Topics

241

The Shape Shack / Private shaping lessons from Ron House..

« on: June 15, 2013, 10:09:21 PM »

I ran into Ron House and he lovely wife Jane the other day at a local burger joint (The Riders Club), in San Clemente, Ca. He told me he gives private shaping lessons. He recently had a guy from San Diego spend a day shaping this guys board. He would plane one side, and have the guy plane the other. He had the guy do everything hands on, and he said the guy got the hang of it. Ron said, "with an age of CNC shaping, the old traditional hand shaping is becoming a lost art." He wants to past along his board shaping art to the next generation. Anyone interested should contact him. I think I'll take him up on it, what a great opportunity to learn from a master.

242

SUP General / Zone Lurkers come on in, we don't bite hard.....

« on: June 02, 2013, 12:19:55 PM »

It's funny how many people I run into that know me from this forum, but aren't members. Just this weekend a number of different people asked me if I was 'Talldude' on that paddle forum? It's pretty obvious who I am to a zoner or 'zone lurker', because of my height. They all said they enjoy reading the Zone posts, but haven't joined. Why not? Come on 'Lurkers' show yourselves....

243

Technique / Paddling into the swell.

« on: May 29, 2013, 04:50:07 PM »

Last year I was fortunate enough to go paddling with Danny Ching and some friends. He gave me a tip on ocean paddling. Paddle harder up the faces of the swell and back off when you crest it. I've always been so caught up in my cadence, that I paid more attention to that then each individual bump. I equate it to mountain biking down a ravine. You coast down, and pedal hard up the other side. I've been practicing this and my open ocean paddling has completely changed. I feel like I'm maintaining a better average speed too.

244

SoCal / Hobie / Hennessey's US Championships @ Doheny June 1st

« on: May 29, 2013, 02:34:06 PM »

Well, I paid the fee, and I've got a board to race. Maybe I'll see some of you zoners there?

245

SUP General / I think I reached my maximum reduction.

« on: May 27, 2013, 10:14:22 PM »

I demo'd a Timmy Patterson 9'2" x 29" x 4 1/4" -- 125 liters 'The Rising Sun' model over the long weekend. I was able to stand pretty much all the time, but it was a struggle in the chop. My height and weight a little too much for this board. I had to takeoff in the pocket, and the nose was under water. I'd just thrust it forward and the board would pop to the surface. It surfs good, and has a very loose feel with the quad set-up. When the wind picked up, I forced myself to keep moving to stay up. The rails would bury side to side (not a fan of pinched rails all the way to the nose). After a hour and a half of trying to stay up, my legs started to noodle on me. Some bigger outside sets popped, but I just couldn't get into them with all the chop and my waning legs. If I'd been on my 9'4 x 31"x 4-1/2 I would have been able to get into those sets, and my legs wouldn't have been as tired.
So even though the board is really fun on a wave, It would have been funner with a slightly bigger board (given the conditions).

246

The Shape Shack / Which vent plug would you use?

« on: May 24, 2013, 11:18:37 PM »

Here are two vent plugs I've used. The larger vent is what is used on Hobie boards. The smaller vent I got from a local surf supply. The Hobie style are a good retrofit vent because of the flange. The vent screen material (gore-tex) is the same on both, but the screen area is drastically different. A local board builder said the screen on the smaller vents tend to get plugged up with sand and other particulates. The bigger screened vents were relatively clean.

247

The Shape Shack / Short video on how EPS is made.

« on: May 21, 2013, 09:00:17 PM »

Speaking of foam suppliers, this is a manufacturer out of AZ that supplies a lot of our local CA suppliers. They had a surf specific distributorship in CA called 'White Hot Foam'. It just didn't make sense have another level of sales, with such little margins. They still sell to local distributors, just no more 'White Hot' label. For a while they were making a 'Surf Specific EPX', which was a tighter bead that had a considerably rate of absorption. Same weight and shaped better, but I think it was too costly for limited runs. Anyways, here is there 2 min. video.  http://www.prowall.com/video.htm

I say "Deliver one of those blocks to me!"

248

The Shape Shack / Vent plug installation problems

« on: May 14, 2013, 10:54:56 PM »

We finally got a few hot dry days, and that's when the leaks show. Low and behold, I saw some water bubbling out around my vent plug. At first I thought my vent plug had come unscrewed, but it was tight. The deck pad was cut tight to the screw, so I cut some pad away to expose the glass around it. "Crap!" The epoxy had pretty much crumbled away from the vent plug. I'm trying to figure out what would cause that to happen. After thinking about it for a while, I feel it was the result of the vent plug being epoxied tight to the wood stringer. The foam and wood expand and contract at different rates and indexes, so this differential movement may have caused the epoxy to crumble. When I re-install a new one, I'm going to use a retro-fit type with a flange, and epoxy it to the surface glass only. Anyone else have this problem?

249

The Shape Shack / Looking for a cheap digital scale.

« on: April 21, 2013, 10:33:48 AM »

I need a scale for my epoxy, and possibly combination for board weighing. Any recommendations?   

250

Random / Sick of Facebook????

« on: April 21, 2013, 09:43:34 AM »

I finally had it with Facebook. They allow people I don't know to now be friends with me, even if I never agreed to be friends with them. Not that a lot of my friends are even friends, just past acquaintances. They now give you the option to protect this from happening by posting your phone number along with a special code that they randomly generate. You can later attempt to limit who can see your phone number!  Bye Bye 'Waste of timebook'. I deleted my account, and felt like having a bad neighbor move. That good.... 

251

The Shape Shack / Race boards, architecture, and basketball...

« on: April 20, 2013, 09:30:25 PM »

Has anyone ever wondered if the architect / designer of Staple Center had something else on his mind when he designed the roof?

252

The Shape Shack / Repairing dings made in EPS blank- Little trick I learned...

« on: April 07, 2013, 02:00:37 AM »

Anyone who has shaped 1# EPS knows how fragile the foam is. During the course of shaping, dings just happen. A shaper friend of mine taught me this trick. Use a standard clothes iron and a damp paper towel, and re-expand the foam. After it's re-expanded, all you have to do is a little sand and maybe a little spackle.

253

The Shape Shack / Rail reinforcement strips-order of layers?

« on: April 05, 2013, 09:32:05 AM »

I was talking over the glassing schedule with my buddy who is helping me. I'm doing my 18' all 5.8 oz carbon (got the fabric yesterday), an extra 6" carbon strip on the rail along the middle 2/3 length wise. We were trying to figure out if we should do the rail strip first, or Vise-versa? Additionally, I want to do a layer of 2 oz E-glass  to create a light 2-layer composite, either over or under the carbon. Any thoughts on this layup? One more question about the epoxy. The truck that delivers to our local Basham's surf supply sells a blue and a green epoxy (no name brand). I'm thinking the blue is slower? I used the blue to set my fin box, and I had about 20 min. plus before it started to kick.

254

The Shape Shack / High volume traditional short board shape.

« on: March 24, 2013, 02:26:56 PM »

With the whole Simmon's SUP design thing going viral, I thought I'd do the classic 180 on the 'trend' band wagon. After surfing one of the new ULI 9' quads a few weeks ago, I realized how much easier it is to cut back when there is so little mass in the nose (just air). The inflatables are a little weird getting into a wave (feel like they want to taco on you), but very loose a fairly responsive once your on the wave. I had fun surfing them in 3' to 5' waves. My 9'4 carves way harder, but a little to much rocker tends to slow it down. The volume is forward middle, and now I feel the weight in the nose when I cutback.
This more 'ripper' shape moves the volume back, pulls in the nose, and flattens out the tail rocker a little. Mind you, I'm 230#, but I still like a faster shore break wave. Late takeoffs, quick drops, and a little slashing. Any thoughts or input on this shape would be appreciated. BTW, I have a shorter, less volume version too for the buck eighty people....
 

255

The Shape Shack / Ultra-light Glassing schedules?

« on: March 17, 2013, 06:03:46 PM »

I'm ready to glass my unlimited, but into relatively unusual materials and methods. A friend of mine is an amateur glasser, yet cutting edge at the same time. He hasn't glassed many boards, but his finished products are amazingly light. Bare in mind these are hand layups, no vacuum bagging. He is suggesting I go for as light as possible, but he weighs about 180# and I'm 230#. I was talking with Rob Rojas about it, and said he likes a little more weight. My amateur glasser friend has an unlimited that is around 19#, and Rob said his unlimited is about 26#. Rob is closer to my size and weight, but I'm heavier. I've paddled super light hollow boards and didn't like them, but I did paddle the 19# unlimited and it felt very fast. The problem with it was, if I fell on it, I'd probably go through it.

Initially my plan was to go 2 oz. to seal it. Sand down and do 4.8 oz. 3K x 3K Carbon fiber.

Then someone suggest Micro-balloon to seal and 3.9 oz.  3.9 oz. 3K x 1K Light Carbon fiber. Then double the rails to stiffen.

I was also thinking about going .75 oz. glass then ?? oz. Carbon or Carbon-Kevlar weave.

A friend and I were paddling together and his 14' board just buckled hitting a trough. He had glassed his thin with S-glass and carbon in the standing area only. I just picture this happening to my board, so I've been researching alternative materials.

Here area a few of my options: