New build

[NICKYPOO]

Maybe it needs to be thinner.

[Surfdad]

Could be either of those things. I think though, that I overshaped the shoulders on the board. We were also riding behind an Epic in that picture. The wake on that is basically a right angle! Super steep. The folks from Epic think that the rudders aren't aligned, they just sent the jig to Fineline so it could be.

The rails are designed to sink, in comparision to the rest of the board, so TOO much of the 5 # foam, or a too sharp rail is what I'm thinking the issue is.

[tony@tige]

Awsome discussion. I would love to build my own board.

[Surfdad]

Thanks Tony. It's a great deal of fun. This project is a bit esoteric with the various foams all glued together, but it's easy enough to shape and glass from a close tolerance blank.

There is simply nothing that compares to the first ride on your own stick.

[Original Wing Nut]

Awsome discussion. I would love to build my own board.

Tony, we all think you are doing great at building awesome boats, lets keep that as your focus. I also admire Surfdad, Kona and guys that will get out there and build something like this themselves.

[Surfdad]

I'd love to see Tony get involved in shaping for purely selfish reasons. The construction of surfboards is stuck in the 50's. The biggest change in materials was the switch to EPS and Epoxy and that was forced on these folks when Clark Blanks shut down. If you can image - the blanks pictured above are being heralded by the shapers as the next best thing! The concept belongs to Greg Loehr of Resin Research Epoxy fame and I borrowed it because his folks wouldn't make me a blank. Anyway...I'm a garage hack and I'm reproducing the "next best thing" in my backyard! I'd love to see someone with a compsoites background and NOT mired in the surfboard building tradition get involved and look at developed stronger and lighter boards.

The Swaylocks thread is here

[Surfdad]

Anyway - I'm getting pretty quick at building the next best thing!

[Surfdad]

I think that my issue with the shoulders is that I wound up overshaping them when I blended the H45 deck skin. The H45 is 1/8" and needs to be blended into the shape of the rails. I had already shaped the rails, fully, before bagging the skin. I think I either need to snad the skin before bagging, or leave some of the rails unshaped to allow for the blending process.

[Surfdad]

I left the rails full until after I bag the deck, then I'll finish shaping the rails.

[Surfdad]

For newbies - this is a Fred Tool - a couple of small surform blades attached on an angle allows creating a tucked rail.

[Surfdad]

I found this really interesting. The folks at Firewire just introduced a new construction methodology, they are calling it RapidFire. It's very similar to the construction mentioned in the Sway's thread above. Although Greg L, who is responsible for the bamboo with HD rails in the thread above, is sort of backdoor'ishly saying that the Firewire design isn't good.

It'll be interesting to see how this develops. The black lines on the Firewire are carbon rods. The one issue with wood as stringers is that no two pieces of wood are the same, whereas, carbon rods can be reproduced identical to the last one.

[Surfdad]

I'm skinning this board with Corecell T400. Corcell comes in several flavors, A, P, T and S. A is the garden variety Corecell. T is designed to be a little stiffer than the A and P variations. The 400 is a 4.4 pound density foam. It's about 2 oz heavier than the H45 I used on the other board.

The last picture is the skin being bagged to the core.

[Surfdad]

I'm not sure about the T400. That's pretty stiff foam after it's been laminated...at least on one side The blank, at this stage, feels pretty stiff. It's also a bit heavier than I wanted, it's currently at 2.25 pounds. That only leaves me 12 oz for the exterior lamination, to keep it at 3 pounds. The glass alone will weigh 6oz, in total. We'll see if I can manage it.

[Surfdad]

I did a little test last evening. The RC airplane folks vacuum bag wings and use waxed up mylar to transfer graphics and create a smooth "finished" surface out of the bag. On surfboards the normal process is to laminate, then do a hoat coat and then a final gloss coat. Artwork, via paint, adds a ton of weight and the resin is brittle and stiff, effecting the boards ability to flex.

I wanted to see if it was possible to pull a board directly out of the bag "finished", without needing to add additional resin .

I also wanted to mess with the bottom texture WAY too many things for one test, but anyway...

The mylar acts as a release film and it came up without any issue. It also provided a spectacular gloss finish, as well as transferring the paint. Killer artwork, huh? I suck at that.

In the picture of the stack, it's:

4oz wetted out
Mylar with artwork
Release film that wrapped the rails
Breather

I was able to pull the board out, principally with the bottom finished. I could invision a production environment where a stack of skins was pre-prepped (exterior glass and artwork) and then bagged on with just in the internal glass onto a shaped blank.

[Surfdad]

Final lamination with "artwork" (it has to be art, right?! ) and a gloss weight without boxes is 2 pounds 14 ounces. It will be sub 3 pounds with fin boxes and sub 3 pounds, probably sub 3.5 pounds ready to ride.