Messages

1

Random / Re: How long is your ride to the water?

« on: November 15, 2019, 07:29:02 AM »

I’m 5 minutes from the beach, but it takes me 15 minutes to get into all of my winter gear.  And depending upon how chilled I get, it sometimes takes me 20+ minutes to get out of it.

Does anybody else have a wetsuit-to-drive ratio of more than 3:1?  These guys probably averaged about 20:1, but that’s a special case:

2

Gear Talk / Re: New Blue Planet 'All Good'

« on: June 26, 2019, 07:31:52 PM »

Nalu-

Awesome review!  Super informative.

I wish more people would take the time to write this kind of in-depth, side-by-side comparison of two boards.  Much more useful than the typical Zone review, which tends to run along the lines of:  "I just bought a new board.  I haven't gotten it wet yet, but I'm completely frothing!"

Thanks for putting so much thought into your analysis.  Post like this are a true public service!

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Gear Talk / Re: Maximum ambient temperature for long-term board storage?

« on: June 15, 2019, 08:20:30 PM »

Technically, they should be fine. Over time the resin will get a little harder, but that's about it. At around 150 F the epoxy starts to loose structural rigidity, but it recovers as soon as the temperature drops, and the resultant heat cycle finishes a lot of the incomplete polymerization--which is why a lot of builders bake their boards in a storage bin like you describe.

PB - I was hoping you’d respond to my query, ‘coz I knew if you did, you’d have something definitive to contribute. 

You remind me of those old Dos Equis ads:  “I don’t always have something to say, but when I do, it’s generally authoritative.  Stay curious, my friends.”   

Thanks!

4

Gear Talk / Maximum ambient temperature for long-term board storage?

« on: June 15, 2019, 10:57:22 AM »

I've always stored my boards in my garage, which was partially shaded, and probably never got above 120*F (50*C), even in the summer.

I recently sold my house, however, and I’m now storing my boards in a self-storage facility (non climate-controlled).  The unit is basically a corrugated metal shack, with no shade and a virtually flat roof.  We haven’t really hit summer yet (I’m in New England), but based on how hot the unit has been even on sunny spring days, I’m concerned that the ambient temperatures may reach 150*F (65*C) or even higher during the summer.

Just to be clear:  This is different from the problem of leaving a board on the roof of your car during the summer.  My boards are fully shaded, and I will not be plunging a hot board into the cold ocean.  OTOH, we’re talking about chronic exposure to whatever the temperatures end up being.

Does anybody know the maximum temperature at which you can safely store a SUP or surfboard without causing long-term damage? 

I have a variety of boards, all with slightly different layups:

   -JL Stun Gun (carbon sandwich)
   -Sunova Flow (balsa sandwich)
   -Naish Mana (EPS, non-sandwich)
   -Angulo Shaka XLT (not sure of layup)

But these all share an EPS core [not sure about the Shaka?], and presumably use similar resins, so their reaction to temperatures should be relatively uniform (I assume).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

5

Gear Talk / Re: Roof transport in summer

« on: April 07, 2019, 02:04:14 PM »

O.K., Google is great. I found them. Here are the ones I've got (https://www.amazon.com/Sherpak-Built-U-S-Hood-Loops/dp/B0024ALDMS). Hope this helps.

Quickbeam-

Mahalo for taking the extra time to look that up.  I appreciate it!

Jon

6

Gear Talk / Re: Roof transport in summer

« on: April 07, 2019, 09:23:21 AM »

s4e...  I wouldn't worry too much, the forces able to break the board likely would also be giving your car the 'fits'.  I had a young lady buy a practice shell from me a few years ago.  Her first drive with it on her roof was 500+ miles back to Buffalo NY.  I made her a bridle so the boat would not start to 'helicopter' at 70mph  ..and a couple of other bits. 

I do not think you would need anything as complete but, I'd be happy to make you the front hood bits and a cinch if you rode fin-forward   ...a freebie, 'friend of the forum' discount, so I don't break any advertising rules. (besides, I am not interested in making more)

Jim

Jim-

That's a pretty slick setup.  I need to build something similar for myself, as my roof bars are only spaced 30" apart.  Until this past spring, I was driving a 2001 Civic, which had tie-downs built into the frame, but I now have a 2013 Outback, and there's no place to secure bow and stern tie-downs. 

It's hard to tell from the photos -- are the attachments that go under the front hood and the rear hatch:

   1.  A loop, that loops around the hood/hatch?
   2.  Two separate "plugs", that are big enough that they can't be pulled through the cracks when the hood/hatch are closed?

Either way, is there a commercial source for this part of the build, or did you make them from scratch?

Thanks,
Jon

7

Random / Re: Retiring But where?

« on: February 11, 2019, 03:18:22 PM »

I started a book on retirement but never finished it.

[snip]

Here's a link to as much of the book as I wrote. It's a bit of a mess, but there's some good stuff. https://retirement.pressbooks.com/front-matter/introduction/

Pono- Good stuff!  Do you happen to have a PDF version (or better yet, mobi)?  It would be great to be able to read the book on a kindle, rather than having to click through a bunch of bite-sized chapters on a web site.

8

SUP General / Re: LongBoard SUP renaissance

« on: January 29, 2019, 04:42:20 PM »

I think we're getting confused with terms. When talking board shapes I usually refer to the prone shapes that have been around forever. There is the classic longboard shape with parallel rails and the classic pointy shortboard with curved rails.

Standup boards have a ton of variation when it comes to shapes. Just because a standup board is long doesn't necessarily mean that it has a longboard shape.  Many longer sups are a little like stretched out shortboards.

I agree; the term “longboard” and “shortboard” sometimes get used as proxies for “hi volume” vs. “low volume”.  I was referring to a true longboard shape, not a blown-up shortboard.

More specifically the kind of longboard shape I was referring to was the kind of nose-riding board seen in the Gong video (B&B, etc).  By contrast, I have a 8’4” Sunova Flow, which is not at all a low-volume board (110L), but does follow a more-or-less shortboard plan outline (with blown-up dimensions).  The key distinction is that the Flow is easier to throw around, while it would be virtually impossible to noseride the Flow (even by a Gong pro).  My question to some of the longboard fans out there was whether it's possible to have fun on a longboard in crappy, short-period beach-break.

(BTW Badger, in the small world department, I’m pretty sure I’m riding your old Flow.  I bought it used from CR, and it has the custom handle mods that you described in some of your postings a few years ago ).

9

SUP General / Re: LongBoard SUP renaissance

« on: January 29, 2019, 03:29:25 PM »

The conventional wisdom seems to be: “Shortboards are for young kids on perfect waves, while longboards are for the rest of us”.   And it’s easier to catch a mushy wave on a longboard-style SUP, for sure.

But one factor that I don’t think receives enough attention is that the kind of noseriding on display in the (beautiful) video posted by Area10 requires a very high-quality wave, that may not be available to “the rest of us", eg:  A long, peeling wave that gives you enough time to anchor the tail in the wave, and venture up to the nose.

My home break is a beach-break, with hollow, short-period waves that tend to close out quickly.  On these kind of waves (which I suspect are more common than the perfectly walled-up, 300-yard peelers in the Gong video), a good ride involves:

   1.   Make a hard bottom turn
   2.   Bash the lip
   3.   Do a floater as the wave closes out
   4.   Spend 10 minutes trying to paddle out the back again 

Here’s a video of an elite surfer (kiter actually) in the kind of non-elite waves I’m talking about:

   https://www.supthemag.com/videos/airton-cozzolino-sup-circus/

Maybe I just don’t have sufficient longboard skills (I don’t have any shortboard skillz either, come to think of it ), but for these kind of run-of-the-mill waves, I think a shorter board -- not necessarily a classic shortboard, but something you can throw around more quickly than a longboard -- is actually easier to manage “for the rest of us”.  Or am I missing something?

Would love to hear any thoughts on how to have fun on a longboard in crappy, short-period closeout waves, as I'm a relatively old fart who is always looking for the path of least resistance.  It's just that, in these kind of waves, it seems like a shorter board is the path of least resistance.

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SUP General / Re: SUP Surfing with BPPV Vertigo

« on: January 15, 2019, 05:13:09 PM »

PB & Stone-  Are the socks only for calf cramps, or do they help with quad or hammy cramps, as well?

I sometimes get excruciating adductor (and/or medial hamstring) cramps.  I've played around with hydration, electrolyte balance, stretching, and a few other variables, and none of them seem to be correlated with the cramping.  The cause seems to be repeated loaded hip flexion (snowshoeing is a prime culprit, but sometimes I get them after just hiking uphill all day).  Fortunately, SUP doesn't involve much hip flexion against resistance (mostly the reverse, ie, using your muscles to *resist* hip flexion while under compressive load, similar to an isometric squat).

Do you think that compression socks would help for adductor/hammy cramps?  I've also considered trying compression shorts, but haven't got around to running that particular experiment yet...

TIA for any pearls of wisdom -- leg cramps are a bugger!

11

Random / Re: Post Retirement Jobs

« on: February 22, 2018, 07:33:48 PM »

But from what you describe as the positive results you’re seeing in the test results, it would be a totally reasonable step to take to invest in a good transactional IP lawyer.  It’s their job to do it right.

Thank you, I need to do that.  The only question is how to find one in SoCal.  Plenty out there, but it's daunting to choose somebody when you know very little about it.

Zoo-

I’m actually a transactional IP lawyer, specializing in software.  I never thought I’d see the phrase “transactional IP” on this forum, but Zoners are an eclectic bunch…  :-)

I wouldn’t want to take you on as a formal client for several reasons (including an anachronistic desire to keep my work life separate from my “play life”).  But I’d be happy to kick around some ideas with a fellow Zoner off the meter, and maybe save you from some false starts.  Feel free to PM me at some point if you’d like to connect …

12

Gear Talk / Re: Stripped FCS Screw

« on: January 15, 2018, 07:56:54 AM »

As far as the angle goes, unless you have or make a jig, you will need to eyeball it.  Get the feel of the angle from one of the other holes.   Drilling a pilot hole with a small drill bit first helps.

I was thinking of maybe setting a toothpick in the epoxy, and trying to center it as well as possible before it sets.  Then I could use the toothpick as at least a visual guide.  Not as good as a jig, but building a custom jig for the specific angle that my shaper used for the original hole is more work than I'm prepared to undertake.

Can anybody see any obvious problems with this approach?

Thanks!

13

Gear Talk / Re: Stripped FCS Screw

« on: January 15, 2018, 07:51:29 AM »

Here's the thing-- its plastic. You can screw anything into it. You can epoxy the hole closed and retap, or drill and tap the hole bigger, but the difference in diameter between 10/24 and 12/24 is .0250" (.1900 for 10/24 vs. .2150 for 12/24). You can grind flats on a 12/24 screw and just run it in, creating an ad hoc tap. Then get a 12/24 grub screw about 7/16" long and Bob's yer uncle. Yes, you'll have one odd screw. So what?

I was hoping to re-use the existing screw, so that I don't have to worry about bringing a different allen wrench to the beach each day.  Yes, I'll have to buy a tap that I don't currently have, but once I have it, I should be able to do this same repair on any FCS fin.  And it seems like a repair that probably comes up ALL the time, given the janky design of sinking the  fin screw directly into the board material -- I would have thought that FCS would provide some kind of collar that the shaper could embed in the glass, kinda like a drywall collar.

This whole approach of making the repair repeatable is predicated on the assumption that all FCS screws are the same size, eg, 10-24 coarse.  The reason I'm not following Bean's suggestion and sizing it at my local HW store is that I actually trust the wisdom on this site more than I do my HW store -- especially when it comes to the question of whether FCS screws are always sized the same.

Thanks again for the help -- there's a ton of know-how in the Zoner community!

14

Gear Talk / Re: Stripped FCS Screw

« on: January 14, 2018, 06:57:21 PM »

I realize this thread is kinda stale, but I hope someone can give me some advice…

I have a Naish Mana GS that has a loose fin-screw that I’d like to repair.  I've got the following questions:

   1.   I know sometimes Naish does things “differently” than the rest of the industry.  The fins on the Mana have Naish graphics, but are set in FCS (NOT FCS II) mounts.  Can I safely assume that the Mana uses standard FCS screws?

   2.   Assuming the answer to #1 is yes, I need a 10-24 coarse tap, correct?  Does it matter whether it’s a hand-tap, or a high-speed tap?

   3.   Can I fill the screwhole with JB Weld, or do I need to use some kind of exotic epoxy/microballoon mix?  Will the tap work OK in the JB Weld, or will the JB Weld shatter when I try to tap it?

   4.   One of the posts in this thread suggested using a #21 bit to start the hole, but the following site (http://www.americanfastener.com/tap-and-drill-size-chart/) says #25. Which would you recommend?

   5.   Any suggestions on how to get the angle right when drilling the pilot hole?  If its too vertical, it won’t extrude into the finbox.  If it’s too horizontal, there may not be enough length in the hole to fully sink the screw.

   6.   Do you use a tap in epoxy the same way you would in metal?  (Eg, turn the tap a couple of turns, then back it out, then repeat as necessary).

   7.   Once I've tapped the screwhole, do you recommend adding anything to the hole to improve the durability of the threads, in the face of repeated fin changes?  Teflon tape?  Ivory soap? Steel wool?  (We used to use steel wool when mounting bindings in foam-core skis.  But this was an application where you didn’t need to back out the screws).

   8.   Any other advice?  As you can tell from the above n00b questions, I’ve never done this repair before.  Indeed, the whole idea of tapping a screwhole into epoxy seems kinda sketchy, but maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds… ;-)

TIA for any advice!

15

SUP General / Re: WhatsSUP's New Sunova Board Review

« on: December 08, 2017, 03:16:31 PM »

Nice video.  Looks like a fun board!

Just curious -- is that an impact vest that you're wearing in the video?