as was the center. So foiled rails would benefit you I’d imagine. And with all this width and such, the volume lost probably wouldn’t kill you. 90 liters is a lot, I feel like.

Your template looks very close to what I’m riding. Looks good to me.

8ft x 23’’ ,wide nose and tail. About 4 1/2" thick.

Has heeps of vee and that make for good turns without having to sink the tail.

Easy to paddle and catches anything. Good from 1ft to shoulder high.

I wiegh 91kg. so could go down to 4" thick.

Will you also be making the paddle for this stand up paddle board? Timber or carbon fiber?

Alright.  I’m trying to incorporate the feedback, am I getting warmer?  I fattened the tail more, but removed the parallels in favor of a more continuous curve.  I increased the rail rocker and gave a more continuous fair in the nose and tail, but added belly in the nose and vee in the tail to reduce the hull rocker and keep almost the whole board in contact with the water.  Is this a bad idea for small mushy waves? I also included a cross section at 12" from the tail of the vee/belly contour I’m imagining for the tail section.

Thrailkill, I get what you’re saying, I wasn’t going to use cad at all, just make a template from my imagination, but it’s the best way I can think of to share  and get feedback of what I’m imagining without confusion.  In reality, I’ll probably deviate from the template anyway when shaping either because of screwups and lack of sculpting talent or because something doesn’t quite look right.

Note: the red lines in the rocker profile are where the rails will be, the black line is the where the stringer would be if I had one.



I made the mistake of surfing boards with too much volume for a long time.  It really hurts more than it helps.  It even hinders wave catching because of all the extra drag created by the thick tail and rails, among other things (Bert Berger wrote a very interesting piece on this).  What you want is the correct volume for you and the waves you ride, and this includes foiling the rails, nose and tail.  Too thick in those areas and the board will be a pig no matter how big the rider.

I’ll defer to the experts here but 3" thickness is really pushing the limit for any functional surfcraft, and maybe 22" wide. If you can’t hit your desired volume in a shorter board, go longer.  That board can be thinner and narrower and will surf better.

If you’re over 50 and not Kelly , volume is your friend. My rule of thumb is 50% of your weight volume for a normal board and 100% of your weight volume at the floaty end of the spectrum.  At 90 to 100kg a 100 litre board will be an easy paddler , catch waves and how it performs will be up tp the other design parameters. 23 inches wide is fine especially in smaller surf. (And no, I don’t use a paddle) cheers.

Only you can answer that - you’re the designer!  Take what you can use from others’ feedback, but don’t worry about incorporating everything, otherwise you’ll end up with something like this…

For me?  No, you’re not getting warmer.  But this may be just the thing you’re after, so who am I to say?  

For a first board, and for the conditions described, I personally would go with a more conventional longboard shape, flat bottom, round rails, V out the tail.  I have a board like that (picture below), it was my first foam shaped board, 5 years later and a little worse for wear, its still one of my favorites in small surf, very good wave catcher, lotsa fun to ride.  I would save the experimental stuff for later, after I’d built a few boards and had a bit more grasp on what’s what and why, so to speak.

No stringer?

Anyway, I’m just a backyard builder.  Swaylocks has a wide variety of members with all different opinions, backgrounds, and skill sets.  The only one here who really knows what you want is you - the main thing is to get in there and do it, have fun with the process, with the learning, and have fun with your new board!

This is good advice.

When I made my first board I got a board I liked to ride and tried to copy it. The process made me really think about how the shaper had got from A to B. Once I finished I was able to compare the two boards and consider the mistakes I made and what I needed to do to make a better board the second time round. This was pre internet days and since no shaper was going to show me their tricks I pretty much had to work it out for myself. (All I had to go on was a ratty old book I dug out if the library circa 1974.)
Anyway, so my advice is to copy a board you like.

Ham, I like the faring you have done on the outline #3. I also like that you have been a good sport to take our comments. Like Huck said, it’s your call on how to go.

This thread has me thinking, dangerous as that is.

So start at the extremes- build a handplane, build a rowboat. If you stand on a handplane it sinks to the bottom since its buoyancy is not enough to overcome your body weight. If you stand in a rowboat it sinks a little but since its ability to displace without sinking exceeds your body weight by a factor of many times your feet stay dry and the top of the craft stays well above water. SUP equals rowboat for this eaxmple, no offense to those who partake. Ham is not building a SUP.

So start to dial it in-build a shortboard and a longboard. Paddle, sit. The shortboard is not enough to float you like the rowboat, it is sunk but is still enough to keep you from sinking. The longboard may be able to bear your weight, but it will most likely have water over the apex of the rails headed towards the deck. 

Sgo mentioned a percent range, and I have seen charts where they graph team riders’ weights versus board volumes, mostly for shortboards. Mr. Thraikill  (55 years plus in the shop and the water) and many, many others clearly state and demonstrate that a surfboard does not need to be boatlike in volume to do the job. I imagine what is appropriate volume-wise to a beginner would just feel like a beachball to someone with skills and experience. I am a beginner and I would like to have enough volume to make learning less of a challenge but not so much as to be impractical…what does that look like?

For folks like Ham and I (beginners making boards w/o blanks and maybe w/o boards to copy) I see issues in where to start so as not to go down the road of making a board that has majors flaws. Using XPS or EPS from the home improvement store gets you in the 8’ x 24" mode. Is an 8’ shape within reason for a big guy beginner? - If yes, how much volume versus weight and where does it need to be/not need to be? If not, then a new starting point is in order or prepare for a longer learning curve on a less than ideal stick.

Some pics, since Ham has been showing us his work. This is still his thread, thanks for having me along for the ride. -J

7’ 11" x 23" x 3 7/16". Tail is 1" x 6", @12" is 16" w x 2 3/8" . Nose is 1 1/8" to start, @12" is 19"w x 1 7/8". Chined up front, otherwise bottom is flat. Rails as shown, harder in the tail. McKee style 4 +1, Proboxes + longbox. Next time I will do quads with the rears more towards the rails and try to get rid of the ‘jowels’ in the foil by the nose.

 

Hey J good points, and thanks for posting your board.  Thanks also for the explanation that you guys are beginners making boards w/o blanks and maybe w/o boards to copy, and limited by the 8’ sheets of foam you are using.

I’ll share some observations as a backyarder, take what you can use and ignore the rest.

I started off in similar situation, but not exactly the same.  My very first board, a HWS, was a direct copy of a surfboard I had in my possession.  For a first board, it was a good way to go.  Freed me up from design considerations, and left me to concentrate on learning how to build a surfboard.  But since that first board, all the boards I’ve made since then have been designed by me from scratch, without a board to copy (I do have access to blanks with stringers and available in longer than 8’ sizes).

Like you guys, I was just getting into surfing at the same time I was getting into making surfboards.  Difference is, I was getting BACK into surfing, after a long time away.  So while I may have age as a limiting factor in my surfing, I had the advantage of a lot of years’ surfing experience in my past.

I learned that even without boards available to copy, you can learn an awful lot from pictures of boards on the internet, and from studying blanks catalogs, both pictures and comments.

I can’t really give a definitive answer on length - if 8’ is your limit, then you have to go with that.  I will say that I think you will learn faster, and have more fun as a beginner (especially at the size Ham mentions in his original post) on a 9’ or longer board.  You can pack more volume into an 8 footer, but it won’t have all the stability and wave-catching ability that a 9 footer (or plus) can.  I also think adding a stringer is a good idea, but I’ve never built a foam board without a stringer.

I don’t put much stock in volume calculators and the like, usually they’re used as a sales tool on a website.  I do put a lot of stock in what’s being done by experienced shapers to make practical and enjoyable boards for older or bigger guys.  That’s why I mentioned the names I did, in my recommendations.  I don’t know if Ham took the time to actually look up the names I gave him, so I’ll post a few pictures here.  These are all pics by guys who are working with much higher volume boards than usual, and are masters at shaping and foiling a board for performance.

9-3 by Joe Blair, posted and likely glassed by UncleD

8’ x 23" “Squish” by ACE

8’ x 25" by UncleD

IIRC this was 8’ x 23" Lineup Killer by Tom Mahady

Joe Blair has a website http://jblairsurf.com, which Ham would have found if he did a google search.  ACE also has a website, http://www.acesurfboards.com, in addition to being a regular contributor to Swaylocks.  Tom Mahady’s website is http://mahadysurfboards.com, he too is a Swaylocks guy.  IIRC UncleD is not a professional board builder, but builds professional quality boards for bigger guys, and is another regular contributor to Swaylocks.

Since beginning to make my own surfboards 5 years ago, I have learned to absorb everything I can from the internet.  But I have also learned that I have to find what works for me and go with it, despite negative comments I might get from the internet.  You have to find a balance between absorbing and ignoring :slight_smile:

I draw my templates by hand then scale them up using a grid to create a spin template - I have been told the right way to make a spin template is to copy an existing board.  I shape with a surform - I have been told a surform is the best tool to fu@k up a surfboard, and is better used as a doorstop.  I sometimes paint my blanks with a roller or paintbrush, I have been told this is the wrong way to paint a blank.  I glass my poly blanks with epoxy, I have been told poly blanks glassed with epoxy are ugly and problematic.  Etc. etc.  My point is, you can’t let someone else’s negative comments discourage you from finding and going with the way that works for you.

In the end, you are the master of your own journey, build the boards you like, and have fun surfing them.  I build all my own boards, for better or worse, and I would never want to go back to just riding what I could buy.

Hope this is some help or encouragement to you and Ham!