Next up - Hawaiian wave board

[surfcowboy]

Ok, it's been long enough, I've forgotten all that sanding and I'm ready to start on my next board. I'm going to take some time getting it designed but it's based on my experiences in Hawaii, specifically the waves at Hanalei. Looks like I'll be going at least yearly and also in bigger Winter SoCal surf I want a little more length and glide to get in early so here we go again gathering feedback.

I'll post a trip report elsewhere about how my short Simmons did but it's as you'd expect, super fun up to head high but overhead the drops are so late as to scare a mortal like me. There's a reason those Laird surfers and Terry Chung boards are shaped and sized like they are. Get in early, glide through the softer sections when the wave hits a deep spot in the reef and turn like a longboard with a narrower tail.

I considered a pulled in nose but I'm not sure about it. I do love a fuller longboard style nose and I suspect it'd be more stable at narrower width.

I'm considering using the basic shape of my Coreban Fusion as a guide, narrower but with the same nose, basic rocker and swallow tail. I love that board and something with 1/2 the weight and 1/3 less volume would be pretty awesome.

That's basically a Pearson Laird Surfer but with a bit more nose rocker for those late drops that I always seem to get stuck with no matter how long I go. (Not enough paddle power out of these twig arms I'm toting.)

Single concave to double Concave or v maybe? I checked some of Terry's boards over there and the bottom contours were so subtle as to be hard to detect exactly what was going on without some serious study. Maybe old Bob Simmons was right to just run 'em flat from time to time?

Anyway, I'd love some input from the peanut gallery but AJR and I are Fusion fans and I know a ton of folks like the Lairds. It's gonna pain me to not make something more experimental but that's what the third board is for, right?

I'll start it here:

8'8" ( no airline hassles) X 28" X 3" thick. Thickness will vary based on volume numbers but I'm looking to have my feet wet. I'm using UK's volume/stability theory and testing it a bit.

Who's got an opinion on the nose? I'm thinking carry the width to the nose and let the tail get a little narrow so I can drop back and bottom turn nice and smooth without dumping me in the drink when it gets choppy. Flat bottom and 6' of relatively parallel rails should hopefully make it ok to stand on.

As to width, if I'm rock solid on a 7'5" x 29" Simmons could I drop it to 27" or should I stay 28 to be safe?

I gotta get into shape3D and see what I can scratch out.

[Biggreen]

I agree with Charlie on volume, but 3" sounds thin. You a lightweight, Cowboy? Now that I'm almost finished with my shop I'm gonna do a longboard shape 3.5" thick for my 175 lbs. I'd go lower, too, if I had the stones, so to speak. I have an 8'10"x 28x 3.75 that feels like an aircraft carrier now that I've been regularly riding 7'4"x 27" and 26.5". But it is fun to ride. Can't wait to see your drawing.

[TallDude]

One way to reduce the sanding is to improve your layups.  I was reading the epoxy guide Pono posted and noticed they recommend using additive F on your lamination as a way to avoid sanding between layers.

[headmount]

I like reducing thickness as much as possible as the top priority.  Width reduction second and length the least important.    You get punished more for having too thick a board more than anything.  So squeeze the dimensions to fit your stability needs according to your weight and balance.  For Hawaii I think there is inherently more bump on the surface more of the time than California so the stability is more difficult here.  What you can minimize in glassy conditions is hard as soon as that breaks down a bit.

Also there are many days here in the winter where the surf goes from too small to very big.  I don't see too many medium days here.  So if you gunning for bigger waves I think it's prudent to enhance the area where you can get into waves and you definitely widen your take-off zone with a longer board.  If your positioning is very good and you don't mind late drops then go ahead and minimize to the max.  But one thing else, someone on a longer board might already be on that wave.  So for crowd factor, longer seems better for me. 

I'm heavy and old so 9'7" by 31 works well for my 195.  This is a JL Stun Gun and I love it so far.  I have a younger pal who is around 140 and he rides a Tomo style 8'8" by 28" don't know the thickness but it isn't very.  Here he is on a good one.

[Dwight (DW)]

You can get super thin rails without making the board super thin, so I'd shoot for the right volume, with the rails as thin as you want.

You should demo one of Blane's notched rail boards. You can have a 29 wide board, measured over the rail, with an effective bottom width of 24-25". That allows for a longer board, without the speed loss of a longer board. They work.

[surfcowboy]

Hey guys, golden info there.

Yeah, I'm a lightweight, I'm 134lbs today and never over 140 really so I can drop a lot of volume.

DW, I saw one of Blaine's in Hawaii and really dug it didn't get to ride it but I'd love to talk to you about what constitutes a thin rail. I'm coming from production boards so everything is thinner. Lol but I agree on the volume first and then tune rails to match what you need. I can make the tail really thin. My Simmons tail is under 1.5" and sinks like a stone.

Headmount, you are right on with what I was thinking. Bumpy waves and yes, get in early. I couldn't get a wave because someone on a 9 or 10' board was 100' further out and already on it. I had to pop in from the channel and take what was left over. I might cheat it out to 8'10 or so, while still staying under 9' for travel.

I'm a bit worried about getting too fancy with the bottom and rails but I do love the idea of a hull style. DW, as I get further along I might reach out to you with some questions.

Anyone in LA got,one of Blaine's boards in the water?

What about my nose idea? I see Kalama shapes them with a fuller nose, and I love to noserider. That's one of my thoughts here. That and I love being able to step up there and paddle to tip into a wave earlier.

[surfcowboy]

HM, also that small to big factors in as well. I hate seeing the wave of the day swing over to me and have to pass because you can't make the drop. I want to be able to get into whatever pops up and in Hawaii, that's often something pretty "interesting" as Doc says in Barbarian Days.

Most folks I saw at my size and a little bigger, were on 9' boards over there. That was the performance sized board with the big boys on 10-11' and yes, taking all they wanted early.

I rode a 9'X29" 2 years ago and if it had been a little thinner and maybe narrower, I'd have been right on time.

[surfcowboy]

TD, let me say amen to the better lam. I'm gonna try the add F on this one and also I have DW's video...now. Lol I can do a layer at a time and get things much smoother and also prevent my dry spots in the lam that dogged me later.

Also UK showed me his sacrificial hot coat/filler which backs up what I learned, fix bumps and imperfections early and get things as flat as you can before you start hot coating anything.

The other outcome of my first board was that I can be more aggressive with the sander. I was so scared of burn throughs that I offen had to go back and sand a little deeper. I think I ended up with one more resin coat than I would have needed because I didn't get it flat, early.

Live and learn is the laminator' screed.

[supuk]

Look forward to hearing how this one goes, Add f in the lam defiantly helps things wet out a little quicker. Did you do the first one on a wet out table?

[surfcowboy]

I did use the wet out table and it was hard to get it all to soak in, for me at least.

Now that I've seen it done in the video and I know to let it sit and soak in more than push it in, I feel like it'll all go easier. Also, one resin batch per layer will make things better I'm sure too. I'll probably do it one layer at a time instead of two like last time.

The wife wants me to follow the same graphic scheme as last time to make these match. This one will have a little Hawaiian flair but I think I'll stay with no color. I might do a mini Simmons proner while I'm at it as well. That one might get some color on it.

Also laps will likely get cut and rolled down as well. One more new step.

[surfcowboy]

Ok, I'm playing in the computer now.

8'8" X 28" X 3.5" gets me to about 100 liters of volume. 10 more than my Simmons which should get me to just a bit more glide without really weighing me down.

the hilarious part to me is seeing how "stock" the shape is. It's really just a longboard sized down for me. The  round nose and overall shape would not be controversial to any surfer or shaper from the mid '60's.

Funny how some things just work. While I'm not likely setting the world on fire here, I'm on my way to taking one of my favorite boards (Coreban Fusion) tweaking it a bit and resizing it to perfectly fit my size and style. That's what I wanted out of building my own and it's cool to see that come alive.

Now to balance my love of nose rocker for late drops with my enjoyment of noseriding.

I'd love to go way narrower, but I'm dropping 1" off any board I've owned and 1.5" off the Fusion's width. I'm keeping the tail at basically the same (10" at the tail) width and hoping to preserve the basic stability of the shape. Also dropping it down into the water (going to 100L from about 140L on the shape) should keep me stable.

Maybe next one I'll do my and Linter's dream of a longboard noserider that you can paddle. That'll be my resin color experiment too, once I practice cutlaps.

Getting closer.

[magentawave]

I'm with headmount 100% when he said: "I like reducing thickness as much as possible as the top priority.  Width reduction second and length the least important.    You get punished more for having too thick a board more than anything."

A narrow pointy nose is good for not getting caught at the top of the wave when paddling into offshore winds (and thus minimizing the classic over-the-handlebars steep take off!), and narrow pointy ends are way better in juicy waves...but narrow pointy ends are harder to paddle. For an 8'-8" and your weight of only 135 to 140 pounds, you could go a lot narrower than 28" and possibly thinner and still be able to paddle the sh*t out of that board in Hawaiian chop.

What's the deal with the airlines and the board size you're considering? Do they charge a lot more when you go over 8-8 and 28 wide?

[surfcowboy]

Magenta, hadn't thought of the off shores mondo need to look at the nose a bit. I feel like there may be two more boards in my future. Good thing I have an understanding wife.

Maybe Hawaii gets the pulled in nose and heavy nose rocker and SoCal is the round nose, less rocker. More work in the computer ahead.

I'm just trying to keep it under 9', that's all. I might chest it to 8'10" but I figure that with my board padding I can always make under 9' in case someone's being a jerk at the counter. Which reminds me, I still need to do a post on my Hawaii trip and show my padding scheme. Worked out fine.

[surfcowboy]

Ok picking this one up again (finally coming down to the wire on the longboard refurb project.)

I need some help on the rails and bottom on this one. I have a shape 3D file of the template and rough bottom. Any of the Wizards want to offer some advice?

This is to be a modification of the Coreban Fusion that I can experiment with. Since it's a size and shape that I like (just under 9' X 28") I can play with it and build it in a few versions changing dims and tail and rails over time. DW gave me this idea.

I want to play it safe for v1 and just take the shape down in volume and thickness and see what I get. I plan to open source this one for guys who want to mod it and build it themselves.

Just waking this one up. I'll try to post some template shots and dims as I go. Hoping to order this cut pretty soon.

[surfcowboy]

Here's where it stands at the moment. TallDude lent some skills and got me to a printable file, but along the way, really gave me some great thoughts on the shape.  I had been reconsidering the tail (swallow vs more of a thumb/pin) and since this is made for bigger winter waves and I already have an amazing wide tailed board I am going with this one.

The rocker was baffling to me and that's sorted. (TD, I'm going to pull the shots of the Fusion to review. That'd make a good thread on its own.)

It's 8'10" X 28 - Concave up front to flat to V in tail. I'm planning on trying to build this one a few times over the next couple of years, as I can, to test specific theories. In the meantime it'll give me a strong 2 board SUS quiver while I feed my growing prone surf quiver addiction. (So much easier to make those little boards!)

I'm at 3.5" thick and 110 Liters. I'm tempted to take it down a bit (SUPuk, love to hear more about that from you.) But this feels like a really good board for the kind of riding I'm looking to do. Nothing revolutionary, just refining my favorite all-around surf machine. Post up your thoughts, if you like.