Dale is an old windsurfing mate that lives near Torquay and he's now into SUP.

The other day Dean invited Jonathan and I down to watch him shape Dales new board.

Here it is almost finished.. It's 9' x 32".. (Dale's no featherweight) .. I can't wait to try it myself.. .. (if Dale will let me.. )

I have a few more pictures of the shaping process and I'll post them soon.

DJ

Wow that thing has a lot of rocker. Looks good though

Keahi

lookielookie said...

whats the concept with bending in the rocker??

Instead of shaping the rocker to the blank you shape the top and bottom as usual and nose and tail thinning it out to your liking. Then bend the blank to the rocker you want. I rekon this is a really good way to do it as you are less likely to stuff up, and the rocker curve turns out very true/consistent.

LSD doesn't shape the deck at all. Bending the rocker in creates an illusion of shaped deck.
The foam is EPS (polystyrene ) Grade SL - the lightest grade there is. There is limited strength in the foam. The strength is in the fibreglass.

lookielookie said...

like the idea.but does it stress the foam???
What grade of foam would you recomend. and what do you glue all your peices up with??

The EPS used is "SL" or similar for a light board.
L, SL, S,M, H,VH are tha grades available. Some retailers dont stock all grades.
It bends with little force, about 5kg to do the rocker on an 8' board. So the is not "stressed", it can bend far more than the rocker before failure.
Epoxy & qcell or purbond to glue foam.
The bottom only is shaped, the top shape comes from the amount of bend you put in, so very minimal work required.

Thanks guys,
ive shaped a board with vh.
but ive got a few off cuts. a combo of sl and vh. ill glue them up and see what i come up with.
what does everyone use for there glassing. i want to try and get it heaps light.

Lookie , don't try and glue bits together , it's not worth it.Get the length of eps you want in the thickness you want then bend in the rocker you want . my last board is M grade good to shape and light enough . I wouldn't go to any grade less than that, though LSD uses light grade but his knowledge and expertise is far greater than mine . On bending the rocker - go to Steven Pirsch's site " how to build your first surfboard" but a word of warning , when you weigh down the styrene on each end you tend to get a uniform curve ,the board looks like a big banana . So to get a more complex curve you need to weight the board from the top to give you a flatter hull under your feet and then a more accelerated rocker at the nose (hope this is making sense). But the most important thing is its really easy, dont be put off .

ive got 4 strips of hotwired offcuts. my rockers already cut into them.They look like little see-saws
my 9'1 is already shaped. thought i would play around with the blank offcuts ,once i glued them up. was debating on either gluing in stringers or not!!
lucky enough to have shaping machines at my disposal.
my pu boards are coming in at 10kg and really strong. curious to see what everyones glassing and weight vs strength was.
the 9'1 is getting 6x6x6 on it.this one had a stringer in it.
scotty send some picks through when your boards done!!!

log man said...

Lookie , if I do a layup of 1x 6 oz bottom and 2x 6 deck will it last ,I dont know about putting in hours to make the thing ,for it to be fragile . My current board is 2x6 bottom,3x6 on top . it weighs 10k but I recon I could back over it in the carpark and it would be OK .

mine is done like that, but with a patch over the whole fin area and a 5 inches beyond the the front fins

Why do you guys bend the rocker after you have shaped it? This is puzzling me a bit. Is it to reduce the thickness of blank required?

Do you use a bottom curve template to ensure accuracy?

My experience is with epoxy goaties and if the rocker was 'out' as little as 5mm it could screw up the board's performance, so they where shaped with great accuracy in that department.

I would glass the deck within 12 hours of doing the bottom so the rocker didn't get altered from shrinkage.

goatman said...

Why do you guys bend the rocker after you have shaped it? This is puzzling me a bit. Is it to reduce the thickness of blank required?

Do you use a bottom curve template to ensure accuracy?

My experience is with epoxy goaties and if the rocker was 'out' as little as 5mm it could screw up the board's performance, so they where shaped with great accuracy in that department.

I would glass the deck within 12 hours of doing the bottom so the rocker didn't get altered from shrinkage.

Is it to reduce the thickness of blank required?..... Yes

Do you use a bottom curve template to ensure accuracy?..... No

Like Dean often says.. It's not rocket science.. and anything works..(some better than others) .. and Deans boards defiantly work.

For those who know what works and what doesn't I think it's more about what looks right.. and often if it looks right it will be right.

DJ

Here's some more pictures showing the shaping of Dales new board.

The plan was to make a bigger version of Deans favorite board right now.. I think it's 8'2" x 30 1/2".. This is it.





Dales new board will be 9' x 32' (he's a big boy).. Here's the cut blank showing the outline.



You're not going to get much nose rocker out of a blank that thin.



Dale had to glue a piece onto the nose and tail to get the length that he wants.



First Dean shaped some rocker and v into the tail area.



Dean then got stuck into the nose area.





His little dog had it's overalls on just like his Dad.



More hand work on the nose.



Are those golf balls?



Are you watching closely Jonathan?





I went to pick up one of these thinking they were rocks.. They're solid lead.. No wonder there's little pieces of wood under them.. Jeez they're heavy.



I bet not many boards can be shaped on a flat table like this.





Time to put in some nose concave.





Notice the curve on this sanding board.





That's enough on the bottom for now.. Time to flip it over and work on the rails.



You can see from this angle why there is a need to bend the blank after to achieve more nose rocker.




Mmmm.. I'm starting to see rails taking shape.. Nice.







All this board making is hard work.. Time for a rest.. I'll be back with the rest of my pictures later.

DJ

fairing the rails prior to glassing the deck

Great pics, would love to have a go at shaping a board at some point.

Great pics DJ , Hey Goaty, I take your point about bending in the rocker, It is pretty inexact especially when I do it . Of course LSD's operation is far more sophisticated,my only reference points are from the mistakes made in previous boards. so I may just be starting off with a terrible design then making it slightly better(like polishing a turd). Lately Ive been looking at the hull design of wave skis and as the size of Sups gets smaller the two designs seem to be getting closer ,ie 8 feet long, 28" wide, a real similarity in plan shape ,etc . But when you look at the hull design closely there seems to be a definite direction in design . EG the channels running front to back, fin way forward,extreme nose lift etc. how would these design elements transfer to SUP or wouldn't they?. Ive got a plan to get a dirt cheap one , (every surf shop seems to have one or two stuffed somewhere)put a flat deck on and see how it goes.or is it like DJ says about windsurfer boards ,that there just too different?

Paul , I don't think it's a matter of what it will hold but I think stability becomes more and more of a problem . 150 litres is on the higher end of the board scale I think.