So I’m working on this summer behemoth. Started with a 12’ redwood 1/6 & a grand idea. Part Jensen surf/paddle board, part Aquafiend stand-up paddler, part take-my-son-out-with-me mini-tandem, part crowd/tourist control vehicle.
Obviously, its EPS / epoxy / wood in a vac bag. That’s all the rage this year, I’ve heard
So with a board that’s going to be 11’11" finished, there are some serious considerations that need to be given to weight, break strength, turning ability, etc. Not to mention being able to do things like physically get it in the bag or laminate it before half the resin goes off in my bucket.
I knew from the beginning that a few things were givens for this project: No ripping balsa to 1/8+" and laying on the strips - I’m going with wood veneer in 24" x 96" sheets. No laying up rails, 1 3/16" piece of balsa at a time, with this board, I’d feel like Noah. I wanted hips on it, so it would turn easier from the back end. I wanted a thin, pulled-in nose to pierce waves & avoid wind, as much as possible. Rails should be 50/50 but pinched.
So I started with 1# EPS in 6" blocks. Ripped to 1’ wide and glued 4’ ‘ers to the 8’ ‘ers. Hotwired using the redwood stringer and a masonite twin. So far so good. Skinned the bottom - little concave through the whole front half to decrease effective nose rocker on the stringer line and a little roll through the back half to help turns. Hacked 1.5" off the rails & put on 6’ long pieces of straight, solid balsa. Shaped all the rails on the bottom half. Into the bag with 6oz E & epoxy under the veneer. Veneer wrapping the rails like CMP & Oneula do. Again, so far, so good.
When it came out of the bag & I set to smoothing the veneer on the rails, skinning the top, and turning the top of the rails. It was just seeming like such a vast expanse of really, really light foam. So I started thinking about d-cell. But I didn’t really want a third layer of glass in the deck - we’re talking about 2 lb per layer of 6oz + resin for a board this size. I’d used 1/2" d-cell before for stringers and knew it glued to EPS really well with gorilla glue. So I went down to the boatyard and bought a 1/8" sheet of d-cell. Templated it, taped 4’ to the 8’, and poured out a whole bottle of Elmer’s brand polyurethane glue. I had to work fast with really heavy squeegee pressure just to get the glue everywhere. The d-cell soaks up glue like it does resin (duh ) So then plop it on the board, align it, tape it in a couple spots, and into the bag.
Oh crap I poked a hole in my bag. Tape it. Crap its leaking somewhere else. Crap my pump is supposed to run for :30 every 7 minutes and its been running constantly for an hour & a half as I chase leaks. This bag must be getting old. Crap I better get a fan to cool down my pump motor. Crap the bag just developed another split. Waitaminute, Schwuz sent me a bag last year, I wonder if it’s 12’ long! Hey it is! Out of the old bag after 2 hrs, crap! The glue is sticky still and the d-cell is peeling up where I was trying to curve it down on the rails! I knew I didn’t use enough! Crap this bag is leaking on the end seals! But wait, its pulling 9"…The other bag never made it above 7…hey wait, the pump shut off. Did it Die??? Nope, 14". Wow. Thanks Schwuz, you saved my butt.
3 more hours, then out of the bag. Fully expecting the d-cell to come right off, after all the drama and the glue shortage. But holding out hope because once Bert said something about foaming glue (which meant I didnt’ have to spackle the wire marks & planer holes in the EPS ) and because I still think its a neat idea and I could use a little triumph right now…
Holy crap! It worked! The glue is hard, the d-cell is pulled to the rails, the board is torsionally much stiffer but still flexes longitudinally, it hardly seems to have gained any weight… Its 11 pm and I can’t help myself. I start to take down the edge of the d-cell with a surform. Way too late for power tools. Quick into the house, I think I have a Bud Light somewhere. An hour later, everything’s smooth. Looks bitchin. I have to get up for work in 5.5 hours. But I’m ready to bag on the deck veneer and I trust that I’ve given the behemoth a significant gain in strength without much weight penalty and without adding so much stiffness that it’ll feel like a Surftech.
So Bert & others - anyone who showed me the grace to read such a horriffically long post - will this work? Did I stumble on something great or will I go home from work today to find the whole thing peeled apart?
Final cross-section will look like this:
Any input would be very much appreciated…
Thanks