Springer build

[Surfdad]

Yeah, it's great fun. It seems everyday I get an email from someone that decides to try it based upon the build threads. It also amazes me how many folks have engineering or composite experience and want to implement that in a build. Great fun.

[eks]

I need to take some Lessons from Kona. He is only 10 minutes from my house. Perhaps I'll join the club and make it a hobby too.

[KonaKing]

ok jeff you asked for it, so here it is.
After watching smedman and you build boards I got the bug and started snooping around. From work I was able to 3 4' x 8' x 6" of 2lb eps for free . I was old prop desing material. Next was to spend many hours on swaylocks. I designed my hot-wire from a 120VAC to 24VDC transformer and a dimmer switch. ( electrician). once again cost to me was zero I am a good scrounger. Plus it works great, I have heard talk of breaking wires so I used an 18g SSteel welding wire from our shop welder (free) Lets see came up with shapes from inland and stripe and walker. Cut some rocker templates and the rest is history. Used a Ryobi planner but it will cut 1/8 max trying come up with a way to mod it.

As far as the board I have glassed, it is Double 6 oz warp-lite top and a 6 oz bottom with another 4 oz there to. Used RR expoy for the lam with a hot and glass coat. My next one I going to try some art work on The round tail also thinking of straping it?

Doing the boxes wasn't that bad wish I had a jig but did want to drop the $189 for it.

So really all I paid for was the glass, epoxy and fin sets. $200 +/- for 3 boards, not bad huh.

I would love to try a comp sand some day. Yours look awesome.

[Surfdad]

Sweet! $66 / board is very inexpensive. That's really how garage shaping of surfboard became so popular - 1/8 the cost and they'll surf as well for most folks as the $500-600 board.

The compnsands are great fun, truly limitless combinations of materials.

Thanks for sharing all the details, and please post up your next build!

[KonaKing]

I will put it all up

[Surfdad]

I'm looking forward to the build Kona.

Fin boxes curing. This picture shows what I believe to be the most critical part of the alignment. I wanted the perimeter stringers to intersect the fin boxes, but more importantly I wanted them to intersect at the trailing edge of the fin. From my observations, this trailing edge seems to carry the most torque from rail to rail pumps. The leading edge of the fin is shorter due to sweep and as such does have quite as much torque applied to that area. Further the trailing edge of the fin, at the base, of the fins that James is using, is also the maximum depth of the particular fin...more fin area directly over the stringer.

In some early prototypes when the perimeter stringers intersected the boxes there was a measurable, if slight, increase in responsiveness to rail pressure, either turns or pumping. Hopefully this remains consistent!

[KonaKing]

I'm looking forward to the build Kona.

Fin boxes curing. This picture shows what I believe to be the most critical part of the alignment. I wanted the perimeter stringers to intersect the fin boxes, but more importantly I wanted them to intersect at the trailing edge of the fin. From my observations, this trailing edge seems to carry the most torque from rail to rail pumps. The leading edge of the fin is shorter due to sweep and as such does have quite as much torque applied to that area. Further the trailing edge of the fin, at the base, of the fins that James is using, is also the maximum depth of the particular fin...more fin area directly over the stringer.

In some early prototypes when the perimeter stringers intersected the boxes there was a measurable, if slight, increase in responsiveness to rail pressure, either turns or pumping. Hopefully this remains consistent!

Surfdad you need to change to the surf professor. Looks awesome Jeff

[Surfdad]

Thanks 'bro!

One layer down and 2 more to go. Isn't the side view of the stringers weird?

[sagmanaur]

Jeff,

You just amaze me with your builds.... I can barely find time to sand a couple boards and put a few coats of polyurethane on.

You ROCK!!

[Surfdad]

Thanks Sag,

You'll notice by the dates on the first picture thru today that I've been working on this project for about a month! I probably have 8-10 hours into it over that time...so what is that an average of 20 minutes a day? That's the secret!

[KonaKing]

Thanks Sag,

You'll notice by the dates on the first picture thru today that I've been working on this project for about a month! I probably have 8-10 hours into it over that time...so what is that an average of 20 minutes a day? That's the secret!

My next builds are still sitting in the garage. To many things on the honey do list right now. Awesome build it does look strange from the side.

[Surfdad]

That side view is weird because of the way the stringer curves and the rocker, it gives the impression that the board dips and rises funny.

I'm conjuring up a full mold build next. I love the way that molded boards look. Plus, they pop out of the mold basically finished. I just need to find a cheap board to use as my plug that will also allow a two piece mold that is easy enough to use (read skimboard )

[KonaKing]

Always one step ahead, KOODOS surfdad

[Surfdad]

Thanks Kona,

I also like to share with some of the smaller shapers...it is getting really hard for them to compete with pop-outs and asian imports in any sort of mass quantity. For their stock boards, a mold is a pretty easy way for them to reduce costs and it's pretty simple, once they see how it's done. Interestingly enough with a mold, a shaper doesn't have to maintain a huge inventory of foam...pretty much anything that fits in the mold will be "squished" to the appropriate shape so it reduces the investment in inventory, also there isn't any shaping so unskilled labor can produce these. Not that I would suggest that these shapers switch to molding, but if they want to offer an entry level board at a price point, in addition to their custom shapes, this process can get them there.

[loudelectronics]

This looks intersting. What type of foam are you guys using? Looks like regular white insulating foam with layered glass?