Anybody interested in talking about experience with a board of this type – construction, strength, durability, performance etc. I am making a board of this type, have done flexible tail section before, but am going for removable, and adjustable this time. Questions, comments, concerns? I am looking for input on the strength and durability issue, as well as the adjustability issue. Thanks for taking the time. tO
do you mean you want to able to change sections of your board???remove square and slot on rounded pin???change rocker ??? regards BERT
Why??? What`s the point?? There might be good reasons why no one has made a two piece flex tail board.
Pleeeeeeze, can’t the skeptics and mr. negatives just shut up and let people discuss things ? t.o. is asking to discuss the matter, he’s not asking for unproductive input from narrow minded thinkers. guys, if you don’t have real input, relax, sit back and listen !!! t.o., i hope you come up with some great results from this experiment.
I’ve contemplated making a 2 part board this way for a different reason but have not yet tried it. One idea (using normal materials) was two nesting pieces, both glassed, with perhaps a thin foam shock absorber, and attachment method depending on where/when you wanted to do the swaps (I was thinking “in the water” changes so was leaning toward cable/elastic attachments)… sounds like an interesting project. Strain in the joint area seems like the major hurdle.
Yeah - That would be one of the points. The other would be for adjustable flexability.
In water adjustablity would be one of the peaks. You and I are thinking the same on the stress areas, but my last flex tail, and thanks to the guy for sticking up for me to the naysayer, was ok, but fixed in flexability and tail shape. Part of the goal is to make interchangeable pieces for travel compactaability, and adaptability. The first goal is to avoid major problems others may have experienced in regards to strength, durability, and materials.
Hey, Taylor! Welcome to Swaylocks!!
i’ve been talking with KP and PG about this same idea for a couple of years now.i think it would be bitchin’ to have flex tails that slide and lock onto the board-vaious shapes and degrees of flex.i guess pope’s bisect got me to thinking about how it could be done-still researching…
Hah - My brother Dale “Solo” What a trip huh? How funny about the guy asking why, what’s the point etc. Well, I’ll see if I get any good feed back. Got some great stuff off a “thread” about glassing. All - If you were going to be reinforcing points/areas on the deck to fasten down a load bearing item, such as a strong, flexible strip to hold a tail to a body of a board, how would you go about doing it. I am putting small channels in the blank and then wetting out glass rope and laying it in under the glass – all at the same time. Hoping, that by spreading the stress load out through the underlying glass rope - the bolts holding the strip won’t pull out the “plug” from the deck My idea is based on older sail boards that had leash plug type of inserts to hold down the foot straps.
With a well designed flextail you eliminate the for need various rear templates,rockers and bottom contours. Portability is a separate issue. “A lot of my stuff has been too futuristic for the mainstream. But that’s the way it is if you’re exploring design. You have to take new ideas to their extreme. Then maybe you’ll come back from that extreme to some central point. But the design process demands that you take things to extremes. It’s like tuning guitar strings. You go up, and then you come back a little. My stuff has diverged from the mainstream for a long time. By and large the shaping community in the Seventies and Eighties said “you can’t have those hard rails, you can’t have deep concaves.” But virtually all mainstream boards in recent years have featured concave permutations and people are all using much finer edge control than they were. So I feel that many of the design concepts I’ve worked with for decades have been vindicated.” Mitchell Rae http://www.outerislandsurf.com/ 
I’d try using multiple hole inserts mounted perpendicular to the stringer – easy & strong.
What is a Flex tail? sorry, I haven’t heared of that yet. do you have the tail attached elastic to the hull? How much of the tail? is it like trailing behind? like elastic peaces on the tails on windsurfboards? Any pictures? cheers Marcus
Check out www.surflight.com for complete boards that flex. I own one and can’t say enough good things about it. Striving for flex is the right direction fellers. Keep experimenting and piss off the closed-minded “soul shapers” on this site. The Surflight is skinned with elatomeric polyurethane just like a skateboard wheel so it is tough against impact, yet allows flexing. Polyester and glass will never allow adequate flex poperties at surfboard thickness dimensions. Keep the experiments rolling! Love, Delbert Pumpernickel
No pictures yet. Imagine if you took a board and cut off 18”-24” of the tai, sealed up the butt ends, and then used something akin to a ruler, (Think wooden ruler in elementary school, and making the music of holding one end on the desk and flicking the free end hanging of the end of the desk, and then moving it back and forth to change the pitch-frequency of the vibration, wha –whaa- whaaaa.) only much stronger and more flexible, and, as one of you suggested, put inserts along/in the stringer on both the tail and body, tap out the inserts, and then screw it back together. You get a board that flexes off the bottom and in the turns, giving extra rocker and push, when you need it, and flatter down the line, when you don’t. This is the main “performance” idea behind the basic concept. There are further extrapolations, such as a variety of tails and flex for various conditions, and when the pieces are apart, a shorter item to pack around.
Sounds like you are trying to achive a board that drives like a specialist board(hawian speed board) and one that turns like an twin fin…It is very interesting to know we are all looking for the same thing…A board without compromises. There are other ways of getting around this ! According to Paul it can be done by way of intergration of specific subproducts each with muliple jobs, according to the status of the board, be it paddling out paddling on catching and riding a wave each of these intergrated flow forms complement the next in succession. Every conventional surfcraft pushes a bow wave some more than others and this can really make a board sluggish, so to straighten the path for the water to flow, will create less resistance to the laminar flow…and push less water… OK straight rails into the nose wont do, you need nose rocker for takeoff and long arc turns…what if you could use a displacement nose? With the same angle as the Bow Pressure Wave…Thats a very small nose though But amazingly the same shape as a MAKO shark or J39 Eurojet…This type of nose would leave you with a difficult time trying to paddle and catch waves…But if you add another Subproduct(wings) this can overcome. By adding slow speed lifting areas you can keep the Mako nose…But those wings they will catch and slow the board down?..By adding another Subproduct this can be over come…High speed lift, Concave with the plan shape of a big wave speedboard. The reason I mention the planshape of the CC is because this is the new shape you are riding…By the time you get to your feet the CC has popped and lifted the wings away from harm(drag and catch a rail)…FP love late take offs and can be turned off the nose when dropping into a wave… So youre flying down the line fine…well what now?..do a turn? and get back into the pocket or just run the speed to the max? Do I want to go out onto the face and play or do I sit in the power, you acctally have a choice with FP… Ok well you think turn, and you go “oh no that rear section of the FP is to wide”…It is not as wide as it looks it just that you are comparing it to a very narrow nose…the rear rail line in basicly the same as a conventional thruster the difference is the the wings hide another seperate rocker…It starts from the leading edge of the wing and runs into the tail relife…The nose in tight turns is out of the water…Only the rear section of the FP is working at this time… Im finding it very intersting to hear other individualls experiences in over comming the age old problem of compromise…Although it has already been achived by PC…Im not going to say youre wrong… Cheers and keep outside the box ! regards T.E. http://www.geocities.com/wunderboyi/ninetysixpercent.html
Yo, is that the shark that latched onto that guy and wouldn’t let go? check out the story on CNN below. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/02/11/australia.shark.ap/index.html
this thread WAS about flex tails, what is your problem?
I wonder if there are any ski / snowboard flex applications that apply? I seem to remember seeing something for the backcountry that allowed the skier to afdust the flex in the tail for different conditions?