New board design :)

[Surfdad]

James, my son, and I built a halfpipe in the backyard so that he and his friends could skate after the local skatepark became overrrun with unsavory characters.

We wound up with a small section of 3/4" pressure treated CDX plywood left over. On a lark, we added some spare fins from a wakeskate and threw on a coat of finishing resin. Then proceeded to surf it.

For your enjoyment - The caption should read: I guess you can surf ANYTHING behind the Tige.

[Surfdad]

James backside

[Surfdad]

Plywood fears me.

[Surfdad]

A closer look, note the quality construction.

[Surfdad]

We did learn a few things with this goofing around. One thing is that bouyancy or thickness really don't figure into whether a board is rideable. Surface area is the key factor. The thickness of the board may allow for greater shaping of the rails, but the "floatation" factor is negligible.

There is some belief that fins create drive or help make a board faster down-the-line. I would argue that for the relatively small area that we surf, this factor is also negligible. Again, surface area or perhaps a better term is "wetted surface area" is the bigger contributor to down-the-line speed.

[dogbert]

I would think thickness would affect the weight of the board, especially if it was treated plywood. At some point, the density of the wood could also be an issue because you have to have some minimum bouyancy.

That board looks pretty heavy, was it hard to maneuver?

[Surfdad]

Is there a plywood that displaces less weight in water than what it weighs? The old ocean liner's made of steel situation. I certainly wouldn't propose that anyone make a board out of 3/4" plywood, only that a 2 inch thick surfboard isn't needed. I don't have a poly U board that is less than 1.9 inches thick and I don't believe that is required, even for strength.

I would be willing to bet that if you could solve the sinking issue, that you could surf an aluminum plate appropriately shaped and sized.

This board was HUGE. Almost 6 feet in length and over 2 feet in width. It was NOT responsive, but I bet that if you sized it down it would be acceptable. Again, though, my thought isn't to start cranking out 3/4 inch plywood board, but instead to look at reducing the thickness of foam and glass boards.

[NICKYPOO]

Originally posted by Surfdad
Again, though, my thought isn't to start cranking out 3/4 inch plywood board, but instead to look at reducing the thickness of foam and glass boards.

This is one of the reasons I don't like surf style boards. I do not like the feeling of being so far "up" on the board. I love the feel of being "in" the board. I recon it to driving a motor home vs. driving a Corvette. The thick boards always seem to feel top heavy and therefore "tippy", with all the power being driven off of the center of the board, almost like a balance beam. The skim types seem much more stable and the feel, to me, is edge to edge with the drive and edging coming directly off the rails. The fact that skim styles fit in a board rack doesn't hurt either. I'm already looking at some slalom racks to get the skis off the floor. My tool inventory yesterday included two wake boards, two surfboards, one wakeskate and four skis. The last thing I'm going to do is buy a board that won't fit in a rack.

[Tequilasun]

I guess the next step is to surf some 1/4" ply?

You could change the rocker as you rode!

[Surfdad]

Actually...cardboard. I KNOW I KNOW, you're howling, but hear me out. You can stop laughing now!

Wakesurfing had it's origins in surfboards. In the ocean you need length and volume for paddling and catching waves. We simply don't have that need behind the boat. All we really need is enough surface area to zip across the surface. The strength can be imparted with fiberglass or some other material.

The core, really could be air so long as you can shape it.

It may not work, but I want to try a paper mache' core. Create a basic design and then slop the crap...err I mean building material over or in a mold. It should shape easily with a sander, then glass it. I honestly think it will give us some decent handling characteristics...PLUS if I build it right, you should be able to read the Sunday funnies.

[Tequilasun]

I have some experience making kayaks. If you use a resin/glass sandwich, cardboard would indeed work pretty well. The issue would be getting a cut in the glass or a puncture. Wet cardboard would not help much then.

[Tequilasun]

Just thinking about it, wouldn't rail design be the most important aspect of a board? Or at least a board that has some response to it.

I wonder what the cross-sections of wake surfers look like compared to Ocean surfers.

[Surfdad]

The skimstyle boards, like Calibrated and Phase 5 really have no rail shape. They are typically between 3/8" and 5/8" thick. The bottom part of the rail is 90 degrees with a slight rounding on the top. The folks at Calibrated use a press for making snowboards So they have a slight step on the rail where a steel edge would fit in a snowboard. The ride is different, assuredly, but fin placement and board length seem to have more of an impact on rail-to-rail responsiveness, than the rail itself...at least IMO.

[dogbert]

Originally posted by Tequilasun
I guess the next step is to surf some 1/4" ply?

Go buy a skim board and throw some fins on it! I actually got my kids a couple of them at Academy here for $12.99 so they won't use their wakeskate for a skimboard on the beach. Then they decided to ride them behind the boat...I think we still have one left and I have some extra wakeboard fins...could be interesting.

[Surfdad]

I don't want a skimboard. Polyvac is easy to do. I want lighter, with a defined rocker and a more fish like shape rather than the ubiquitous pin tail. Plus I think that a different core can be used to provide a better flex pattern. I need to be posting this somewhere else, don't I?